The Senate presents a different problem – one of trying to hold on to control of the Senate but doing so while electing Members who will be more faithful to their oaths than the retiring senators & those facing primary challengers. The Senate portion of the makeup of the 116th Congress is 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, an Independent (King of Maine), & an Independent Socialist (Bernie). King & Bernie caucus with the Democrats.
Republicans will be defending 23 Senate seats in 2020 while Democrats will defend 12. These figures include the 33 Class II senators up for reelection in 2020 & two special elections in Arizona (caused by McCain's death) & Georgia (caused by Isakson's retirement @ the end of 2019 due to poor health). Four Republican senators are not running for reelection in 2020 & one Democrat incumbent is not seeking reelection – Tom Udall in NM.
The biggest surprise is that Susan Collins (R,ME) has not made her intentions known regarding seeking another term. Collins won her last Senate election by 36.2% but since then gave an impassioned speech in favor of Bret Kavanaugh, who won his Supreme Court seat 50 to 48, & also voted for Trump's December 2017 tax cuts that did away with the individual ObamaCare mandate – two votes of questionable appeal in Maine. Collins has a liberty score of F @ 12% joining the other 3 Members of the Maine delegation who are all graded F.
Defending two Senate seats in Georgia will be extra hard for the GOP in a state that has indications of turning blue with the latest indication being the closeness if the 2018 gubernatorial election in which a Republican squeaked out a victory.
Republicans can lose three Senate seats & still control the Senate if Trump wins but confirming Supreme Court Justices is dicey even now because some current Republicans are not reliable votes – like Lisa Murkowski (F @ 27%) of Alaska who opposed Kavanaugh. The most difficult races in 2020 are in Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, & Georgia where, as mentioned above, two seats are being defended. Texas poses a special problem if presidential candidates Beto O'Rourke or Julian Castro or Castro's twin brother Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro decide to run for the Senate. O'Rourke lost the 2018 Senate race to Ted Cruz by a narrow 3% so the seat could be in play again in 2020. John Cornyn is the Republican incumbent with a liberty score of F @ 31%.
Martha McSally narrowly lost the 2018 Senate race in Arizona to Kyrsten Sinema but was shortly thereafter appointed to fill McCain's open seat until the 2020 special election. McSally has a liberty score of D @ 60% & is not strong on opposing Red Flag laws so many conservatives in the state are not pleased with her. Businessman Daniel McCarthy is planning a primary challenge – the type of challenge that hurt McSally in 2018. The Democrat opponent is most likely former astronaut Mark Kelly, whose wife, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, was shot in an assassination attempt in 2011 so a debate on gun policy or allowing families & law enforcement to remove guns from people deemed dangerous under Red Flag laws will be very sensitive. Could be a no-win for Republicans either way. Trump has endorsed McSally.
In Colorado Cory Gardner won his last election by 1.9% & has a liberty score of F @ 49%. His most likely opponent is former Democrat presidential candidate John Hickenlooper who already has won two statewide elections as governor in addition to winning two terms as mayor of Denver. Hickenlooper is a very formidable opponent.
In North Carolina Thom Tillis won his last election by 1.5% & has a liberty score of F @ 38%. Tillis faces a primary challenger in businessman Garland Tucker who believes that Tillis has not supported Trump sufficiently. Trump formally endorsed Tillis in June. Many readers will recall the post North Carolina Patriots Help Influence Senator's Vote from last March when two very dear friends, who live in NC, shared their positive experience with Tillis after writing to him.
Kansas has an open Senate seat with the retirement of Pat Roberts who has a liberty score of F @ 42% – so Republicans have a chance to make a real improvement. Kris Kobach, former Kansas secretary of state (SOS), lost his gubernatorial bid in 2018 despite Trump's endorsement so many are trying to tempt Mike Pompeo to leave his national SOS position & run for the Senate representing Kansas. Pompeo could secure this seat for the GOP which could be very pivotal especially regarding the confirmation of Supreme Court Justices.
One bright spot for the GOP is Alabama where Democrat Doug Jones (F @ 11%) won the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions in a special election when Sessions took the job as Attorney General in 2017. Alabama is one of the most conservative states in the country & retaking this seat is highly likely if Judge Roy Moore, who lost to Jones, does not win the Republican nomination. Moore was inundated with sexual misconduct charges involving teenage girls that he could not overcome in the 2017 special election.
The above analysis shows that the Senate is up for grabs, if not stacked against the Republicans maintaining control.
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The above image shows the electoral college win of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016. In essence, all other things being equal, Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) brought Trump to the 270 electoral vote total necessary to win the presidency. Pennsylvania (20) & Michigan (16) provided the increase in electoral votes to 306.
But even @ that the victory was very fragile – by a total of less than 80,000 votes combined in all three of these states. Razor thin. BO could have mustered up more than the ten thousand votes Trump won Michigan by in Detroit alone. Trump won Wisconsin by 22,748 votes statewide & Hillary received 43,000 less votes in 2016 than BO did in 2012 in Milwaukee alone.
