[michaelchisari]

Right now, we have two indicators: The way the swings on the special elections are going, which are all violently swinging away from the Republicans, even if Republicans end up winning, it's barely by single digits in double digit districts.

And the polling, which in aggregate, across all demographics, has been continually moving more and more negative each passing month. Even polls like Rasmussen, which have a traditional right-wing bias, have shown a consistent drop in support.

Metrics like the ones you mentioned aren't useful as predictors. Yes, the Democrats spent a lot of money. So did the Republicans. Big money elections are the norm now, and each election has a loser.

Your reference to losing special elections only tells half the story. These are races that should have been as safe as safe can be. That's why they're special elections, because when Presidents make appointments, they only tend to choose people from their party who are in such safe districts that they can easily be replaced. Often-times, the national party doesn't even send monetary support to these special elections, because they're re-won so handily.

Take Ossoff's challenge in Georgia. He lost by 4 points in a district that went for Trump by 19 points. Moreover, the Republicans were required to spend $25 million in order to defend a seat that they had most likely budgeted around $0 for. That's what's called a weathervane. Or a canary in a coal mine.

Even further down this rabbit hole, the 0-6 loss article is from June. Since then, we've had Phil Miller win by 9 points in a district that Trump won by 21 points, which means that's a 30 point swing! We also have Kevin Cavanaugh winning by 23.4 points in a district that Clinton only won by 0.1 points. There's also been sweeps of state legislatures in traditionally VERY deep red states such as Oklahoma.

Every single trend points to a very difficult 2018 for the Republicans, and an especially difficult 2020.

[akvadrako]

This is a nice debate topic, because we'll have a clear cut answer next year. If you truly believe there is at least a 50% chance of Democrats controlling the house or 20% chance in the senate, you can make some easy money:

house: https://www.predictit.org/Market/2704/Which-party-will-contr...

senate: https://www.predictit.org/Market/2703/Which-party-will-contr...

[rtx]

Here is something that will explain what happened. Though it may disappoint you.

Ossoff got 125,517 votes Handel got 134,799 votes.

Compare

Dem - 124,917 Rep - 201,088

As you see there was no swing in Dem's favour.

[rtx]

The second stat is from 2016 elections.

[michaelchisari]

You know, people think elections are about convincing one side to switch over to the other. That's actually not how swings occur. They happen by people deciding to stay home or come out.

A special election is a hard sell. Democrats sold it. Republicans didn't.

Mid-term elections are also hard sells. We'll see who can sell it.

[flukus]

> Take Ossoff's challenge in Georgia. He lost by 4 points in a district that went for Trump by 19 points. Moreover, the Republicans were required to spend $25 million in order to defend a seat that they had most likely budgeted around $0 for. That's what's called a weathervane. Or a canary in a coal mine.

Isn't that normal? In Australia these sorts of elections usually swing heavily against the government of the day but are very poor predictions of what will happen at a general election. Is this not the norm in America?

[michaelchisari]

For mid-term elections, yes, they usually swing against the party in power. The extent to which they swing varies wildly, though, so all we know is that there likes will be a traditional anti-establishment swing, but the magnitude of it is unknown.

However, a special election within the months after a Presidential election should follow the same results, since there hasn't been the time to build the resentment necessary for a significant change in voting patterns. That, however, has not been the case with the Trump presidency.

[flukus]

That mirrors our experience after the 2013 federal election, the fell hard and fast but changed the leader and still snuck through at the last general election.

We've also seen the trend at state level for the last few years, it seems swings are coming harder and faster.

[generic_user]

I think this this is the talking points for the Democrats but its not very convincing.

> The way the swings on the special elections are going, which are all violently swinging away from the Republicans.

The Republicans won all 6 special elections.

> Take Ossoff's challenge in Georgia. He lost by 4 points > the Republicans were required to spend $25 million

He lost. And it was the Democrats who spent $23 Million (the most ever spent) on the election not the Republicans. The republicans spent like $3 Million dollars.

[michaelchisari]

> The Republicans won all 6 special elections.

By slim margins in what should have been extremely safe districts.

Then they lost the next 2, one of which by way a 30 point swing.

The swing is not something you can hand-wave away. It's one of the best metrics we have as a predictor for 2018.

> The republicans spent like $3 Million dollars.

Estimates on how much was spent on the election range from $40-$60 million.

$23 million is the amount of fundraising that was done by Ossoff's campaign, independent of the DCCC or traditional DNC PACs, which means none of it came from their "warchest". The DCCC provided an additional $5 million of TV ad spends in Ossoff's favor.

On the Republican side, they spent way more than $3 million. The NRCC spent about $6.7 million on TV ad spends. Paul Ryan's SuperPAC spent about $5 million on airtime and $2 million on additional costs. Two other conservative PACs raised an additional $1 million.

https://www.issueone.org/money-behind-expensive-u-s-house-ra...

The breakdown is very complicated, because money can come in from dozens of different types of sources, and the numbers aren't usually finalized until long after the election ends.

The $23 million figure, however, was mostly crowd-sourced in small donations. So to be very clear, you can say that came from citizens who identify as Democrats and be generally right, but to say it came from Democrats as an organization or a political entity, that is not correct.

[supremesaboteur]

Democrats spent a lot more money on these races and were still not able to win. This is clearly a problem for them. The swing in margins can be explained by the fact that the President's party mostly always loses some points

[michaelchisari]

> the President's party mostly always loses some points

Not in the double digits, they don't. And not in special elections shortly into the first year of the Presidency, especially.