main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

2010 Election Thread - Results

Discussion in 'Archive: The Senate Floor' started by Lowbacca_1977, May 17, 2010.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    LtNOWIS, I read on CNN it was Erik Erikson on Red State, and the Tea Party Express giving a warning to vote more conservatively.


    Lowbacca, what solutions would that be?
     
  2. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    I've been advocating a policy of enforcing immigration status at employment, applications for some gov't programs, and during arrests with a a strict deportation policy, greater punishments for those that knowingly hire illegal immigrants, including criminal charges, while at the same time increasing channels for legal immigration and temporary worker programs for industries that would still face shortfalls in labour.
     
  3. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    The question has previously been discussed of what effect the Tea Party had. In October, the New York Times looked at this and put together a map of 129 Tea Party candidates nationwide that can be found here.

    The real question then becomes, how did these candidates do?

    Using the group above I've gathered who won and when the GOP last controlled that seat. For purposes of this, I'm counting the 7 as of yet uncalled races (according to the Washington Post) for whoever is leading at present. That means that the Democrats have Virginia 11, California 11, Arizona 8, and Washington 2 and the Republicans have Texas 27, Illinois 8, and New York 25.

    For the Senate, I'll touch upon briefly, but the New York Times lists the Tea Party candidates as being in nine races. The winning Tea Party candidates were Ron Johnson - Wisconsin, Rand Paul - Kentucky, Marco Rubio - Florida, Mike Lee - Utah, and Pat Toomey - Pennsylvania. The losing Tea Party candidates were Christine O'Donnell - Delaware, Sharron Angle - Nevada, and Ken Buck - Colorado. Joe Miller is in a still uncalled race in Alaska.

    For the House, Tea Party candidates won in 42 of the 129 races they ran in. To look at it a bit more, though, I'll break up those wins based on how long the GOP had not held that seat, as a rough way of adjusting for which were or were not hard races.

    There were 9 races in which there was a Republican that had held the seat last. Of these, the Tea Party candidates won 7 of them. The two they lost were the Delaware at large seat that had been held by Mike Castle and Charles Djou being defeated for reelection in Hawaii's 1st district.

    The next group of seats are seats that a Republican last held from 2007 onward, so these are seats that were lost either in 2006, when they lost the majority, or in 2009, with the election of Obama. There were 28 seats of this nature. Tea Party candidates won 18 of these seats and lost 10. (Of the seats lost in 2009 by the GOP, they reclaimed 11 of 14).

    The next group is any seats that the GOP has held since 1997. This accounts for any seats that the GOP won in the 1994 elections that might have been lost since then. Of these seats (including in the first group) there are 56 seats in total. 23 of these were won by Tea Party candidates and 33 were lost.

    The next group is any seats that were last held by a Republican between 1970 and 1995 (1970 being a bit more arbitrary). Here, there are 36 seats, and the Tea Party candidates won 4 of 32.

    The final group, any seats that the GOP has not held in longer than 40 years, so last held prior to 1970. This final group represents 28 seats. Here, the Tea Party candidates won 8 of the 20 seats. (Interestingly, they won 3 of the 4 seats that have not been held by a Republican for over a century, and all 3 that have not been held by a Republican since the 1800s)

    For a back of the envelope comparison to the mainstream GOP brand, one can figure that according to here there are 84 incoming freshmen representatives. The current listed wins for the GOP is 63 previously-Democrat seats, meaning that there are 21 that are replacing previous Republican representatives.

