Biden presidency and 2024 election campaign

[David]

Counting underway now. No early indications as to which way things are going, apparently; I'm seeing some eyebrow-raising figures like the Democrats leading by 16 points in the (expected Republican-hold) North Carolina senate contest with 36% counted and by 15 points in the 50/50 Georgia senate contest with 19% counted,* but that may just be a skew based on which polling places have reported. Should get a stronger sense as the afternoon progresses.

*Edit: as expected, both leads are steadily decreasing as more of the vote comes in.

[Jezza]

DeSantis killing it in Florida.

Florida is well and truly a red state now.

https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/1590000982284718082

[David]

Some live coverage, if anyone here is capable of watching US TV news without their brains turning into jelly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqlTM78PtG4

[David]

Still early days, but the notorious New York Times needle is leaning Republican for the House and in the toss-up category (with a very slight Republican lean) for the Senate at the moment. Their current estimated outcome for the House is 228(R)–207(D), and, for the Senate, 51(R)–49(D).

[David]

Looks like the Democrats have their noses in front in the Republican-held Pennsylvania senate seat, but it's still hard to tell whether they'll manage to hold Georgia, Arizona and Nevada (they would need to hold on to two of those three + win Pennsylvania to block a Republican majority). Doesn't look like any other Republican seats are on offer at this stage (Wisconsin is leaning R).

Edit: Arizona also leaning Democrat. Georgia likely to go to a run-off election in December (which the state does when both major party candidates fail to get to 50%, as famously happened for both Georgia senate seats in 2020).

[Jezza]

Proving to be tighter than expected in the House. The NYT needle says the GOP are a 75% chance of claiming a majority.

The Senate races in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Nevada are up in the air. All genuine 50/50 contests.

[Jezza]

Looks like the Democrats will win Pennsylvania.

Georgia will likely go to a run off as David mentioned.

It all comes down to Nevada.

[eddiesmith]

It’s like the West Wing in real life 😂😂

[Jezza]

Georgia (Senate) = 96% counted

Democratic 49.4 - 48.5 Republican


Nevada (Senate) = 35% counted

Democratic 54.1 - 43.2 Republican

[What'sinaname]

Massive victory for the Democrats. Mid terms are usually a slaughter for the party in power. Republicans will see this as a huge loss.

[Jezza]

Georgia (Senate) = 98% counted

Democratic 49.3 - 48.6 Republican

Need 50%, otherwise a runoff election will occur.


Nevada (Senate) = 66% counted

Democratic 48.5 - 48.6 Republican


Arizona (Senate) = 58% counted

Democratic 53.3 - 44.5 Republican

[David]

The Republican candidate is now 3 points up in Nevada, but the projection is still for a narrow Democrat win (a lot of the vote yet to be counted seems to be from Las Vegas, which heavily leans blue).

The result of the Georgia run-off on 6 December – which may well be the deadlock-breaker that decides which party controls the senate – is anyone's guess. Given most of the non-major party vote went to the Libertarian Party, you'd think that'd be advantageous to Walker (even though Warnock will finish closer to 50%); but the exact opposite happened in the 2020 runoff between Ossoff and Perdue, where it was the Republican who initially finished closer to 50% but still lost. Hard to know though how much the specific context of Trump's election-denying shenanigans played a role there, and as far as I know there's no data on how many libertarians changed their vote to Democrat as opposed to staying home, or whether more of the difference was made up by first-round Republican voters switching.

[Pies4shaw]

Train wreck:

[David]

While it's important not to lose sight of the fact that DeSantis is himself a complete ogre and probably substantially worse than Trump on most counts, it is still pretty funny seeing Trump accuse someone else of lacking loyalty and class. You'd think most reasonable people regardless of politics would be able to see through him by now, but of course reasonableness long went out the door in the US.

It really is astonishing how much one guy motivated solely by his own ego has an entire political party's balls in his grip. And no matter how sick Republican Party leaders get of him or how bad their electoral prospects under Trump look (and he may yet win the presidency back, who knows), there's nothing whatsoever they can do to get rid of him or stop the base from voting for him en masse in the primary.

[David]

The Republican lead in Nevada is, as expected, being pulled back – it's now 1.4 points with 84% counted. Time will tell whether it's enough for Cortez Masto to get over the line.

Democrat Mike Kelly still has a 5% lead in Arizona, but counting is sluggish there and they're still stuck on 72%. I assume there must be quite a few Republican-leaning counties outstanding for that one to still be considered in play.

In the House, the Republicans are inching towards a majority, but still 8 seats shy. The Democrats would need to pick up 24 of the 31 seats yet to be called to maintain control – not sure which way those races are leaning, but I presume that'll be a bridge too far and that the Republicans will end up with a (perhaps single-digit) majority.