2014 US Midterm Election Results & Discussion Thread

[warpus]

k so this election is now over?

So... who won, America? The Republicans? Democrats? Potheads? Please inform an uninformed Canadian.

Here in my town we had a mayoral election and the person elected as our new mayor has the exact same name as downtown. I'm not sure if he's Mormon though, but probably not.

 

[Antilogic]

k so this election is now over?

So... who won, America? The Republicans? Democrats? Potheads? Please inform an uninformed Canadian.

Here in my town we had a mayoral election and the person elected as our new mayor has the exact same name as downtown. I'm not sure if he's Mormon though, but probably not.

Actually, Republicans and potheads won. A bunch of ballot measures on marijuana, minimum wage, and other stuff that progressives like passed. However, the Senate swung heavy to the GOP, they have their largest margin in the House in decades, and they picked up the close gubernatorial races. I actually miscounted their Senate majority earlier because I thought Louisiana was already included, they have a minimum of 53 seats now plus likely Alaska and Louisiana. The Democrats are the obvious losers last night.



I'm putting together some thoughts for a wrap-up and discussion afterwards. Topics include why some polls really missed some of the races (like in Maryland and Virginia), the record-breaking amount of money spent in the election ($3.6-4 billion according to two different sources, likely estimates because the final quarter isn't reported yet), turnout numbers (we don't have the final figures yet), third party spoilers and strategy (my pet peeve), the voter registration issue in GA (which won't affect runoffs since they aren't happening, but there has been some shady stuff going on there), the media narrative/lack of local coverage (when gaffes don't fit the national narrative, they get ignored and vice-versa, and without strong local media influence there's no check on the statehouses and especially local candidates), and more.

 

[bhsup]

k so this election is now over?

So... who won, America? The Republicans? Democrats? Potheads? Please inform an uninformed Canadian.

Here in my town we had a mayoral election and the person elected as our new mayor has the exact same name as downtown. I'm not sure if he's Mormon though, but probably not.

Your first guess. America won, just like we always win. Free and open elections are always a win (in America.)

 

[Cutlass]

They've finally called the CT race for the incumbent Democrat Malloy. It appears that all the other state offices the incumbent Democrats won as well. And same for the House races. CT did not have a Senate seat up for election this year.

 

[Antilogic]

Another potential topic for discussion: the midterm projections. In 2008, 2010, and 2012 it was fairly trivial to give a 95%+ confident prediction of the outcome, and the landslides played out. In 2014, we had a bunch of the statistical projections give something like 60-80% confidence of a GOP victory. Was that under-confident, given their final margin in the Senate? Were the prior years overconfident?

 

[onejayhawk]

I won't talk a lot about polling. We have another thread for that. Suffice to say that it favored the Democrats by as much as 5%. Places like NH and IA, where there is a permanent polling infrastructure, were much better.

There are a lot of things this election was not. It was not surprising or unexpected. It was not a debacle. It was not a mandate. It was not an anti-incumbent election

That said, it was a referendum on President Obama and/or the ACA. Unlike 1994, the Republicans promoted no agenda. They just watched the Democrats self destruct. If the Republicans are the Party of "No", then "No" won the election.

The battle lines are already drawn. President Obama said he would take action on immigration in the next few weeks. Sen McConnell said that would be a serious mistake. Early action to close the Mexican border is clearly coming. Bill calling for stricter enforcement of existing law, if nothing stronger. Look for a series of bills on fracking, pipelines, drilling on public lands and other oil and gas issues. The Republicans see this as a triple kill--less money to hostile governments, more high paying jobs here, more tax and royalty revenue.

There will be a bill on repeal of the ACA. I doubt it passes. There may be smaller bills, such as a repeal of the mandate or the medical device tax, which will pass. Those will be buried in spending bills to make them hard to veto. Methods for this were perfected by Tip O'Neill in the 1980s.

In 1994 Bill Clinton was faced with a much harsher Congress. He managed it well. Barak Obama has already chosen a different path.

