U.S. Politics NEXT!

[Guest]

Goddamn Democrats folded like a cheap fucking suit on the CR. More leverage in fucking January? I thought they told us back in October or whenever they'd have more leverage in December.  Fucking cowards.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

53 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Well, that's a lot of time and money.  If you wanted to do it at the district level, I'd suggest at least 200 respondents per district, which would mean you're looking at an overall sample approaching 100k.  That's out of most firms' price range (and/or is not worth it).  Plus, if you were gonna do it at the district level, why not at least ask directly about the incumbent (if she's running again)?  Or, even at this point, you would probably have some idea to ask some general election matchups.

The entire idea of the generic ballot is it gives you an idea of the national trend - and thus it's correlated to the overall popular House vote.  I can't speak to each firm's weighting strategies - that's why taking the poll of polls is always best - but even if they're overestimating urban areas, that is reflected in the expectation that the Dems will need to win the popular vote by 6-8 points in order to retake the House due to gerrymandering, etc.

You’d want more than 200 respondents per district, but there’s no need to poll every district. Couldn’t you, in theory, poll every district that looks like it could be competitive, and ask the generic ballot question alongside with  how they feel about the incumbent to get a more accurate picture of what’s to come in 2018?

[DMC]

24 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

The 2012 House election was really the crown jewel of Republican gerrymandering.  Democrats went from R+6.9 in 2010 to D+1.2 in 2012 and they only picked up 8 seats.  A swing of 8 points in the popular vote only changed 8 seats in the 435 seat house! 

That alone is reason for caution.  Nobody really knows what margin is needed to retake the house.  It might be D+6, or D+8 or even higher.  And if it is higher, that is a really really hard lift, even with a super motivated electorate.  Just look at the 2017 VA House of Delegates.  Democrats were far more motivated, and they won the overall House vote by D+9.5.  And while they made big gains, Republicans still hold either 50 or 51 seats, depending on a coin flip!  The Democrats won by almost ten points and they're still holding onto hope that they'll have a SHARE of the chamber.

I fear the House of Representatives in 2018 could have a similar result. 

We've talked about the 2012 results - and Obama's lack of coattails - before.  And like I said then, one way to look at it is they picked up 8 seats while only winning the popular vote by 1.2 percent.  I will definitely take that rate in 2018.  While no one knows how much the Dems will need to win the popular vote by to retake the House, it's very difficult to run any estimation where the GOP retains if the Dems are winning by double digits.

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

You’d want more than 200 respondents per district, but there’s no need to poll every district. Couldn’t you, in theory, poll every district that looks like it could be competitive, and ask the generic ballot question alongside with  how they feel about the incumbent to get a more accurate picture of what’s to come in 2018?

200 is probably enough if they're part of an overall sample you can weight.  Pretty sure most statistical power calculators would say even less.  And yeah, in theory you could just focus on competitive districts - but again, most everybody would then be more interested in actual potential matchups then the generic ballot.  The generic ballot is used as a proxy - if you have the real thing, what's the point?

[Maithanet]

3 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Goddamn Democrats folded like a cheap fucking suit on the CR. More leverage in fucking January? I thought they told us back in October or whenever they'd have more leverage in December.  Fucking cowards.

The leverage the Democrats have right now is that they could filibuster the CR and shut the government down.  Then it would become a PR war over who is to blame - Democrats for shutting down the govt, or Republicans for failing to enact popular policies the Dems want, namely CHIP and DACA.  In all likelihood, the Republicans would win this PR battle, because their story (Democrats are filibustering and shutting everything down!) is simpler. 

Democrats are betting that at some point, the Republicans will not be able to hold their coalition together, and will need Democratic votes in the House for the budget.  There is a possibility they're right - all government agencies hate these CRs and would prefer a real budget.  Most importantly, the military brass (who Republicans care about) are getting increasingly pissed off. 

If Republicans cannot put together a budget without Democratic votes in the House, then Dems have real leverage.  Because in that case, the PR message is much simpler for Democrats "Republicans control everything and they can't govern", whereas Republicans will try and blame each other and Democrats, but it'll look really bad for them. 

