US Politics: The Copper, Silver, and Peach hangover

[DMC]

Lake only won 55% in the latest Maricopa dump.  That's not gonna be enough:

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

It’s going to take a miracle for Democrats to hold the House… isn’t it?

[VigoTheCarpathian]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Apparently you missed DeSanctimonious.  Which is actually a pretty good one.

Trump could not get through the first three syllables, but don’t know if he is much for name-play, it’s usually one or two soft-brained descriptors.  I’m guessing “DeSackless” or “DeCent Loss” would be about as sophisticated as that would get,

[DMC]

13 minutes ago, VigoTheCarpathian said:

Trump could not get through the first three syllables, but don’t know if he is much for name-play, it’s usually one or two soft-brained descriptors.  I’m guessing “DeSackless” or “DeCent Loss” would be about as sophisticated as that would get,

Impressively, he pronounced it just fine:

 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The last ballot drop was good for Lake.  She cut Hobbs lead to 26,000+… we’re still not out of the dog house are we?

Not yet, but very nearly. Lake really would've wanted more out of tonight's vote dump. Now:

Those Apache and Pima votes balanced against the rest of the non-Maricopa counties, should net Hobbs several thousand votes. And it seems very unlikely at this point that what's left in Maricopa will be enough for Lake to win. Not guaranteed yet, but almost.

 

53 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It’s going to take a miracle for Democrats to hold the House… isn’t it?

At this point, yeah. There were a bunch of vote dumps across several races today, and none of them were what Democrats needed. It's very hard to see them getting past 215 now.

[Varysblackfyre321]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It’s going to take a miracle for Democrats to hold the House… isn’t it?

Damn the New York Democratic Party. Damn them to heck.

[ThinkerX]

28 minutes ago, Fez said:

At this point, yeah. There were a bunch of vote dumps across several races today, and none of them were what Democrats needed. It's very hard to see them getting past 215 now.

I am less certain of this - there seem to be half a dozen races or more that are going to land in automatic recount or runoff territory. If most of the remaining ballots are absentee and trend D...

 

[DMC]

43 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

there seem to be half a dozen races or more that are going to land in automatic recount or runoff territory.

California doesn't have an automatic trigger for recounts.  Arizona's is 0.5%, so it's possible there.  It should be noted, however, that recounts very rarely change the election outcome.  As for runoffs, only Georgia and Louisiana have runoffs in the general election.

[ThinkerX]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

California doesn't have an automatic trigger for recounts.  Arizona's is 0.5%, so it's possible there.  It should be noted, however, that recounts very rarely change the election outcome.  As for runoffs, only Georgia and Louisiana have runoffs in the general election.

I will likely be voting in a runoff election here in the frozen north before much longer.

And though it is not automatic, does that mean the CA candidates cannot request a recount? 

There is the absentee or mail-in ballot issue. I believe they tipped the scales towards the D side a few times already in this election. I can easily see that happening again. 

That said, the conservative views in the comments sections are uniform - the D's cheated. Lots of extremely ticked off people.

 

[DMC]

10 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

I will likely be voting in a runoff election here in the frozen north before much longer.

 

No that's not how ranked choice works.  There will be a second round of counting - or a runoff count - in the Alaska elections (at least for Senate and House), but that's not a runoff election.  This is what happened in August during the special election.  Nobody votes again.  They just redistribute the votes of for candidates that didn't come in first or second.

12 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

And though it is not automatic, does that mean the CA candidates cannot request a recount? 

Any candidate can request a recount, but they have to pay for it (if the outcome is successfully overturned, they'll be refunded).

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It’s going to take a miracle for Democrats to hold the House… isn’t it?

Wasserman thinks so - he moved AZ-1, AZ-6, and CA-41 into the likely GOP probable category after the vote updates tonight:

[SeanF]

12 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It’s going to take a miracle for Democrats to hold the House… isn’t it?

By Wednesday, it was pretty clear where the House was going to finish up.

[Fez]

At this point it's all about the margin. There's a big difference between a 222-213 House and a 219-216 House in terms of chaos and McCarthy's ability to do anything, including get elected Speaker.