J

 

[JollyRoger]

Obama's 1994 was in 2010. Given 2012, he managed that just fine.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If the Republicans are the Party of "No", then "No" won the election.

I think this pretty well sums it up.

Things that were known going in:
At the end of the day, Obama would be President and he will keep the Republicans from doing anything stupid.
At the end of the day, the Republicans would control the House and they will keep Obama from doing anything at all.



Given those two realities, control of the Senate really makes no difference, so getting out and voting is a pretty pointless task. No surprise the turnouts are at record lows in so many states.

 

[onejayhawk]

Obama's 1994 was in 2010. Given 2012, he managed that just fine.

You have a point. No president since Roosevelt has had two bad midterms, except Obama. Small sample size, but still. This may be a correction for 2012.

J

 

[JollyRoger]

Was it really that bad of a midterm though? The GOP took over Senate seats in states that traditionally vote GOP in Presidential races and won more of the swing purple states than the Dems did, but those swing purple states were still close and the Dems took a couple of them. In the House, there were gains by the GOP, but nothing like 2006 for the Dems or 2010 for the GOP.

 

[Light Cleric]

It's hard for there to be a big wave on the House side when you already control as many seats as they did. You can't expect it to be the same as two elections where the wave party was the minority. They stole governorships in Maryland, Illinois and Massachusetts. The most jarring thing was the margins. In the statewide races Democrats felt like they had a chance to get some pickups in they didn't even come close and a number of strong incumbents came damn close to getting knocked out.

 

[bhsup]

Was it really that bad of a midterm though? The GOP took over Senate seats in states that traditionally vote GOP in Presidential races and won more of the swing purple states than the Dems did, but those swing purple states were still close and the Dems took a couple of them. In the House, there were gains by the GOP, but nothing like 2006 for the Dems or 2010 for the GOP.

I'm gonna quote Walt from one of the other threads. It sums it up nicely.

The funny thing to me is seeing the media reaction to the drubbing the Democrats just took.

They (the media) are taking chicken (excrement) and trying to dice & slice it into chicken salad.

Don't be that media guy, Jolly!

 

[onejayhawk]

Was it really that bad of a midterm though? The GOP took over Senate seats in states that traditionally vote GOP in Presidential races and won more of the swing purple states than the Dems did, but those swing purple states were still close and the Dems took a couple of them. In the House, there were gains by the GOP, but nothing like 2006 for the Dems or 2010 for the GOP.

It's hard for there to be a big wave on the House side when you already control as many seats as they did. You can't expect it to be the same as two elections where the wave party was the minority. They stole governorships in Maryland, Illinois and Massachusetts. The most jarring thing was the margins. In the statewide races Democrats felt like they had a chance to get some pickups in they didn't even come close and a number of strong incumbents came damn close to getting knocked out.

Sabato on both points.

It might not have been 1994 or 2010, but 2014 was a wave all its own: A late-breaking surge that lifted Republicans to some surprisingly strong performances across the country. Notably, though, the argument for this election being a “wave” has more to do with the House and gubernatorial races, as opposed to the main event, the Republican Senate takeover.

The GOP is likely to bump up its House majority to its highest total since the one it held after the 1928 election, netting at least a dozen additional House seats. The Republicans won some Democratic-leaning territory in places like Illinois and New York that might be difficult to hold in future elections, but they also won a few “white whale” conservative districts in places like Georgia, Utah, and West Virginia that they should have little trouble keeping for the foreseeable future....

Republicans also had a surprisingly strong night in governors’ races, winning statehouses in blue states like Illinois, Massachusetts and — by a big margin — Maryland. Indeed, the win by Republican Larry Hogan over Democratic Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown probably registers as the most surprising outcome of the evening, given that he is only the second Republican to win the governorship there since Spiro Agnew back in 1966, and that he won by a colossal (for a Republican in that state) nine points.​

I'm with you. If this is a wave, it's more of a swell than a wave you could surf on. You are correct in that 6th year midterms lose 5 Senate seats on average. This was 8, (assuming leads hold in VA and AK) with a possible 9th in LA, including 4 (or 5) incumbents and two blue states. Sabato makes the case that it was a wave because of the House and State elections. That is probably the best argument--it lifted all boats.

