Do you remember when I said that Rep. Duncan D. Hunter was doing it wrong? Well, my money is on him going to jail. And Darrell Issa is retiring six years late. That follows Ed Royce announcing his retirement on Monday. So, I guess the extinction of California Republicans is proceeding apace.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Interestingly, Nate Silver rates chances for Democrats to regain the House higher than chances to take the Senate.
is this new? i thought that had been the conventional wisdom about the ’18 election.
here in CA it is definitely getting tougher for Repubs. Dem leaders have focused on 7 repub house seats (Issa is one) where Clinton won the presidential vote.
New to me. Everything I have read has focused on the Senate and pretty much given up on the House.
There are 7 Democrats running against Roskum (IL-6) and this one seems to have some fire. My own IL-8 Congressman (D in name only) is a complete tool enamored with “bipartisanship”. What can you expect from a businessman?
The gubernatorial race is the hot one and it may be encouraging Democrats to try to grab coattails of whoever unseats the unpopular (R) Governor. Maybe I’ll do a diary on that race although I’m hardly an expert.
well, that’s always been the case and is uncontroversial, but Silver is pretty pessimistic about the Senate and now he’s got me more worried than I was.
You want to be worried? Wasserman should have you covered:
“Fact: If 2018 Dems win every state/district Clinton either a) won or b) lost by 17% or less, they could pick up 106 House seats & still lose 2 Senate seats.”
Yep. I’ve been figuring that a best case scenario for the Senate was maintaining a 48 seat minority, and would not be surprised to see them drop down to about 46 seats. Am hesitant to buy into the hype that the Senate is truly in play as of yet. The map is awful for the Dems. If Dolt 45 had actually come in and built up a ton of good will and if last year had not been such a clusterf^ck for the GOP legislatively (a very unpopular passed tax bill ain’t exactly success), I’d have been expecting the Dems to be lucky to hold on to about 42-44 seats. With the wind at their backs and an awful map, breaking even would look damned good. Once I see some good polling data that can be presented as plausible evidence of the Senate flipping in addition to the House, I’ll gladly consider changing my mind on the matter. As of now, like a few folks around here, I don’t see a Dem Senate majority when the next Congressional Session starts. Could be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.
The Senate is certainly in play. We have a lot of Senators in red states but most have good records. Manchin and Tester look pretty good because of that. That leaves Heitkamp, McCaskill, and Donnelly, and those are all worrisome, but all winnable.
In a wave sufficient to win all that we will almost certainly hold WI and FL, and win AZ and NV.
So, definitely in play, but with odds for the Republicans.
From Silver’s article:
That seems pretty reasonable. If I’d had to put up a number I would have said about 30 percent.
There’s just no getting around the insanely bad map for us. OTOH, if we get the House R hold in the Senate matters pretty much only for judicial nominations, so it’s only a disaster if Breyer or Ginsberg have to retire, although 2 years of appellate and district nominees is painful.
The flip side is that the House is starting to look really good, with an already recent record for retirements. Just a few months ago you had to be a little optimistic for 50-50.
Another long-term reason for optimism is that the 2020 Senate map is quite good and we will have an excellent chance of the trifecta in 2021.
I read somewhere that the Senate is filling that huge backlog of vacant seats with Trump nominees. I think it was in financial news (almost as much BS there as in political news – almost). Have Dems lost the filibuster for judges below SCOTUS?
Harry Reid killed the filibuster for judicial appoints below the SC. Yertle finished the job.
Thanks. So why did Obama leave hundreds of seats open?
Booman, you are on fire today!
Good riddance to these rats as they flee. They reek of corruption and they should have been pushed out and punished years ago. I wish they were able to feel shame or regret.
Anyhoo, get out and stay out, you bastards.
Holy shit.
Missouri sure picked a winner in that last gubernatorial election. Holy shit, indeed.
Yeah, “God-fearing family man” is a dead giveaway.
I was just about to mention the philandering, blackmailing, soon-to-be-ex-governor of Missouri.
It’s not so much the cheating as the blackmail. What a douchenozzle.
I always felt that those God-fearing men weren’t really or they would be shitting in their pants thinking about Judgment Day.
Ho-hum for Illinois. Henry Hyde was the same. And you certainly know about Denny Hastert.
neither was governor but our recent history of governors isn’t anything to write home about
May Rauner join the parade in the Federal pen!
lol, wonder what will come out after he’s out
Jim, do you think we have enough candidate info to do an IL gov diary? We only agree 50% of the time, but I’ll gladly participate in your diary if you do one.
I assume you mean just on the Dem side because I know someone is primarying Rauner but they seem to have disappeared from sight.
My current favorite on the Dem side is Daniel Biss, I have concerns with JB and Kennedy
I’ve got concerns with all of them, but ousting Rauner is priority one. This isn’t Tweedledee vs Tweedledum like the Presidential race.
Speaking of extinction,
Jeremy Scahill:
USA Rights Act
EFF:
GG:
Given a choice between a Democrat like Adam Schiff and a Republican like Justin Amash …
George Zornick:
Time for many CA Democrats to go.