In addition, Democrats know that at the moment (see generic ballot discussions above) Democrats are looking really strong for 2018.  They have an incentive to let Republicans hang themselves, and not put their own neck on the line unless they have to.  A govt shutdown is a big step, and there's no guarantee that it won't backfire on Democrats and ruin what they see as a winning hand in 2018.  But I can see how you could describe that kind of tactical thinking as cowardice. 

[Maithanet]

3 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

We've talked about the 2012 results - and Obama's lack of coattails - before.  And like I said then, one way to look at it is they picked up 8 seats while only winning the popular vote by 1.2 percent.  I will definitely take that rate in 2018.  While no one knows how much the Dems will need to win the popular vote by to retake the House, it's very difficult to run any estimation where the GOP retains if the Dems are winning by double digits.

Regarding the bolded, this would only make sense if the House in 2011 were a 50-50 split.  It was not, the Republicans had 242 (56%) of the seats, after winning R+7 in 2010.  Moving from R+7 to D+1 should have been a huge swing in seats (ideally, to a democratic majority).    At the very least, true representation should have had a very evenly split House after 2012.  But we had nothing of the sort - Republicans still had a comfortable 33 seat edge. 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

If Republicans cannot put together a budget without Democratic votes in the House, then Dems have real leverage.  Because in that case, the PR message is much simpler for Democrats "Republicans control everything and they can't govern", whereas Republicans will try and blame each other and Democrats, but it'll look really bad for them. 

Democrats already have that narrative, because Republicans already control every lever of government. The whole point of the temporary CR 3 months ago was to jam Republicans up against the holiday recess. That was supposed to be the leverage the Democrats would use to get DACA/CHIP/etc. fixes.

But they sold that leverage down the river because they're too fucking scared of losing a messaging battle that 90% of voters won't remember 11 months from now. However, what Democratic voters will remember next year is that Democrats didn't go to bat for the people they purport to advocate for, like the 120 Dreamers losing their protected status every day. How enthusiastic will those Democratic constituencies be to turn out to vote in November next year?

[Fez]

19 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Yup. I saw a report the other day that the average tax cut from that measure for the middle class was $800 a year and next to no one noticed it. Most analyses I’ve seen for Trump’s tax cut estimate that the same group of people will receive a $900 a year tax cut. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

As to your ETA, did Congress grant the offsetting spending waiver?

They did. I don't know the House vote, but the Senate vote was 91-8 (all 8 nays being Republicans). I believe it's a one-year waiver though, which means it'll be on the lame duck Congress next year. I'm not sure this is part of any devious plan though, there was no big signing ceremony and no members of Congress were there today. I think everything was set for January 3, but Trump decided he wanted to sign it today before he went to Mar-a-Lago for the holidays.

13 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Goddamn Democrats folded like a cheap fucking suit on the CR. More leverage in fucking January? I thought they told us back in October or whenever they'd have more leverage in December.  Fucking cowards.

How did they fold? They blocked the defense-only funding bill idea and restored CHIP funding (only through March, but longterm funding should be included in the full year spending bill). It'd be nice if they get a Dreamers bill attached too, but that was never going to get jammed through. There's a bipartisan senate group negotiating, and McConnell has promised he'll allow a free vote in January if there's an agreement. Democrats aren't going to shutdown the government over non-fiscal policy differences, it never works out (as Republicans have discovered multiple times in the past).

 

By the by, popular vote totals are misleading. Because of Republican gerrymandering there are many more compacted, overwhelming Democratic districts than there are Republican ones, and as a result there are more Democrats than Republicans who either run unopposed or with only token opponents that don't generate normal turnout. This was also the case in the Virginia House of Delegates races; there were 28 Democrats who ran unopposed and only 9 Republicans who ran unopposed. So of course Democrats would rack up a popular vote margin.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Democrats already have that narrative, because Republicans already control every lever of government. The whole point of the temporary CR 3 months ago was to jam Republicans up against the holiday recess. That was supposed to be the leverage the Democrats would use to get DACA/CHIP/etc. fixes.

