tgards79
tgards79's JournalBTRTN: A Look at the Primaries in the 11 Senate Races That Will Determine the Midterms
But there are at least four reasons the Democrats have become, despite the map, guardedly optimistic about their chances to flip the Senate.By every conceivable measure, the Trump Administration is wildly unpopular (Trump himself has a 41% approval/55% disapproval rating, according to the New York Times polling aggregator) and continues to pursue policies disliked by majorities of voters, from the ICE crackdowns, to the tariffs, to the new war in Iran, plus the lack of focus on the economic affordability issues that got Trump elected in the first place (perhaps best exemplified by the sharp rise in gas prices due to the war)
Even more compelling, Democrats are winning at the ballot box. In special elections in the House and in state legislatures in 2025 and 2026 – over 70 of them -- Democratic candidates have outperformed...
The Violent GOP Town Hall That Made National News From One Who Was There
"We live in a swing district in New York, the 17th District. Over the years we have been represented by such disparate folks as GOP wingnut Nan Hayworth, Democratic stalwart Sean Patrick Maloney and now alleged 'moderate' Mike Lawler, a Republican serving in his second term, a man reportedly with gubernatorial aspirations – and likely beyond. Lawler is holding a series of town halls across his district, and we attended the one in our county last night.The event was raucous, indeed. The crowd was boisterous in its objections to Lawler’s rambling and off-point defenses of the Trump administration, to be sure. The post-event coverage to date has centered on the fact that two women were forcibly ejected from the event, carried out physically by New York State troopers. The coverage has generally not addressed what Lawler actually said to engender such an outpouring of emotion. We will attempt to redress that below...."
https://borntorunthenumbers.com/2025/05/05/btrtn-swing-district-gop-rep-mike-lawler-ny17-bobs-weaves-and-dissembles-at-raucous-town-hall/
BTRTN Considers the "Classic Baseball Era" Candidates for the MLB Hall of Fame
"Each year at this time we at BTRTN turn our attention away from politics and towards the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame selection process. We rather immodestly claim that we are the very best forecasters of which players will achieve lasting baseball immortality. This is admittedly an exceedingly narrow niche; so narrow, in fact, that we may be its only members.We will soon unveil our predictions for those candidates on the annual Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) ballot, the results of which will be announced on January 21, 2025. Today, we focus our attention on the not-quite-annual selections made by what used to be known as the “Veteran’s Committee,” which would seek to redress potential oversights of worthy players by the BBWAA. The Veteran’s Committee has morphed into a set of different committees that consider different eras, rather than the whole pool of no-longer-eligible players, in different years. This year it is the Classic Baseball Era committee that is meeting on Sunday, December 8 (tomorrow) to deliberate and decide. The Classic Baseball Era is defined, for this purpose, as the period prior to 1980, including Negro Leagues and pre-Negro League stars...."https://borntorunthenumbers.com/2024/12/07/btrtn-considers-the-classic-baseball-era-candidates-for-the-mlb-hall-of-fame/
BTRTN Considers the "Classic Baseball Era" Candidates for the MLB Hall of Fame
"Each year at this time we at BTRTN turn our attention away from politics and towards the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame selection process. We rather immodestly claim that we are the very best forecasters of which players will achieve lasting baseball immortality. This is admittedly an exceedingly narrow niche; so narrow, in fact, that we may be its only members.We will soon unveil our predictions for those candidates on the annual Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) ballot, the results of which will be announced on January 21, 2025. Today, we focus our attention on the not-quite-annual selections made by what used to be known as the “Veteran’s Committee,” which would seek to redress potential oversights of worthy players by the BBWAA. The Veteran’s Committee has morphed into a set of different committees that consider different eras, rather than the whole pool of no-longer-eligible players, in different years. This year it is the Classic Baseball Era committee that is meeting on Sunday, December 8 (tomorrow) to deliberate and decide. The Classic Baseball Era is defined, for this purpose, as the period prior to 1980, including Negro Leagues and pre-Negro League stars...."https://borntorunthenumbers.com/2024/12/07/btrtn-considers-the-classic-baseball-era-candidates-for-the-mlb-hall-of-fame/
The most straightforward and clear-eyed 2024 election post-mortem
This post-mortem makes two simple points that Democrats should internalize:
https://borntorunthenumbers.com/2024/11/22/btrtn-2024-election-post-mortem-no-gop-mandate-just-more-zigzagging/
BTRTN's final prediction
Worth checking out, quite detailed and across every single race, all 535 of them (prez 56 including DC NE district ME districts, senate 33, house 335, guv 11):
https://borntorunthenumbers.com/2024/11/04/btrtn-2024-official-election-predictions-presidency-senate-house-and-governors/
BTRTN 2024 Official Election Predictions: Presidency, Senate, House and Governors
...The real action is, of course, in the seven swing states. Those seven swing states (MI, PA and WI in the north, GA and NC in the south, and AZ and NV in the west) hold a total of 93 electoral votes. Among her 20 “solid” states (and two districts, one each in Maine and Nebraska), Harris can count on 226 electoral votes. Trump, for his part, in his 24 solid states and three districts (two in Nebraska and one in Maine), can count on 219. Each must get to 270 by securing the remainder from those 93 swing state votes.