And of course the popular vote tally, that is of no consequence in the electoral process, is a foregone Democrat conclusion. Since 1988 Republicans have won only one popular vote total in the last seven presidential races. With Hillary's 4.48 million vote advantage in California & 1.73 million vote advantage in New York it will be hard enough for any Republican to win the electoral college in the foreseeable future let alone the meaningless popular vote.
If you discount California (55) & New York (29) Trump had a 3,134,432 popular vote plurality in 2016 over Hillary in the combined other forty eight states – 55,686,707 to 52,552,275 – so even spotting the Democrat nominee 84 electoral votes in 2020 still gives Trump a chance in the electoral college.
Please note that Hillary did not win the popular vote in 2016 – when the votes were certified in all fifty states Hillary had not received a majority of the popular vote. She led with a plurality of 2,868,519 votes (65,853,625 – 62,985,106) or 48.0% versus 45.9%, as the polls had indicated. The polls were not wrong in their polling data – they were wrong in erroneously projecting Hillary as the next president. Hillary did receive 2.1% more of the popular vote than Trump as the polls correctly forecast.
So with many of Trump's advisers correctly worried about his losing Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, & Michigan in 2020 Trump has set his sights on four other states just in case any or all of these three fall back into Democrat hands – New Mexico (5 electoral votes), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4) & Nevada (6) total 25 electoral votes if all four states are swept by Trump, enough to win the electoral college if all things remain the same as in 2016 except Trump loses WI, PA, & MI. The electoral college totals, in that case, would show Trump winning 285 to 253.
At his September 16 KAG rally outside Albuquerque Trump touted that New Mexico leads the nation in job & wage gains under his administration – Nevada is second on this list. Trump is counting on this type of prosperity growth meaning something to these people. But we have little or no reason to believe it does with the socialist mentality in the country exemplified by the share of prime-age Americans (25 to 54) seeking or holding jobs being less than it was when the great recession started in December 2007 – 83.1% versus 82.6% last month accordingly to the Bureau Of Labor Statistics. The labor force participation rate of people in their prime working years has dropped by 1.9 percentage points from 1998 to the present begging the question how important are jobs to these people in their prime working years. In 2016 Trump lost New Mexico 48% to 40% in a 62% turnout election with Hillary not putting a foot in NM to campaign – but the former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson received 9% of the vote as the Libertarian candidate. Hispanic voters comprise almost 40% of NM's electorate. Based on all this Trump thinks NM is in play.
Trump lost MN to Hillary in 2016 by 1.5% in a 75% turnout election - MN has not voted for a Republican since 1972. Reagan lost it to Mondale in 1984 by 0.2%. Trump lost Nevada by 2.4% in a 77% turnout election – the third time in a row that NV has voted for the Democrat nominee. Trump lost NH by 0.40% in 2016 in a 75% turnout election – the second closet state election after MI. NH last voted Republican in 2000.
The close high turnout loses in 2016 do provide some credibility for Trump's NM, MN, NV, NH strategy especially if the turnout drops off which is highly unlikely. Low turnouts always favor Republicans.
But even a sweep of the seven states mentioned above by Trump does not mean he is home safe. Georgia (16), Texas (38), Arizona (11), North Carolina (15), Florida (29), & Ohio (18) all look to be in play to some degree & are worrisome. Trump is underwater in his approval ratings in both AZ & NC & a loss in those two states would wipe out any gain from Trump's four new targeted states that he thinks are in play.
But getting back to WI, PA, & MI - Trump's job-approval rating is currently @ or below 45% in WI & MI. It is below 40% in PA. A Marquette University poll conducted August 25 to 29 showed Biden beating Trump in Wisconsin by 9 points. Democrats have no state with more reason to beat Trump than WI – they still can't believe Hillary never put a foot in the state in 2016. The Democrat National Convention will be held in Milwaukee in 2020. In 2018 longtime popular governor & former Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker lost his reelection bid to Democrat Tony Evers.
More recent polls than the above mentioned Marquette poll from several states show Biden beating Trump in eight key swing states. Warren trails Trump in five of the eight. The latest national poll shows Biden winning 51% to 44% & Warren winning 48% to 46% – the same plurality that Hillary had in 2016.
Based on this post & the last there is much reason to believe that the electoral process in 2020 is stacked against Republicans & especially against Trump.
Free market capitalists will have 11 months of angst waiting for the debates to start. The debates provide the best chance for Trump to directly & unfiltered expose the decadent destructive plan of ruin for America that Democrats are prepared to implement. For a few hours on maybe two occasions one of the uninspiring Democrat socialist presidential candidates, who take their marching orders from AOC to a large extent, will have emerged to stand on a stage with Trump - a man of stature & unlimited energy. This appears to be such a mismatch that I would not be surprised if Democrats make up a reason to not participate in the presidential debates.