Well, sort of.  If Democrats are filibustering a bill that Republicans can pass, then I think the majority of Americans are going to say it is Democrats who are shutting the govt down, not Republicans.  Shumer/Pelosi are hoping that the military funding issue will give them a stronger hand in March. 

Quote

But they sold that leverage down the river because they're too fucking scared of losing a messaging battle that 90% of voters won't remember 11 months from now. However, what Democratic voters will remember next year is that Democrats didn't go to bat for the people they purport to advocate for, like the 120 Dreamers losing their protected status every day. How enthusiastic will those Democratic constituencies be to turn out to vote in November next year?

That is the question.   Me personally, I'm not at all sure Democrats can get a DACA fix by playing hardball right now.  It might just harden positions against some sort of compromise deal, and hurt Democrats in 2018 to boot.  BUT I can totally see where you're coming from, it's reasonable to question whether Democrats are being too passive in the face of Republican negligence. 

[DMC]

18 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Regarding the bolded, this would only make sense if the House in 2011 were a 50-50 split.  It was not, the Republicans had 242 (56%) of the seats, after winning R+7 in 2010.  Moving from R+7 to D+1 should have been a huge swing in seats (ideally, to a democratic majority).    At the very least, true representation should have had a very evenly split House after 2012.  But we had nothing of the sort - Republicans still had a comfortable 33 seat edge. 

There's not much point to focus so much on the swing from 2010.  As you already mentioned, this was due in large part to the gerrymandering that took effect between 2010 to 2012.  The point is in 2012, the Democrats had 193 seats, won the popular vote by 1.2 percent, and picked up 8 seats.  The Democrats currently have 193 seats, and the districts are drawn the same as they were in 2012, so that pickup rate is actually encouraging (although I'm certainly not saying it will be exactly replicated - meaning extrapolated to say, picking up 32 seats if they win by 5). 

ETA:  Nevermind on the following in italics - the Dems actually lost popular vote by a point and still picked up 6 seats.  Now you got me confusing the popular vote with the swing!    It's certainly better, though, than the 6 seats the Dems picked up in 2016 when winning by 2.5 percent.  Anyway, I prefer to compare results from prior midterm contests rather than the presidential electorate.  

The other thing to consider is a lot of GOP House incumbents have only been elected since 2010 - particularly those in districts with poachable Cook PVIs.  Many of these have never encountered a quality challenger - and none have faced the headwinds they'll be experiencing in 2018.  Then there's also the potential for further retirements as the Jones victory and these numbers set in members in competitive districts over the holiday break...

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Fez said:

How did they fold? They blocked the defense-only funding bill idea and restored CHIP funding (only through March, but longterm funding should be included in the full year spending bill). It'd be nice if they get a Dreamers bill attached too, but that was never going to get jammed through. There's a bipartisan senate group negotiating, and McConnell has promised he'll allow a free vote in January if there's an agreement. Democrats aren't going to shutdown the government over non-fiscal policy differences, it never works out (as Republicans have discovered multiple times in the past).

This is how they folded.

I think most Democrats are tired of this milquetoast bullshit. They want their elected representatives to fight. 

This quoted passage from the article is powerful, and I guarantee you that if Democrats want their so-called "coalition" to turn out to vote for them, they better quit taking those groups for granted and start actually fighting to protect them.

“They told us Dec. 8, then Dec. 22, and now they tell us to wait until January,” Paul Quiñonez, a DACA recipient from Seattle with Washington Dream Coalition and United We Dream, told me in the Capitol on Monday. He was with a group who had just spoken with the congresswoman representing most of Seattle, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, off of the House floor.

“To expect us to go home and be able to celebrate Christmas in this environment, when they’re happy to be able to go home with their families, and we have to be living in fear, is unacceptable,” Quiñonez continued. He laid most of the blame on the Senate.

