Alabama: Best Bad Thing for the GOP?

Personally, I was surprised that Republican Roy Moore lost Alabama's election for US Senate to Democrat Doug Jones last night. In fact, I didn't really expect to be especially close. I guess I didn't give Alabamians enough credit for having basic good sense and morals. So, given that this was a race that I didn't predict well, feel free to take my further opinions with a grain of salt (as if you wouldn't anyway). But here are those opinions:

Once Moore won the Republican primary, Moore losing the general election was the best outcome the GOP could hope for.

The party organization could have gone all-in behind a write-in Republican alternative, but that would likely have handed the race to Jones anyway, while enraging the Trump base and making other prospective Republican candidates around the country doubt their party's commitment to their success. Their only viable option was to offer tepid, back-and-forth party support while some individual party leaders tried to get out a "Roy Moore is not us" message.

If he had won the race, he would have spent the next 11 months making the Republican Party look like a raging bunch of assholes (which, in fairness, they are), and the Democrats would have joyously assisted him in promoting that image (if for no other reason than to deflect attention from their own raging assholishness). Holding the one Senate seat in Alabama would almost certainly have cost the GOP one or more Senate seats and a number of House seats in competitive elections next November.

Of course, he's still threatening to spend some time making Republicans look like a raging bunch of  assholes. He's refused to concede the election and is jabbering about a recount. But now that he's lost, the party organization has an excuse to wash its hands of him, and has already started making a show of doing so.

He lost, and the Democrats have gained one Senate seat, but they lost a horse's ass they could have beat through 2018. The horse's ass went down with a broken leg last night. Unless Moore shows some epic "rigged election" whining chops (and, assisted by media who hate him, hey, maybe he will), the horse will shortly die, and beating a dead horse isn't nearly as effective as beating a live horse's ass.

Cold comfort to the Republican Party, I'm guessing, but like I said, it was the best they could hope for.

Mathematical Possibilities

Up front disclaimer: No, I'm not looking to pick on Gary Johnson in particular with this post. He's far from the first or only person to say something similar to what I'm going to quote him saying. He just happens to be some combination of the most recent/most prominent, having said it in the New York Times, and having said it this year, and being on of the principals in a lawsuit related to it. Here it is:

The contention is on our part that if you're on the ballot in enough states to mathematically be elected, then you should be included in the presidential debate.

Q: How many states does a candidate have to be on the ballot in for it to become mathematically possible for that candidate to be elected president?

A: None.

Here's a scenario featuring a way that Johnson himself could be elected:

This November, Gary Johnson carries one state. Let's just assume that that state is New Mexico, which comes with five electoral votes.

Now, let's say that Hillary Clinton carries California (55), New York (29), Florida (29), Michigan (16), Ohio (18), Pennsylvania (20), Washington (12), Virginia (13), Massachusetts (11), Maryland (10), New Jersey (14), Texas (38), and Vermont (3). No, those specific states aren't likely; they were just the ones I picked offhand to demonstrate the math. They come with a total of 268 electoral votes.

That leaves the remaining states, which come with 265 electoral votes, for Donald Trump.

If no candidate receives 270 votes in the Electoral College, the US House of Representatives picks the next president from the three candidates with the most electoral votes. Which means that Gary Johnson could conceivably become president.

But, then, so could Jill Stein, who will be on the ballot in a number of states. Maybe not enough states to win in the electoral college, but as long as she carries at least one state and only Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump end up with more electoral votes than she does, she is still eligible for consideration by the House.

For that matter, if a write-in candidate (in states that allow them) carried a single state while holding the major party candidates below 270 electoral votes each, ditto.

Mathematically, a candidate doesn't need to be on the ballot in a single state for it to be possible for that candidate to be elected president.

[Update, 07/19/16: As Shawn L points out in comments, a candidate wouldn't even have to carry a state to be eligible for election by the House -- Maine and Nebraska apportion their electoral votes rather than assigning them "winner take all." So if (for example) a candidate got one electoral vote, and the other two candidates got 269 and 268 respectively,  all three would be eligible for election by the US House of Representatives. And now that I think about it, a "carried no states victory" could also occur under the auspices of one or more "faithless electors" - TLK]

Bonus question: How many states must a vice-presidential candidate win in order for it to be mathematically possible for that vice-presidential candidate to be elected?

