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Let's talk midterms. I haven't been keeping up with the races too much, but some quick research shows that Polymarket has odds for Democrats to take the House at ninety four percent and Democrats to take the Senate at seventy two percent (House market, Senate market). Apparently, the odds of a Republican sweep are down to five to seven percent (Balance of Power market).
Obviously, we can't really trust polls entirely. But I do trust the markets to be at least somewhat accurate, and so things are looking pretty horribly bad for Republicans. What are the actual implications if this happens? Because like I don't know, the second Trump term after Doge flopped, or rather, after Trump pulled back on Doge and was afraid to actually back them when it mattered. This whole term feels like kind of a mess.
What actual goals are going to be blocked by the Trump administration if the Democrats win a sweep? And I guess how much can they get done if they don't control the presidency? Or is it mainly, like, if they win the presidency in 2028 that things are gonna be bad? Walk me through the real ramifications of midterms flipping for the Democrats.
One implication is when Democrats win the Senate, Lisa Murkowski will probably swap parties to Democrat or at the very least caucus with them so any number you see being bandied around you should throw another 1 on top.
If Susan Collins loses in Maine (and it's looking like that will be the case), the likelihood Murkowski swaps to Democrat goes up to near certainty. Also, if Susan Collins loses in Maine, we're looking at an at least 52 Dem Senate majority (then throw Murkowski on top) which would be a 5 seat loss. It could be as much as 55.
And the larger the majority, the more radical they will behave. A 225 seat majority in the House will get Hakeem Jeffries while a 240 seat majority will get someone far more likely to push the envelope, e.g., around funding/defunding Trump admin priorities (think deportations and immigration enforcement) as well as endless investigations in the plentiful fields of rank corruption in the Trump administration. We may even see impeachment and removals of some of the more unpopular Trump appointees. I doubt even a 55 seat majority will remove Trump, but they definitely will allow impeachment trials to go on and on and on broadcasting anything bad about the Trump admin, real or made-up.
It's really incredible how quickly Trump was able to shred his winning political coalition, but I guess all the political capital Trump built over hardship for 10 years and the best political comeback since Andrew Jackson was all accumulated to engage in a preposterously stupid war for Israel for reasons we're all just left to speculate about.
You’ve got the electoral math backwards. The squad is baked in; their numbers aren’t changing. The larger thé dem majority, thé less leverage thé squad has, because Jeffries has less need of them.
I think that's true from 225 to 240 or so, but as the majority goes up there will be increasing pressure for more radicalism by the sheer number of people who have been elected on more radical agendas. Also, I don't think the squad exercise much even at 218 because they've repeatedly shown they're more talk than action on pretty much any important topic and Democrats have a stronger ability to enforce compliance than Republicans.
It is also different in the Senate (where individual Senators have agency) vs the House (where the majority leadership controls the agenda). A 51-seat majority needs to keep Fetterman on every vote. A 52-seat majority can lose Fetterman, but needs to hold the rest of the caucus together. And a larger majority can afford to lose even more. A big Dem win opens up the possibility of bringing in secret ballots for impeachment and trying to pick up enough shy NeverTrump Republicans to get to two thirds - this would require a Senate rules change, which could be done in a filibuster-proof way by "nuclear option" at the start of the new Congress or with Roberts' co-operation at the start of a Trump impeachment trial.
As long as the Dems take the House (and possibly even if they don't - Massie thinks he has the votes to do it in the lame duck), a Hegseth impeachment will happen, and will be seen a dry run for a Trump impeachment.
The Squad are not going to make McCarthy-style trouble - both the squad and the Dem leadership know that Trump can veto any substantive legislation, and they are broadly in line on how to grandstand. The pro-establishment left hate Trump as much as the far-left do.
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