Biden presidency and 2024 election campaign

[David]

Counting underway now. No early indications as to which way things are going, apparently; I'm seeing some eyebrow-raising figures like the Democrats leading by 16 points in the (expected Republican-hold) North Carolina senate contest with 36% counted and by 15 points in the 50/50 Georgia senate contest with 19% counted,* but that may just be a skew based on which polling places have reported. Should get a stronger sense as the afternoon progresses.

*Edit: as expected, both leads are steadily decreasing as more of the vote comes in.

[Jezza]

DeSantis killing it in Florida.

Florida is well and truly a red state now.

https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/ ... 2284718082

[David]

Some live coverage, if anyone here is capable of watching US TV news without their brains turning into jelly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqlTM78PtG4

[David]

[David]

Looks like the Democrats have their noses in front in the Republican-held Pennsylvania senate seat, but it's still hard to tell whether they'll manage to hold Georgia, Arizona and Nevada (they would need to hold on to two of those three + win Pennsylvania to block a Republican majority). Doesn't look like any other Republican seats are on offer at this stage (Wisconsin is leaning R).

Edit: Arizona also leaning Democrat. Georgia likely to go to a run-off election in December (which the state does when both major party candidates fail to get to 50%, as famously happened for both Georgia senate seats in 2020).

[Jezza]

Proving to be tighter than expected in the House. The NYT needle says the GOP are a 75% chance of claiming a majority.

The Senate races in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Nevada are up in the air. All genuine 50/50 contests.

[Jezza]

Looks like the Democrats will win Pennsylvania.

Georgia will likely go to a run off as David mentioned.

It all comes down to Nevada.

[eddiesmith]

It’s like the West Wing in real life

[Jezza]

Georgia (Senate) = 96% counted

Democratic 49.4 - 48.5 Republican


Nevada (Senate) = 35% counted

Democratic 54.1 - 43.2 Republican

[What'sinaname]

Massive victory for the Democrats. Mid terms are usually a slaughter for the party in power. Republicans will see this as a huge loss.

[Jezza]

Georgia (Senate) = 98% counted

Democratic 49.3 - 48.6 Republican

Need 50%, otherwise a runoff election will occur.


Nevada (Senate) = 66% counted

Democratic 48.5 - 48.6 Republican


Arizona (Senate) = 58% counted

Democratic 53.3 - 44.5 Republican

[David]

[Pies4shaw]

Train wreck:

Donald Trump has sent supporters an email trashing Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who is being broadly viewed as a potential presidential candidate after his midterm victory.

The former president, who has teased that he will soon announce his candidacy for 2024, referred to the governor as “Ron DeSanctimonious” and accused him of lacking “loyalty and class” for entertaining media questions about whether he’d run against Trump for president.

Trump is facing pressure to delay announcing his presidential bid after many of his endorsed candidates faltered in the midterms.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/liv ... op-of-blog

[David]

While it's important not to lose sight of the fact that DeSantis is himself a complete ogre and probably substantially worse than Trump on most counts, it is still pretty funny seeing Trump accuse someone else of lacking loyalty and class. You'd think most reasonable people regardless of politics would be able to see through him by now, but of course reasonableness long went out the door in the US.

It really is astonishing how much one guy motivated solely by his own ego has an entire political party's balls in his grip. And no matter how sick Republican Party leaders get of him or how bad their electoral prospects under Trump look (and he may yet win the presidency back, who knows), there's nothing whatsoever they can do to get rid of him or stop the base from voting for him en masse in the primary.

[David]