Hint: It's a lot more complicated than the other question/answer set.

Addendum: This turned into a bit of a series. Check out Part 2 and Part 3.

Things That Make Me Ask "WTF?"

Marco Rubio wasn't going to seek re-election to the US Senate.

But apparently he considers Omar Mateen's attack on an Orlando nightclub an indicator of strong public demand for his continued service, to which he may -- reluctantly, mind you, reluctantly -- bow.

Anyone got some extra facepalm? I'm running short this week.

Election 2014 Handicapping: US Senate Outlook

Different people draw the "forever" line in politics at different points. Personally, I put it at three months. More than three months out, any predictions are mostly just speculation. Nonetheless, I'm posting my first US Senate handicapping outlook 7 1/2 months out. Why? Because I was messing around with the maps and felt like it.

33 Senate seats are up for regular election this year, and another two will be disposed of in special elections. Here's the current partisan disposition of those seats -- red means Republican, blue means Democrat:

The states with black lines across them -- Oklahoma and South Carolinia -- are the states with two Senate elections, one normal and one special to select a replacement for someone who's retiring mid-term.

Here's my first cut at predicting outcomes in November:

An "H" in the state means I'm predicting that the incumbent, or at least the current party, will hold the seat. For all those small blue states in the northeast, imagine a little "H" even though I didn't have room for one.

If I've put a red circle and the letters "RP" in an otherwise blue state, I'm predicting a Republican pickup there. If there were any red states with blue circles and "DP," those would be predicted Democrat pickups ... but at the moment, you won't see any of those.

A purple "T" in a state means "tossup."

About The Coming Clobbering

From The Hill:

President Obama complained Thursday that Democrats "get clobbered" in midterm elections, blaming a "toxic" atmosphere in Washington for suppressing key Democratic constituencies.

Well, no. It's not "Democrats" who get clobbered in midterm elections, its the president's party that gets clobbered in midterm elections.

For example, in 1994 -- the middle of Democrat Bill Clinton's first term -- the Republicans took dual House and Senate majorities away from the Democrats for the first time since the 1950s. And in 2006, the Democrats took both House and Senate back (they also had taken the Senate briefly in 2001, when it was split 50-50 until Vermont US Senator James Jeffords switched from Republican to Independent and caucused with the Democrats). Then in the 2010 midterms, the Republicans took back the House.

Why does the president's party lose seats at midterm?

Well, it's a lot easier to energize the president's party's base when the president is running for re-election. If he's popular at all, he has coattails. His campaign spending is basically a force multplier for his party. At midterms, he's theoretically not running. He's just governing.

And the opposition's base, almost by definition, doesn't like the way he's governing -- so it's a lot easier to energize them.

There are a lot of reasons why the Democrats look set to take a beating this November. ObamaCare is one that comes immediately to mind. Some kind of midterm general structural bias against Democrats isn't one that comes to mind at all, because such a bias is compeletely imaginary.

My First Election 2014 Prediction

Scott Brown appears to be ready to jump into the race for US Senate from New Hampshire.

If he does, he will probably win the Republican primary, but he'll get whipped like a red-headed stepchild in November by incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen.

Here's why:

• Brown couldn't hold on to a Senate seat from Massachusetts, so he's shopping for one from New Hampshire. Nobody likes sloppy seconds. Especially "independents."
  
• He won't get the GOP base out. After his first debacle of a partial term, his picture appears next to "RINO" in the acronym dictionary. The only Republicans who are really excited about Brown are the navel-gazing psycho wonks who thought John McCain and Mitt Romney were surefire winners. He can probably win the primary on name recognition and low turnout, but the general is a whole different story.
  
• And he won't play well with Democrats because well, they've already got one holding down that seat.

If Brown runs, New Hampshire is a D-hold in November.