Final count in Senate is 55 Dems, 45 Repubs (net gain of 2 for dems?)

Minn Post ^ | 11/7/12 | Eric Black

[Evil Slayer]

My post of this morning was published with a couple of Senate races not finally decided. But the Republican candidates (Rep. Denny Rehberg in Montana and Rep. Rick Berg of North Dakota) have now conceded to the victorious Dems. (incumbent Sen. Jon Tester in Montana and Sen.-elect Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota).

This nets out at a two-seat pickup for the Dems and a 55-45 majority heading into 2013 (assuming that, as expected, the Senate's two independents, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen.-elect Angus King of Maine will caucus with the Dems). The net gain is especially impressive since the Dems had to defend 23 of the 33 seats that were up in 2012.

If you can stand to look ahead to 2014, it turns out that once again, the Dems will have to defend a much larger portion of the seats that will be on the ballot. Assuming that no deaths, resignations, special elections or party switches occur, 20 of the 33 Senate seats that will be up in 2014 are now held by Dems. And, if you look at the map of where those seats are located, it appears that there are more Dems in generally red states than vice versa. Minnesota will also have a Senate race and freshman incumbent Al Franken is likely to face a tougher challenger than Kurt Bills. It will be some consolition to the Dem planners that they will head into that cycle with a five seat margin in the Senate and, since the vice presidency (with its potential as a tie-breaking vote in case of 50-50 ties in the Senate) will remain in Dem hands through 2016, the Dems would have to make a net gain of six seats to gain control that year.

If you are wondering how it can

[Evil Slayer]

We now have 30 Republican governors in the 50 states. Enough to call for a Constitutional Convention. If this happens and the states are able to amend the Constitution to require all national AND state and local elections require positive voter ID as well as proof of citizenship, we will be a Nation of the people and for the people as Abraham Lincoln addressed at Gettysburg.

We have enough to call for secession as well.

[Tex-Con-Man]

Patient zero...

...and for future reference...this was Huckabee's boy.

[TNCMAXQ]

2008 was such a disaster that in 2014 Maine is the only non deep red state to elect a Republican senator so that is the only state where a seat could be lost, unless there is a third party split in some other states. So that is good news.

Bad news though is that some of those Demo incumbents are really well entrenched. Hard to see Franken getting beaten now. I had thought Shaheen would be vulnerable but NH lurched to the far left this year. Unless there is a tremendous GOP tsunami I can’t see Durbin going anywhere. Even if Louse-enberg retires (is he 90 yet??) another Dem will probably win in NJ.

GOP pick up chances are probably best in AK and SD, and I they are gearing up already to go after Landrieu in LA. Even a gain of a few seats will at least be a step in the right direction.

[Malesherbes]

Teachable moment for Akin and Mourdock and any other Republican candidate:

when the MSM asks you about rape, abortion, contraception, or anything having to do with sex, immediately start talking about the $16 trillion debt.

[Free Vulcan]

Let them think that. They needed +5 going into the mid-terms to even think of being safe, and they know the GOP generally does well in those elections.

All we need to do is pick up 3 seats.

[TomGuy]

Enough to call for a Constitutional Convention.

I would not trust 99.9% of those who would be 'appointed' or elected to a CC.

What they would create could be a worse disaster than what Congress and the WH and SC have created so far in our national history.

But, say they did create a few good amendments. Congress, the WH and the SC could continue to ignore them or ignore portions of them. And that would lead us back to where we are now.

For example, we have an illegals problem. But, we have laws that -- if enforced -- would handle a massive percentage of that problem. Why, then, do we have a problem with illegals? Selective enforcement.

[Uncle Chip]

Missouri has a habit of voting for one party for the Presidency and the other for the Senate, one for the House and the other for the Governorship. They balance one against the other — unfortunately. Given that this was a Republican year for the Presidential vote in Missouri, the Democrat McCaskill had the advantage in the Senate race, plus she was the incumbent.

[Shadow44]

Romney performed badly because of a terrible combination of groupthink and voter fraud.

[copaliscrossing]

Simply put, Berg brought flowers to a gunfight.