J

 

[JollyRoger]

I'm the map guy. When you look at the 2016 map, you will see that the GOP will be defending 25 seats and the Democrats 10. If the Dems take the Senate back by winning some Obama states and purple states from the GOP, I am not going to call it a wave, but the media guys sure will.

And lord help us that the GOP is at it's highest point in the House since the 1928 election, given how 1929 turned out.

 

[onejayhawk]

I'm the map guy. When you look at the 2016 map, you will see that the GOP will be defending 25 seats and the Democrats 10. If the Dems take the Senate back by winning some Obama states and purple states from the GOP, I am not going to call it a wave, but the media guys sure will.

And lord help us that the GOP is at it's highest point in the House since the 1928 election, given how 1929 turned out.

Totally true. The map in 2016 is vastly better for the Democrats.

Its hard to take your second point seriously. Have we had a decade of fantastic growth with RRR in Washington? 1978 is a better comparison.

J

 

[JollyRoger]

Its hard to take your second point seriously.

 

[onejayhawk]

More like

J

 

[onejayhawk]

The post election analysis continues. Sabato has a long pastiche of short articles on the fall out.
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/14-from-14-quick-takes-on-the-midterm/

Some outtakes.

1. The polls really were worse than usual

This cycle featured the largest average miss by the two major poll aggregators, RealClearPolitics and HuffPost Pollster, in recent competitive Senate races. This isn’t a slight toward them — after all, they simply use the data that’s available, and it seems the data may be getting worse. While the median miss has been somewhat up and down, the average has increased relatively consistently cycle-to-cycle. Why? Prior to this cycle, neither average had missed a race by double-digits, but this time at least one average missed the Arkansas, Kansas, and Virginia races by at least 10 points. Below you’ll find the median and average miss per election cycle from 2006-2014 for both major poll averages.

2. Republicans still ride roughshod in Appalachia
3. With some exceptions, Democrats remain dominant in urban areas

6. Outside groups didn’t buy the election
Crystal Ball Senior Columnist Alan Abramowitz ran a regression analysis to see what effect outside spending had on the Senate races. The correlation between the Democratic and Republican outside spending difference and the Democratic margin was .23, which is not statistically significant. In contrast, the correlation between the Democratic margin and incumbency status was a more significant .76, and the correlation between the Democratic Senate margin in 2014 and the Democratic presidential vote margin in 2012 was an even more significant .89.

9. Number of crossover House districts slightly increases

10. Republicans win their best targets
nlike their victories in Obama districts in 2014, these [four targeted] seats they should not have much trouble holding for the foreseeable future. ...
In the Senate, Democrats were defending seven seats in states won by Mitt Romney in 2012, and the GOP swept all seven.​

More below.

J

 

[onejayhawk]

A couple of charts from the article seem worth posting:

* First time elected​

The next one surprised me, so I'll quote the text as well.

14. Incumbents roll once again

If Parnell loses, he’ll be part of just a small group: incumbent losers. Even in a good year for Republicans, the real winners of this election are the ones who seem to be the winners in every election: incumbents.

For the purposes of this analysis, we’re leaving out the races featuring incumbents where there is not a declared winner yet (one Senate race, two gubernatorial races, and four House races), but, regardless, incumbents had another good year, outperforming their post-World War II batting averages in all three categories.​

There was a lot of talk about an anti-incumbent election. Not so. In this context, four Democrat Senate incumbents lost (with one more in a run off).

J

 

[Light Cleric]

The incumbent thing doesn't surprise me at all. The "anti-incumbent" thing is usually just spin by party loyalists when the losing incumbents in a given cycle all happen to be from the same party.