ChiGoose

Dems very much over performing at this point. At what point do McCarthy and McConnell resign?

Ohio really missed out. They could have had a working man, a family man, someone who understood them and stood up to people like Pelosi. Instead, they chose an elitist gadfly who made his name on exploiting the challenges of regular people, sold it to Hollywood for a ton of money, and flip-flops to accommodate whichever political sponsor is the most convenient at that moment.

Ok, last big update before bedtime. It's late even for central time. So far, it looks like the GOP will take the House but the Senate is still in question. This is, frankly, a pretty terrible result for the GOP given the fundamentals. Races I'm watching:

I think that if we took a root cause analysis to unwanted pregnancies and addressed those issues, we would dramatically reduce the number of abortions without endangering the lives of women.

The reason they say that it is it easier to spread misinformation that abortions 8 months in are elective than it is to explain the nuances of why someone would have to have an abortion at that stage. So instead of spending several minutes explaining the nuances of pregnancy healthcare, liberal politicians find it easier to phrase it as keeping the government out of healthcare decisions.

Just want to point out that this is a fallacy. You'll have a hard time finding people who are in favor of allowing a healthy pregnancy to be aborted at term. The nuance and complexity comes around how abortion laws interact with other aspects of healthcare such as miscarriages and fatal fetal diagnosis. A bit more simple, ask yourself: how many people are going to go through all of the pains and difficulties of pregnancy for 8.5 months and then suddenly decide that they don't wan the baby?

And if that's true, it's a complete failure by the GOP. The House and Senate should have been in the bag for them.

I'm still combing through the data, but at this point, this appears to be an underperformance by the GOP. They'll probably take the House but the Senate is still in question at this point.

That won't happen until we kill our First Past the Post electoral system.

Here's what I'm looking at as someone admittedly hoping for a good night for the Dems. I am still going through the data so it may change quickly.

I'm finally starting to really tune in and it's looking like the GOP will pick up the House and is a slight favorite in the Senate. However, at this point, they seem to be underperforming the fundamentals. Will post a chart of races I'm tracking in a bit for anyone who is staying up.

Depends on the date range. https://www.cfr.org/blog/2022-midterm-congressional-elections-numbers?amp “Going back to Harry Truman’s presidency, the president's party has lost, on average, twenty-nine House seats in each president’s first midterm election.” I’m sure it varies if you change the ranges and Bush was the exception by gaining seats after 9/11, but the President’s party generally does very poorly in the midterms.

It’s driven by the fundamentals. All things being equal, the out-party gains about 30 house seats and 4 senate seats in the midterms. Throw in Biden’s approval and inflation, and this should be a GOP bloodbath.

Who is the market for Chuck Todd? I cannot figure out who actually likes him and why he is still on tv.

You’re probably right, but at least that means the most fiscally strong governor we’ve probably ever had her remains in Illinois.

There is a sleeper candidate in the Midwest who just won re-election. It’s Big Boi Season!

Woof. That’s rough, buddy. Tonight’s our anniversary so it’s a convenient way to get away from the noise. You can order deep dish pizza delivered anywhere in the country. My wife and I sponsor a hole at our family golf tournament in Rochester where we mail the winner some deep dish. It’s a big hit. However, the true Chicago style is Tavern style. Unfortunately, both are inferior to WNY pizza. When I’m back in Rochester, I always make sure we get TK’s in Fairport one night.

Best thing you can do for the election returns today is turn off the TV for the next ~2 hours. As invested as I am in this, I’m going out to dinner with my wife tonight and don’t plan on turning on the returns until about 9pm ET.

When the president leaves office, they lose possessory rights to government documents. The documents are sent to NARA for safe-keeping. They may, however, retain access rights and can view the documents at a NARA facility. They may also negotiate with NARA to have documents moved to presidential museums and such. A good example is that when Obama left office, his non-classified documents were transferred from DC to a NARA facility here in Chicago. He doesn’t have them in his possession, but they are nearby. He likely will negotiate to have some of them displayed in his presidential museum when it is finished. His classified documents remain in a NARA facility in DC. And even if presidents can retain possessory rights to documents, at no point has Trump or his lawyers argued in the courts that they obtained NARA permission for him to retain possession of the documents. This is about as slam-dunk as it gets.

This seems like a safe bet. Dems ain't taking a Senate seat in Kentucky tonight.

I see I missed an opportunity to invest in Reynolds Wrap stock before everyone went out and made themselves tinfoil hats.

I would not put faith in exit polls on election night. The only exception being Jon Ralston in Nevada. That's it. If you see exit poll analysis that isn't Jon Ralston's coverage in Nevada, just ignore it.

Trump illegally possessed government documents, refused to return them, and then lied when he claimed to return them all. And still, the FBI search would likely have not been known if Trump himself hadn't blurted it out because he's a narcissist with the emotional temperance of a toddler. If anyone other than the former president had done what he did, they'd already have been indicted. But yes, carry on with your ignorance.

Probably the GOP. The question is by how much. If they net fewer than 30 House seats and 4 senate seats, then that is an underperformance and a silver lining for the Dems (for what it’s worth). Any more shows strong GOP gains.

Well, you see, you can’t seat a judge in an election year and that’s why we can’t even interview Garland. Also, you can seat a judge whenever you want, so we need to get Amy Coney Barrett on the court in a matter of weeks.