    Overall, then, going into the election, there were 257 seats that were not held by Republicans, and 63 were won by the Republicans (7 were Democrats running unopposed). That's 25.2% of them. However, we can break this up into Tea Party and non-Tea Party as well. In races where it was a previously Democrat-held seat, there were 120 that had a Tea Party candidate running, and they won 35 of them for a winning percentage of 29.2%. The remaining 130 races involved GOP candidates that were not Tea Party candidates included 28 wins. For this portion, that's a winning percentage of 21.5%

    Just based off that calculation, then, it appears that nationwide for the House of Representatives, Tea Party candidates were over 35% more likely to win than their non-Tea Party cou
     
  4. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    Don't you think that targeting employers will jsut lead to a witch hunt, and generate a very negative and divisive atmosphere for politics and business? Here in Rhode Island, our Governor of the last 8 years (Don Carcieri) signed an executive order to do just that, signed us up for "e-verify" I think. Carcieri was very passionate about the issue, it was his biggest focus before the unemployment crisis hit, basically he belongs in Arizona more than Rhode Island. It just led to an extremely negative and hostile atmosphere, and our Governer-Elect Lincoln Chafee is going to scrap it and just leave immigration enforcement to the federal authorities.

    For arrests being treated with a strict deportation policy, how much do you think that would cost and how much time would it take? Because it seems Massachusetts judged it to be too expensive, and instead uses private prisons to lock them up. I remember hearing in the local news that a pregnant illegal immigrant was caught stealing groceries or clothes, was locked up for two years before she was deported, all while her baby was forcibly taken away and given to some adopting agency. And a more recent story I read about was a protest on Colubus Day in the Boston area, protesting the death by beating of an illegal immigrant at one of these private prisons from a year or so ago. Do you think deportation should only follow if the crime committed was something much more serious than stealing stuff like food or clothes? How quick do you think a person will be deported, and how much will it cost the taxpayer?

    You have good ideas, but they don't always work well in practice. But I do agree we need to increase legal immgiration and guest-worker programs. Before we began to crack down on border security, most migrants from Mexico just came to work here for a season, sending money to their families, and going home when their temporary job was over. Now that's harder, so they come to stay, and bring their families with them. And wherever there is a fence (assuming they can't climb over it, dig under it, or cut through it) then they just begin crossing somewhere else, probably somewhere more dangerous where they are more likely to die. It costs each taxpayer about $1700 to catch a single illegal immigrant, and it just seems like a waste of money. A real solution would be to help stablize Mexico, and rebuild its economy, but that would never pass in today's political climate. So the most practical solution would probably be the guest-worker program, to restore seasonal migration. Another idea, that I've come up with, is to have a joint-ID system worked on by the American and Mexican governments.




    On your other post, do you think Ron Johnson and Pat Toomey really qualify as Tea Party candidates? Toomey has run for Senate before, and Johnson (I believe) is a rich businessman. Don't seem like grassroots-conservatism to me.

    For all the anti-incumbent fervor, only two incumbent Democratic Senators were actually defeated on Tuesday: Russ Feingold (the rogue), and Blanche Lincoln (the "DINO"). Feingold talked about 2012 after losing. If so, I'll lose a lot of respect for him.



    Unrelated, but I also found out that Pat Toomey was born and raised here in Rhode Island, he actually went to one of my high school's biggest rivals, LaSalle Academy in Providence. :p
     
  5. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    Time ran out to edit, but for more on election results, here is a map (from Wikipedia) that shows where Republicans held seats in the House in dark red, where Democrats held seats in the House in dark blue, where Republicans gained seats in the House in red, and where Democrats gained seats in the House in blue.

    The two Democratic gains were in Hawaii (after a special election ended with a Republican winning a plurality due to many Democrats in the same race) and in Lousiana (Joseph Cao, the first Vietnamese-American Congressman, who was the only House Republican to vote FOR the House's healthcare bill).

    Also, District 23 in New York stayed Democratic, electing a full term to its first Democratic representative in 128 years.


    Here's the map (some are still too close to call):

    [image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/2010_House_elections.svg/800px-2010_House_elections.svg.png]


    The biggest losses seem to be in the Midwest, Southwest, New York, New Hampshire, Pennsylvannia, Virginia.

    But most of those districts seem to be very large, indicating that the voters who led the backlash against the Democrats are mostly from sparsely-populated regions. Not all, but most.
     
  6. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    On the immigration thing, no, no I don't. I don't have any issue with requiring a company to run through a system, like e-verify and saying that if that comes back positive the company is cleared of liability if it turns out that someone got by that system and was really here illegal. So if they do the needed checks and have the records of doing so, they're in the clear. If they're hiring people without checking immigration status then they're being negligent.

