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Notes -
Here is a reply to that, which I will just copypaste:
https://x.com/DavidGiglioCA/status/1996246101137973315
I think the best apples-to-apples comparison is how the red vs. blue tribe did in previous versions of the same election (i.e. the election for the congressional seat), where, ever since redrawing the lines for the district in 2022, have been 22% blowouts (before redrawing the lines, they were 40+ point blowouts; a Democrat hasn’t won this seat since 1980). A 9% margin for the congressional seat hasn’t been seen this century.
But, let’s look at that tweet. The tweet the parent post contains claims Republicans only won this district (for the senate election) by 9% in 2018. While the actual tweet uses AI slop and could be a hallucination, I will assume the figure is correct[1], and that recent blue candidates for the district were so weak they were unvotable. If so, the 9% margin in 2018 is consistent with the Democrats winning 41 seats in the House that year.
Yes, Republicans won this one. But they didn’t have a good night; if I were a Republican strategist, I would figure out how to message midterm voters so that we don’t get another Democrat blowout like we did in 2018. Tough on crime, religious faith, and most importantly, making the economy as strong as possible would be good ideas. My boots on the ground experience is that, while I don’t talk about politics much, the times I bring it up, people are upset the tariffs are jacking up prices.
[1] Before putting this figure in my blog, I would bring out my calculator and look at the 2018 Senate results county by county to verify the AI generated response is correct.
This is my fault for not elaborating a point in the first place, but if I had it would have been something like: OP doesn’t make much of an analysis at all except looking at two different numbers and drawing a trend. I don’t think that’s very credible.
You can elaborate a larger case for why Trump and the Republicans are doomed by adding more numbers. But I think any serious political analysis has to come back to acknowledging our limitations in looking at the numbers because — well because the election is a year from now. A year’s worth of time has to pass.
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