2026 Midterm Discussions

x65943 · 2026-09-15T02:33:07+0100

The US midterms are coming up, and while the house is predicted to go blue, the Senate is seen as more of a toss-up. Most races have clear favorites, but control of the Senate will be decided by 6 races: Texas, Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan and Ohio.

The list of states here is particularly interesting because most of these tossups have been long term Republican strongholds.

Below are the number of years since the last Democrat Senator:
Texas, 33 years
Alaska, 11 years
Iowa, 11 years
Maine, 31 years*
Michigan, current
Ohio, 1 year
*Maine's Independent senator caucuses with Democrats

Betting markets currently show a 52-53% Democrat Senate win.

What do you think will happen? Will the price of diesel at a record $6/gallon finally break the 30+ year Republican stranglehold on Texas? Will Alaska break blue? What are the implications for the 2028 presidential election?

SeltzerMist · 2026-09-15T02:35:19+0100

Senate by nature of design will always favor conservative states but I would agree with the betting market despite that. Maybe MAGA will have finally opened their eyes and grown a couple brain cells after all we've seen since the pedo and rapist won re-election.

x65943 · 2026-09-15T02:45:56+0100

SeltzerMist said:
Senate by nature of design will always factor conservative states but I would agree with the betting market despite that. Maybe MAGA will have finally opened their eyes and grown a couple brain cells after all we've seen since the pedo and rapist won re-election.

I think a lot of the Trump voters are fed up, Democrats are ahead in 5/6 of these key states

titan_tim · 2026-09-15T02:50:39+0100

x65943 said:
The US midterms are coming up, and while the house is predicted to go blue, the Senate is seen as more of a toss-up. Most races have clear favorites, but control of the Senate will be decided by 6 races: Texas, Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan and Ohio.

The list of states here is particularly interesting because most of these tossups have been long term Republican strongholds.

Below are the number of years since the last Democrat Senator:
Texas, 33 years
Alaska, 11 years
Iowa, 11 years
Maine, 31 years*
Michigan, current
Ohio, 1 year
*Maine's Independent senator caucuses with Democrats

Betting markets currently show a 52-53% Democrat Senate win.

What do you think will happen? Will the price of diesel at a record $6/gallon finally break the 30+ year Republican stranglehold on Texas? Will Alaska break blue? What are the implications for the 2028 presidential election?

I think I've given up on predicting US elections. Not going to bother to look at the polls or anything else. They're a country with a broken electoral system and an uneducated electorate, so logic doesn't apply. That being said, I can still hope that the stain of MAGA is wiped from the world, only to exists in history books along with the confederate army.

The reciprocal tariffs coming from Canada are also specifically targeting each of those swing states to make sure they feel miserable about the economy going into the election. So we can hope that helps sway things in some way.

x65943 · 2026-09-15T02:56:42+0100

titan_tim said:
I think I've given up on predicting US elections. Not going to bother to look at the polls or anything else. They're a country with a broken electoral system and an uneducated electorate, so logic doesn't apply. That being said, I can still hope that the stain of MAGA is wiped from the world, only to exists in history books along with the confederate army.

The reciprocal tariffs coming from Canada are also specifically targeting each of those swing states to make sure they feel miserable about the economy going into the election. So we can hope that helps sway things in some way.

The Senate is broken in the way that a state with fewer people than DC (WY) gets as many senators as NY or CA

(A system put in place to allow southern states more of a say in the government)

But, it is still a democratic system and it's possible to win these states. Look at Texas - no Democrat for 33 years, and now a Democrat is leading in polls

All I can say is, if Trump keeps bombing Iran and driving inflation - the Senate will be blue for sure

BigOnYa · 2026-09-15T03:02:56+0100

$5000 (even if true) or a blue House and Senate, I'd definitely take the latter.

DiscostewSM · 2026-09-15T03:03:56+0100

Would not be surprised if Musk visits those 6 states......

x65943 · 2026-09-15T03:05:00+0100

BigOnYa said:
$5000 (even if true) or a blue House and Senate, I'd definitely take the latter.

The magic of it is

If you give everyone $5000, you have actually devalued the entire money supply so that it is collectively worth $5000 less per person

It's a really dumb idea

DiscostewSM said:
Would not be surprised if Musk visits those 6 states......

I hope he does, I'm pretty sure most people don't like him

https://www.natesilver.net/p/elon-musk-polls-popularity-nate-silver-bulletin

titan_tim · 2026-09-15T03:17:24+0100

x65943 said:
The Senate is broken in the way that a state with fewer people than DC (WY) gets as many senators as NY or CA

(A system put in place to allow southern states more of a say in the government)

But, it is still a democratic system and it's possible to win these states. Look at Texas - no Democrat for 33 years, and now a Democrat is leading in polls

All I can say is, if Trump keeps bombing Iran and driving inflation - the Senate will be blue for sure

If it takes starting a new pointless war, alienating every ally you have, threatening to annex multiple friendly countries, starting a tariff war, and destroying the entire economy of one of the richest countries in the world for a state to POSSIBLY flip, then it's not a good system.