“What this vote means realistically is that they’re funding our deportations,” he said.

[Maithanet]

27 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

There's not much point to focus so much on the swing from 2010.  As you already mentioned, this was due in large part to the gerrymandering that took effect between 2010 to 2012.  The point is in 2012, the Democrats had 193 seats, won the popular vote by 1.2 percent, and picked up 8 seats.  The Democrats currently have 193 seats, and the districts are drawn the same as they were in 2012, so that pickup rate is actually encouraging (although I'm certainly not saying it will be exactly replicated - meaning extrapolated to say, picking up 32 seats if they win by 5).

I still think this extrapolation you're doing makes no sense.  The important thing in determining the swing of votes is the change in House popular vote from one election to the next, not the margin you won the popular vote by.  Look at this:

2014:  R+5 = 247 House Republicans

2016:  R+1 = 241 House Republicans

So getting R+1 led to a 6 seat pickup for the Democrats, which is totally expected, because the previous election was R+5.  In 2010, It was R+7, but when that shifted to D+1 in 2012, it resulted in a pickup of only 8 seats for Democrats, which is really quite terrible.  Gerrymandering allowed Republicans to weather a huge change in sentiment with only minor losses. 

47 minutes ago, Fez said:

By the by, popular vote totals are misleading. Because of Republican gerrymandering there are many more compacted, overwhelming Democratic districts than there are Republican ones, and as a result there are more Democrats than Republicans who either run unopposed or with only token opponents that don't generate normal turnout. This was also the case in the Virginia House of Delegates races; there were 28 Democrats who ran unopposed and only 9 Republicans who ran unopposed. So of course Democrats would rack up a popular vote margin.

I understand they can be misleading, and they also ignore natural population sorting where Democrats typically cluster in urban areas and essentially gerrymander themselves.  This (misleading) nature of popular vote totals goes double for state legislature races, when going unopposed is much more common. 

[TheKitttenGuard]

It is quite dispiriting that people are quick to complain of the Democrats voting for the C.R are silent on a momentous moment in modern politics of No Democrat voting for a Tax Cut Bill. 

The C.R was a jam in the end. There is support for DACA and even when Trump stated he end it he gave himself wiggle room very soon after.

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Well, sort of.  If Democrats are filibustering a bill that Republicans can pass, then I think the majority of Americans are going to say it is Democrats who are shutting the govt down, not Republicans.  Shumer/Pelosi are hoping that the military funding issue will give them a stronger hand in March. 

That is the question.   Me personally, I'm not at all sure Democrats can get a DACA fix by playing hardball right now.  It might just harden positions against some sort of compromise deal, and hurt Democrats in 2018 to boot.  BUT I can totally see where you're coming from, it's reasonable to question whether Democrats are being too passive in the face of Republican negligence. 

I mostly agree that Democrats probably wouldn't have been able to get a DACA fix even if there had been a government shutdown. My concern is the optics, and promises being made by Democrats (like on the DACA fix) and then promptly broken.

How is that at all inspiring to the groups being affected by Republican negligence and/or hostility? Will meek resignation combined with multiple broken promises turn out a wave of Democrats for the midterms? Somehow I don't think so.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, dmc515 said:

200 is probably enough if they're part of an overall sample you can weight.  Pretty sure most statistical power calculators would say even less.  And yeah, in theory you could just focus on competitive districts - but again, most everybody would then be more interested in actual potential matchups then the generic ballot.  The generic ballot is used as a proxy - if you have the real thing, what's the point?

Idk, I think 200 sounds too low. You could get some really bad sample sets from that even if you have a good way to weight it. And it would be interesting to compare the generic ballot to the popularity of the sitting member of Congress. I think you could learn a lot from that.

[Maithanet]

4 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

How is that at all inspiring to the groups being affected by Republican negligence and/or hostility? Will meek resignation combined with multiple broken promises turn out a wave of Democrats for the midterms? Somehow I don't think so.

