Re. 2022: I agree that the prospects for Dems keeping the House aren't pretty based on history + gerrymandering, but it should also be noted that the same election experts who were CERTAIN that Dems would *expand* the House this year were dead wrong.
In 2002, at the height of GWBs approval & post-9/11 fever, NO ONE would have imagined that just 6 years later the next President would not only be a black Democrat with a "Muslim-sounding" name (including the middle name "Hussein")...
...but that he would be a 1st-term Senator who would beat a long-term, respected Senator who was also a legitimate war hero by 10 million votes.

In 2016, almost no one imagined that Hillary Clinton would be beaten a washed-up, racist, misogynistic reality TV star.
In 2018, Democrats flipped House districts in dozens of red districts including one in friggin' OKLAHOMA, which very few would have predicted.

And yes, most of the seats they just lost again were in those very same districts. Waves do tend to recede a bit later.
My point is simply that Conventional Wisdom has taken a HELL of a beating over the past 20 years.

This doesn't mean I expect a blue wave in 2022. I'm keeping my expectations muted. I'm just saying that things that "can't happen" don't...right up until they do.
One more thing: About those 300,000 absentee/mail-in ballots which "can't be found": How many of those were in House districts where the Dem lost by, say, 1,000 votes or less?

I'm assuming that won't happen with a Biden-era Post Office.
usatoday.com/story/news/inv…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Charles Ghoul-ba

Charles Ghoul-ba Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @charles_gaba

7 Nov
In addition to other structural changes like eliminating the Electoral College and the filibuster, making DC & PR states, and expanding the courts, we should also really move Inauguration Day up by another couple of weeks.
It used to be in March, back when it could take weeks fore the mew President to even travel to DC. It was moved to January 20th in 1933, but travel and communication could still take days or weeks. These days, there’s no reason not to move it up to, say, January 6th.
I know some state officials take office as soon as December, but Congress has to formally vote POTUS in I think and the new session starts on January 3rd, correct?
Read 4 tweets
7 Nov
Both Kasich *AND* AOC should probably sit this out for the moment. There’ll be plenty of time for Dems to fall back into disarray AFTER WE FLIP THE TWO GA SENATE SEATS.
Understand this, everyone: As awesome as kicking Trump & his entire gang of thugs out is, if we don’t flip BOTH GA Senate seats you can kiss ANY remotely “progressive” or even *decent* legislation goodbye. McConnell will let every bill passed by the House continue to gather dust.
You can also kiss ANY federal judicial confirmations goodbye, much less expanding the courts. McConnell will let the benches sit empty for 4-8 more years if he needs to. He has 200+ young right wing zealots in place already.
Read 4 tweets
7 Nov
📣👏🎉 Mazel Tov! We saved America and democracy from falling into an authoritarian dictatorship!

But we aren't done yet. For #POTUSElectBiden & #VPOTUSElectHarris to get ANY legislation through, the 2 runoff elections in Georgia are CRITICAL. 1/
For starters, the outcome of those two races could determine fate of the #ACA: 2/
acasignups.net/20/11/06/two-r…
IF YOU KNOW ANYONE IN GEORGIA, send them this graphic. These are projected estimates of how many Georgians would lose healthcare coverage if the #ACA is struck down. Electing Jon @ossoff & @ReverendWarnock is the key to saving healthcare coverage for up to 554,000 Georgians. 3/ Image
Read 5 tweets
6 Nov
Attn. Redistricting & Census Twitter:

A question about Trump messing w/the Census (ending it early, trying to add the citizenship question, possibly fucking around with the data itself, etc): 1/
If I understand correctly, the REASON Trump/Miller were screwing w/the Census is to deliberately undercount POC in order to reduce how much federal funding goes to those areas, correct?

If so, what does that mean for REDISTRICTING at the federal and state levels? 2/
For instance, let's say that Detroit, which has around 670,000 residents, is undercounted, and the 2020 Census claims it's down to just 600,000. When redistricting is done, each district is supposed to be roughly equal in population *according to Census data*, correct? 3/
Read 5 tweets
6 Nov
THIS. Also, this will still be in the middle of a pandemic...which will likely be raging even worse than ever. It'll also be in early January, which means most early/mail-in voting will be done between...Christmas & New Year's?? Who's more/less likely to show up?
For comparison, here's what happened in the 2008 Georgia runoff election, when Republican Saxby Chambliss beat Jim Martin...but note some key differences:

politico.com/story/2008/12/…
In 2008, Chambliss came 9,000 votes short of the 50%+1 threshold, forcing a runoff vs. Martin. In the runoff, however, he crushed Martin by 16 points.

HOWEVER...
--Control of the Senate wasn't on the ballot; Dems already had 58 seats (MN wouldn't be determined for 6 months);
Read 7 tweets
6 Nov
This is PRECISELY what I was saying back in June and I was yelled at by certain people for questioning the wisdom of using that particular PHRASE (even if I fully supported the underlying policies of reallocating resources/demilitarization of the police, etc).
I consider myself a fairly liberal Democrat and *I* assumed it literally meant removing all funding from police departments. The vision in my head was indeed essentially The Purge.
Obviously that was cleared up pretty quickly by folks here but MOST PEOPLE AREN’T GONNA INQUIRE whether someone calling for defunding the police actually mean that they want to defund the police.
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!