Similarly, the only reason that a democrat is leading in the polls in Texas is because they put up the absolute WORST republican in history to run against him. The democrat is a straight male who has no drama or scandals behind him, and he's studying to be a damn priest!!! The only thing they can throw at him is saying he's pro-trans, like anybody cares what trans people are doing while the economy is going to shit. So again, if it takes a boy scout to run against the scum of Texas, and even then may just barely squeak out a win, the system is broken in more ways than just the electoral college.

x65943 · 2026-09-15T03:20:17+0100

titan_tim said:
If it takes starting a new pointless war, alienating every ally you have, threatening to annex multiple friendly countries, starting a tariff war, and destroying the entire economy of one of the richest countries in the world for a state to POSSIBLY flip, then it's not a good system.

Similarly, the only reason that a democrat is leading in the polls in Texas is because they put up the absolute WORST republican in history to run against him. The democrat is a straight male who has no drama or scandals behind him, and he's studying to be a damn priest!!! The only thing they can throw at him is saying he's pro-trans, like anybody cares what trans people are doing while the economy is going to shit. So again, if it takes a boy scout to run against the scum of Texas, and even then may just barely squeak out a win, the system is broken in more ways than just the electoral college.

It's not as broken as you make it out to be

The Senate has actually had more Democrat control than the house in recent years

titan_tim · 2026-09-15T03:49:26+0100

x65943 said:
It's not as broken as you make it out to be

View attachment 590732

The Senate has actually had more Democrat control than the house in recent years

That's an interesting graph, and I was looking at it for a while. It's a little heartening to see, but then I remember everything that had to be done in order to even get to that.

As you mentioned, low population state voters have more weight to their ballots. PACs are spending billions to influence the people of key states. The people are bombarded with commercials containing blatant lies or a huge bending of the truth. The people in power are allowed to draw their own congressional maps. The saying is that you don't choose the politician, the politician chooses you.

Of course there is also the issue of the uninformed electorate. I'm sure we've all seen the videos of people on both sides not knowing the absolute basics of what's going on in their own country. The democrats have the populist position on basically everything. The vast majority of the country wants universal health care, common sense gun control, abortion rights, safety nets, etc. Yet it isn't shown in the elections as it should.

x65943 · 2026-09-15T04:04:18+0100

titan_tim said:
That's an interesting graph, and I was looking at it for a while. It's a little heartening to see, but then I remember everything that had to be done in order to even get to that.

As you mentioned, low population state voters have more weight to their ballots. PACs are spending billions to influence the people of key states. The people are bombarded with commercials containing blatant lies or a huge bending of the truth. The people in power are allowed to draw their own congressional maps. The saying is that you don't choose the politician, the politician chooses you.

Of course there is also the issue of the uninformed electorate. I'm sure we've all seen the videos of people on both sides not knowing the absolute basics of what's going on in their own country. The democrats have the populist position on basically everything. The vast majority of the country wants universal health care, common sense gun control, abortion rights, safety nets, etc. Yet it isn't shown in the elections as it should.

Only about 1/3 want socialized healthcare
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-r...esponsibility-to-ensure-health-care-coverage/

About 50/50 split on whether Americans think right to bear arms or gun control is more important
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/

Abortion is about 60/40 split
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/

Calling this the vast majority is an oversimplification when you can see that actually:

Majority (2/3) want a system other than single payer socialized healthcare

Gun rights is 50/50

And abortion is 60/40 with something like 15 states being majority opinion anti-abortion

///

Is there gerrymandering, of course. Is there small state bias, of course. But none of that changes the fact that Americans are indeed divided on these topics.

titan_tim · 2026-09-15T04:45:38+0100

x65943 said:
Only about 1/3 want socialized healthcare
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-r...esponsibility-to-ensure-health-care-coverage/

That seems to be ignoring the 66% who want universal healthcare. But yes, 1/3 want a choice of either private or government.

x65943 said:
About 50/50 split on whether Americans think right to bear arms or gun control is more important
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/

Not sure if that is they're asking the right questions there. How you phrase the question makes a difference.

Sorry, but I GPT'ed these stats:
58% say U.S. gun laws should be stricter overall (Pew).
92% support background checks for all gun purchases in a Gallup poll.
86% support preventing people deemed dangerous to themselves or others from purchasing guns.
81% support red-flag laws allowing courts to temporarily remove guns from people considered dangerous.
79% support raising the minimum gun-buying age to 21.
64% support banning assault-style weapons, although this is considerably more partisan.

These are the common sense laws that people want.

x65943 said:
Abortion is about 60/40 split
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/

This is another one where the way the question is asked makes a big difference. If you ask someone should abortion be legal, they may be split 60-40. If you ask someone if they believe it should be legal if someone needs it because they'll die, they were raped, or the fetus is non-viable, the percentage goes up.

x65943 said:
Is there gerrymandering, of course. Is there small state bias, of course. But none of that changes the fact that Americans are indeed divided on these topics.

We have 66% for some form of universal healthcare, 70-80% in favor of common sense gun laws, and an abortion issue which is favored in it's basic form, and much more favored depending on the situation. I think that's a lot to work with for the democrats.

On the flip-side, what have the conservatives been running on? Anti-trans rights? Who gives a crap! That feels like the only drum they've been beating for years now.

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