I hear ya'. The Republicans keep thinking that "taking the high road" and being "Mr Nice Guy" will win over voters and look where it has got us. Politics is a bloody sport. With that said, the REAL problem is public perception as filtered by the lamestream media. Once a Republican takes the gloves off and starts bloodying an opponent, the lamestream media comes to the democRAT's rescue and starts calling the Republican a dirty fighter or something like that. I have heard so many of my liberal friends say as much but you will never hear them say anything about the negativity of their own candidates. It really is a dilemma.

On the youtube video regarding the testimony of the programmer about the ability to commit vote fraud via these machines. I also am a computer programmer/systems analyst and his testimony was spot on. I think one thing that came at the end of the video that was particularly interesting was the possibility of manipulating the machines that tabulate and gather all the votes from the individual machines. If I were doing this, that is where I would target as it would take a lot less people and effort and scrutiny to do this at a higher level. We have been focusing on fraud and manipulation at the individual voting machine level whereas perhaps the better place to look is at the tabulating machines. If I am writing the "virus" to do this, it would be MUCH easier to control at the tabulation level than the individual machine level. It would take way too much coordination and effort to keep track of your desired result at the individual machine level.

One other thing I think he kind of left out was that a lot of software out there has a different source code file and "object" or "run-time" code file. So if you just look at the source code, you may not necessarily see what is actually running and doing the work on the machine.

Very scary indeed.

[copaliscrossing]

when the MSM asks you about rape, abortion, contraception, or anything having to do with sex, immediately start talking about the $16 trillion debt.

The problem with the 16 trillion dollar debt is that there are A LOT of people in this country (my sister included) that cannot and will not personalize it and if they even begin to get a hint that it's a problem, it is either the fault of the Republicans or they say "let the rich people pay that bill". They cannot understand how big of a number it is and what it will take to eliminate it. Too many people have been dumbed down.

[Longbow1969]

We ran some subpar Senate candidates yet again. Not a shock Brown lost in far left Mass, but it’s clear we need to do a better job of nominating Senate candidates. Akin was a joke and everyone that continued backing him instead of urging him to get out did us a big disservice. Mourdock turned out to be a poor candidate and once he began pontificating on the rape/abortion issue it was all over. He should have just shut up, but bad candidates do dumb things. Retread Allen still had the “macaca” Washington Post smear weighing him down. McMahon is a stupid, laughable candidate in Conn. Just poor candidates elsewhere too.

[paul51]

it’s hard to contemplate a senate takeover if we fields candidates that tell the voters rape is what god wants.

[paul51]

when the MSM asks you about rape, abortion, contraception, or anything having to do with sex, immediately start talking about the $16 trillion debt.

All a candidate has to say is my campaign and this election is not about rape, abortion, contraception or god. Next question.

[fortheDeclaration]

Coyrn was a diaster as a leader of the committee to elect Senators!

We should have never lost ND, Missouri or Ind.

[fortheDeclaration]

Yes, it was worth it to get rid of Lugar.

[fortheDeclaration]

What is Lautenberg-100years old?

[fortheDeclaration]

Amen!

[fortheDeclaration]

That is why we need to let the Democrats raise taxes, to make the People actually FEEL the spending.

[littleharbour]

The Senate result is an even bigger catastrophe than the loss of the Presidency. The Senate can block nominations, but the GOP won’t do this through a filibuster. Too many Rats and a lack of courage in McConnell. With a majority they would have had the moral authority to block any radical judicial appointments. After 2010, it should have been a no brainer to pick up Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri and Montana and to hold Indiana. The 2014 Dem group isn’t nearly as vulnerable as it was in 2012. This was a lost opportunity that will resonate for another 4 to 6 years.

[hinckley buzzard]

It becomes increasingly apparent that the national (Beltway) RNC/GOP is not serious about electing candidates to office. What they are serious about, however, is cajoling large contributions from suckers, which are then used to fund god knows what kinds of graft and misallocation of resources.

The RNC raised record amounts of money this year--enough for every senate candidate to have his own trust fund going into the fall campaign. Where did the money go and why did it make no dent in the electorate?

Because the mindset of Boehner and Co. is a reincarnation of Bob Michel--"Hey, let the democrats do all the heavy lifting. We in the minority get paid just as much, and get a lot more time in at the country club."