The swing state polls are spectacularly close. The candidates are within two points of one another in each state, and most are closer than that. All are toss-ups, practically coin flips. To determine who might win requires an assessment of other factors, and most of them, by our assessment, favor Harris. There are two big ones that have led to our prediction...
https://borntorunthenumbers.com/2024/11/04/btrtn-2024-official-election-predictions-presidency-senate-house-and-governors/
BTRTN 2024 Official Election Predictions: Presidency, Senate, House and Governors
...The real action is, of course, in the seven swing states. Those seven swing states (MI, PA and WI in the north, GA and NC in the south, and AZ and NV in the west) hold a total of 93 electoral votes. Among her 20 “solid” states (and two districts, one each in Maine and Nebraska), Harris can count on 226 electoral votes. Trump, for his part, in his 24 solid states and three districts (two in Nebraska and one in Maine), can count on 219. Each must get to 270 by securing the remainder from those 93 swing state votes.
The swing state polls are spectacularly close. The candidates are within two points of one another in each state, and most are closer than that. All are toss-ups, practically coin flips. To determine who might win requires an assessment of other factors, and most of them, by our assessment, favor Harris. There are two big ones that have led to our prediction...
https://borntorunthenumbers.com/2024/11/04/btrtn-2024-official-election-predictions-presidency-senate-house-and-governors/
BTRTN: Can "Catalysts" and "October Surprises" Really Move the Needle Anymore?
"As the calendar turns to October in a presidential election year, it is hard to focus on anything else. The world still turns, horrific events occur, new data emerges, and every new tidbit or tidal wave is assessed not on its own terms, but through the political lens – does it help or hurt the candidates? And in a year where we are more polarized than ever, one candidate is literally despised by half the country, and the stakes are viewed as impossibly high, that tendency is wildly amplified. September 2024 was full of such events, truly terrible tragedies and some awful behavior. Much of it passed by quickly, the shock of each duly reported and processed, moving quickly to consider the political implications, and then dismissed..."
Not even assassination attempts on Trump – now two of them after another failed one in Florida in September – have had any impact. Time was that such an event would create an outpouring of goodwill for the intended victim, especially if they handle the moment well. Think of Reagan (“Honey, I forgot to duck!”) and the sharp increase in his approval rating (+7 points) after the event. Nothing for Trump – our views of him are set in stone. His favorability rating has been stuck in the 40-45% range for eons. The race itself has reached a bit of a stasis point, with Harris up by three points nationally and just ahead by enough in the three northern swing states (which is all she needs to get to 270) to be a nose ahead overall.
But we now have two true potential catalysts – the Middle East and the Jack Smith brief...
https://borntorunthenumbers.com/2024/10/03/btrtn-can-catalysts-and-october-surprises-really-move-the-needle-anymore/
BTRTN: Can "Catalysts" and "October Surprises" Really Move the Needle Anymore?
"As the calendar turns to October in a presidential election year, it is hard to focus on anything else. The world still turns, horrific events occur, new data emerges, and every new tidbit or tidal wave is assessed not on its own terms, but through the political lens – does it help or hurt the candidates? And in a year where we are more polarized than ever, one candidate is literally despised by half the country, and the stakes are viewed as impossibly high, that tendency is wildly amplified. September 2024 was full of such events, truly terrible tragedies and some awful behavior. Much of it passed by quickly, the shock of each duly reported and processed, moving quickly to consider the political implications, and then dismissed..."
Not even assassination attempts on Trump – now two of them after another failed one in Florida in September – have had any impact. Time was that such an event would create an outpouring of goodwill for the intended victim, especially if they handle the moment well. Think of Reagan (“Honey, I forgot to duck!”) and the sharp increase in his approval rating (+7 points) after the event. Nothing for Trump – our views of him are set in stone. His favorability rating has been stuck in the 40-45% range for eons. The race itself has reached a bit of a stasis point, with Harris up by three points nationally and just ahead by enough in the three northern swing states (which is all she needs to get to 270) to be a nose ahead overall.
But we now have two true potential catalysts – the Middle East and the Jack Smith brief...
https://borntorunthenumbers.com/2024/10/03/btrtn-can-catalysts-and-october-surprises-really-move-the-needle-anymore/
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