Inspiring?  No.  But the only way to stop Republicans is to vote in someone else.  I often wish Democrats were better at politics than they are, but they have a really weak hand right now until the next election cycle, and they're mostly just trying to hang on.  There's a good chance they have oversold how much they can deliver on DACA. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

17 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I mostly agree that Democrats probably wouldn't have been able to get a DACA fix even if there had been a government shutdown. My concern is the optics, and promises being made by Democrats (like on the DACA fix) and then promptly broken.

How is that at all inspiring to the groups being affected by Republican negligence and/or hostility? Will meek resignation combined with multiple broken promises turn out a wave of Democrats for the midterms? Somehow I don't think so.

Optics cut both ways. Do you think it’s smart politics to risk shutting down the government over DACA? Because Republicans can use that very effectively in their own reelection campaigns while still claiming that they want the issue solved.

[DMC]

10 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I still think this extrapolation you're doing makes no sense.

Well no, like I said it's certainly not going to work like that - it will get harder and harder to pick up seats as you approach 218 because the GOP will have increased advantages in those seats that the Dems need to pick up.

12 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

The important thing in determining the swing of votes is the change in House popular vote from one election to the next, not the margin you won the popular vote by.

Sorry, but this is wrong.  The swing of votes from one election to the next is not an indicator one uses to prognosticate future results.  As the discussion started - it is the generic ballot's correlation to the popular vote.  Then, yes, there is the question of how much the Dems need to win the popular vote (usually estimated around 6 to 8%) because of the aforementioned gerrymandering.

Looking solely at swings require context.  We have your example from 2014 to 2016.  There's also 2012 to 2014.  Here there was a GOP "swing" of 6.9 points (minus 1.2 to plus 5.7).  And they picked up 13 seats (234 to 247).  Compare that to the Dems in 2006 to 2008.   They had a "swing" of 2.6 (plus 8 to plus 10.6), and picked up 21 seats (236 to 257).  Why the difference?  In part this is the downside of the GOP's gerrymandering - in exchange for drawing more safe seats for themselves you have to create more safe seats for the opposition.  But it's also in part because the Dems won the popular vote by more.

The "swing" of an election is not a useful independent indicator - not least of which because it would require estimating the popular House vote anyway.  Instead, the generic ballot gives prognosticators a good idea of the popular House vote.  This is a useful tool to use in conjunction with each district's Cook PVI (in which gerrymandering's effects are accounted for, btw) and other national trends until we a better idea of the actual matchups, fundraising, and, ya know, direct polling that will take place next year.

[DMC]

20 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Idk, I think 200 sounds too low. You could get some really bad sample sets from that even if you have a good way to weight it.

In terms of subsets of a larger sample, this happens all the time.  And people much smarter than I have estimated the statistical power needed - I do what they tell me.

21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And it would be interesting to compare the generic ballot to the popularity of the sitting member of Congress. I think you could learn a lot from that.

As an academic, sure as hell would.  But if a pollster is investing enough to look at a specific district, they're going to want to see how the actual incumbent is doing against potential candidates.  That's what prognosticators would be interested in.

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Inspiring?  No.  But the only way to stop Republicans is to vote in someone else.  I often wish Democrats were better at politics than they are, but they have a really weak hand right now until the next election cycle, and they're mostly just trying to hang on.  There's a good chance they have oversold how much they can deliver on DACA. 

The past few months, Democratic voters have shown that they're willing to turn out in droves to vote for Democratic candidates. That they're willing to fight efforts to intimidate and suppress their votes in order to put Democratic candidates in office.

That enthusiasm will fade if those same voters feel like they're being taken advantage of just so Democrats can play it safe and lose all over again.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Optics cut both ways. Do you think it’s smart politics to risk shutting down the government over DACA? Because Republicans can use that very effectively in their own reelection campaigns while still claiming that they want the issue solved.

I think it's dumb politics to promise your constituents something and then tuck tail and run without even trying to keep your promise.

It would also be difficult for Republicans to credibly claim aggrieved status when they control all of government.