Also, if it's close enough, vacancies could cause the House to flip around multiple times in the session.

[Mindwalker]

McConnell facing a revolt as growing list of Republicans call for delay of leadership elections

The knives are out for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. A parade of right-wing Republican senators are calling for leadership elections to be delayed in a conspicuous threat to McConnell’s continuing leadership of the party.

Late last week, Sens. Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, and Rick Scott were urging their fellow Republicans to sign onto a letter calling for a delay.

“We are all disappointed that a Red Wave failed to materialize, and there are multiple reasons it did not,” the trio wrote in the letter, as reported by Politico. “We need to have serious discussions within our conference as to why and what we can do to improve our chances in 2024.”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/14/2136007/-McConnell-facing-a-revolt-as-growing-list-of-Republicans-call-for-delay-of-leadership-elections

 

[Fez]

The Senate is finally voting this week on the House-passed bill to enshrine same-sex marriage into law (in case SCOTUS tries to pull another Dobbes).

The rumor from months ago was that Democrats agreed to wait on the bill until after the election in return for a guarantee that there'd be at least 10 Republicans voting for it (or at least voting to break a filibuster). Time to see if that's true. The bill did manage to get 47 House GOP votes, and considering how conservative that caucus is, I don't think it's stretch to see 10 Senate GOP votes.

[Ormond]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

At this point it's all about the margin. There's a big difference between a 222-213 House and a 219-216 House in terms of chaos and McCarthy's ability to do anything, including get elected Speaker.

Also, if it's close enough, vacancies could cause the House to flip around multiple times in the session.

So has the House ever flipped party control in the middle of Congressional term because of special elections before? If that happened would they have a new Speaker election and reassign who was on which committee? Or are there rules that would prevent such short-term changes?

[Fez]

3 minutes ago, Ormond said:

So has the House ever flipped party control in the middle of Congressional term because of special elections before? If that happened would they have a new Speaker election and reassign who was on which committee? Or are there rules that would prevent such short-term changes?

I don't believe so. There was the aforementioned 72nd Congress, but then the special elections all occurred before the congress was seated.

What would happen is that the leader of the newly majority party would submit a 'motion to vacate the chair', which would require an immediate vote. If it succeeded, there'd be a new Speaker vote and, assuming that passed, a new organizing resolution for the chamber.

My guess is that a party would only do that if they actually had 218 seats, or figured it would be several months at minimum before the special elections were held and the vacancies filled, but who knows? There is also the risk of governors delaying the special elections if the vacancies benefit their parties. DeSantis did that this last congress; he waited almost a year to schedule the special election for a safe Democratic vacant seat.

If Democrats wanted to play hardball, they could try doing it when a few Republicans are out of town/hospitalized/etc. and Democrats temporarily had 216-214 majority or whatever. And then spend a weekend jamming legislation through before Republicans could get their missing members back to DC. Of course, I assume Senate Republicans would filibuster any such legislation on principle, so it's kinda moot for now. And no way would Democrats go that hard.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Best course of action is to find two principled House Republicans who would be willing to cut a deal to pass something.....or find two unprincipled Republicans willing to switch party affiliations for some sweet pork or whatever (they dont even have to switch, pork may be good enough) 

[Paladin of Ice]

10 minutes ago, Fez said:

The Senate is finally voting this week on the House-passed bill to enshrine same-sex marriage into law (in case SCOTUS tries to pull another Dobbes).

The rumor from months ago was that Democrats agreed to wait on the bill until after the election in return for a guarantee that there'd be at least 10 Republicans voting for it (or at least voting to break a filibuster). Time to see if that's true. The bill did manage to get 47 House GOP votes, and considering how conservative that caucus is, I don't think it's stretch to see 10 Senate GOP votes.

The real question will probably be exactly how vengeful/obstructionist do Republicans pols feel after the election. I have no doubt that there are quite a few whole who would tear this up just to spite the Dems or prevent them from getting a win.

[Mindwalker]

43 minutes ago, Fez said:

If Democrats wanted to play hardball

I do love a good joke. Well played, Sir.