    As for deportation, my stance is the whole GOAL should be not to deport every illegal immigrant, but to make it so that there is such a high detrimental effect on the quality of living of illegal immigrants that they don't come here, and the ones that are here leave. For example, there's been complaints in California when there have been immigration checks further inland (one was about an hour and a half or so north of the border) because illegal immigrants are afraid to go out because of it. I don't see that as bad. If you punish employers that are hiring illegals and increase immigration numbers and establish guest worker programs you dry up their chances to work. If you make it so that for any crime they get deported, you a. get rid of the criminal illegal immigrants i'm so often told are a small minority and b. also demonstrate that illegal immigration isn't going to be tolerated. If you supplant illegal immigrants, with legal workers, and punish all the businesses that are hiring illegal workers to violate labor laws, you don't have to deport all of them, because you've made it so coming here illegal isn't as good of an option.

    Well, congressional districts are proportional, so I presume what we're talking about is really urban versus rural?

    The overall average urban population of the districts that the Republicans captured was 64.6%, compared to the U.S. average of 81%, according to Wikipedia. To break it down more, the median urban population of the districts that the GOP won this election was 60%. (This is working with RCP's list of GOP won seats, not worrying about ones not yet called)
    13 have urban populations greater than 90%, and 15 have urban populations above the national average. 48 have urban populations greater than 50%.


    And it looks like another seat just got interesting... NY-1 was called for the Democrat with a lead of 3500 votes, but according to the voting machines directly, the Republican is leading with about 400 more votes, and 9000 absentee ballots to go. Looks like both candidates will push for a full recount after that big swing in vote totals.
     
  7. LtNOWIS

    LtNOWIS Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 19, 2005
    Speaking of Rhode Island, Providence mayor David Cicilline will be the fourth openly gay member of Congress, taking over Patrick Kennedy's seat. He's also Jewish.

    In other history-making news, Republicans took over Arkansas' first district for the first time since 1872, or 138 years.

    Other long-time Democratic seats the Republicans won:
  8. Florida's second district, first Republican elected since 1882, although there was a turncoat in the late 80s.

  9. South Carolina's fifth district, first Republican elected since 1882. The previous Republican was actually an escaped slave who fought for the Union.

  10. Texas's 17th district, first Republican elected since the district was created in 1919.

  11. Michigan's first district, the first since 1930.

  12. Minnesota's eighth, the first since 1944.

  13. Missouri's fourth, the first since 1952. This was the seat held by Ike Skelton, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee

  14. West Virginia's first district, the first since 1966.

  15. Wisconsin's seventh district, the first since 1968.

  16. Tennessee's 6th district, the first since 1972.

  17. North Dakota's at-large district, the first since 1978.

  18. Pennsylvania's 11th district, the first since 1980.

  19. Virginia's 9th district, the first since 1980.

  20. Tennessee's 6th district, the first since 1980. Although it might be longer for some counties, since there's been extensive redistricting


  21. Those are mostly conservative districts that were going to go red as soon as the old-timers representing them retired. The other GOP gains were almost all freshmen and sophomore Democrats who were swept in during the landslides of 2006 and 2008.

    In Michigan, the Republicans now have the governorship, the Secretary of State, and both houses of the legislature. That will give them an edge in redistricting. Since they're losing one district, it's essentially a game of musical chairs to see who gets axed. Most likely, two sitting Democrats will be forced to run against each other in a primary election. Long-time Democratic Congressmen John Conyers and John Dingells have survived four such reductions, but their luck may run out after this.
     
  22. J-Rod

    J-Rod Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 28, 2004
    No so fast.

    You need to check out HR-4646 as well as Pelosi's own comments.
     
  23. Lord_Hydronium

    Lord_Hydronium Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 11, 2002
    Did you actually read that link? It points out how every single thing except "Chakah Fattah proposed a transaction tax" is incorrect. Including the Pelosi statement, which is about a different transaction tax that applies to securities alone, not "all bank transactions" as you claim.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.