The Democrat presidential nominee will have to explain to the nation on national TV:
Why he or she is more worried about transgender bathrooms than sanctuary cities that harbor illegal aliens, why they think illegal aliens have more rights than you & me, why they propose decriminalizing illegal border crossings, why they plan to hand out reparation money to Blacks & homosexuals, why they want to eliminate our borders & ICE, why they want to expand welfare programs @ taxpayers' expense including a federal jobs guarantee & free public college & trade school, why you need to show ID for virtually everything except to vote, why there was a wall with armed guards around the Democrat convention center in Milwaukee last summer but Democrats are against a wall to protect America @ our southwest border;
Why they want to vacate the Second Amendment & eliminate the electoral college, why they believe universal single payer government healthcare is a human right that depends on someone else (i.e., doctors) providing that right @ their expense, why they plan to make employer provided healthcare insurance illegal for over 150 million American workers, why their policies amount to a gigantic give away of the citizenry's life's savings to the poorest least educated unskilled people in exchange for their expected votes that will keep the socialist Democrat elites in power for the rest of their lives @ our expense – including extending healthcare insurance to illegal aliens, why taxpayers should be on the hook for the forgiveness of all student loans, why they won't admit that the Green New Deal, that calls for the end of the use of fossils fuels by 2030 thereby eliminating all the jobs of people employed in coal & fracking, is the largest expansion of government since LBJ's Great Society & is more about AOC's economic agenda
for America & less about eliminating carbon emissions; Why they honor thugs as heroes while vilifying policemen who bring them to justice, why they do not condemn illegal aliens who have been deported six times & are free to walk a pier & fire the gun that killed Kate Steinle, why bakers, florists, pizza store owners, & photographers have to prove they are "religious enough" to avoid discrimination lawsuits after not participating in homosexual marriage ceremonies, &
why the Democrat socialist policies attract caravans of illegal aliens to America, who turn out to be fraudulent asylum seekers @ rates of over 75%, thereby making U.S. citizens wonder if it is worth it to work, or even to look for work, (there are 102 million Americans working full time year round & 108 million Americans receiving some portion of the 126 welfare programs identified by the Cato Institute – source Dick Morris Power Grab, Page 48).
Trump will counter the above sick anti-American Democrat ideas by pointing out he has been securing our borders against an onslaught of people intent on violating our sovereignty @ their pleasure & our expense, building our economy (lowest U-3 unemployment rate since December 1969 @ 3.5%, the lowest U-6 rate since 2000 @ 6.9%, the lowest unemployment rate for high school drop outs @ 4.8% since the labor department started keeping such records in 1992, a 3.9% Hispanic unemployment rate & the lowest jobless rate for Hispanic men on record @ 3.0% going back to 2003), strengthening our military as opposed to the Dems no-first-use nuclear policy that means the United States under a Democrat president would be willing to see major cities on either coast wiped out by a nuclear strike before responding in kind, protecting & supporting Israel, reducing taxes & regulations on businesses, protecting the unborn, & eliminating unfair trade even @ his own personal short term political disadvantage.
Trump can counter Democrat's tremendous bias against the well off & corporations by pointing out that the general public owns stocks & bonds outright as well as through pension funds & 401(k)s. How many million people work for corporations? – corporations are not the enemy they are our employers.
Trump can ask why his Democrat opponent favors failing government schools where teachers' unions call the shots rather than allowing the growth of charter schools that caring parents want their children to attend because of the higher learning achievements especially for blacks & Hispanics. Democrats & teachers' unions have a personnel interest in not fixing the education problems of this country & Trump must make this clear.
While on the subject of education, the August Jobs Openings & Labor Turnover Summary (JOLTS) issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on October 9 showed there were 7.1 million job openings in America on the last business day of August, a figure exceeding the number of unemployed people who are actively looking for a job by over 1.2 million. See graphic below that shows job openings over 7 million & new hires under 6 million. There have been more job openings than unemployed people looking for work since March 2018. Trump has unleashed an economy that cannot find enough qualified workers & poor education & lack of training is the essential reason. The relationship to this bottleneck has to be hammered home.
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Trump can use the Dems own words to show they will reverse the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017 & institute 70% to 90% top marginal income tax rates on individuals, raise the capital gains & corporate tax rates, & implement wealth taxes.
But worst of all for our Republic, the Democrats have been in a constant impeachment mode since the day after the election of 2016 when they were stunned to realized that Trump had won the presidency. Prove this for yourself by clicking on the following montage that starts in November 2016 & goes to the present without a month missed in between.
Democrat hopes for a basis for impeachment were placed on Robert Mueller's investigation that, after two years of wasting time & money (two terms I hate), did not prove Trump colluded with Russia or obstructed justice. How do I know? – because Dems unceremoniously dropped Mueller & moved on to put the next worm on the hook after the last one fell off without a whimper meaning bring the fake Ukraine story front & center. In between we had claims regarding Stormy Daniels & Trump's tax returns, both of which still float around the media in case they catch on. Dems aren't choosy which basis for impeachment they use just as long as they can find one.
It is important for the electorate to recognize just how long this impeachment obsession has gone on – the Mueller investigation @ least partially masked the obsession because it took almost two years to conduct & came up with nothing.
Trump's impeachment onslaught has been relentless as the above video montage proves without the hostile anti-American media's least bit of suspicion or interest regarding Hillary's campaign hiring Christopher Steele & paying for Steele's phony dossier, Bill Clinton's large speaking fees following Hillary's state department trips, & contributions to the Clinton Foundation from foreign actors - or Joe Biden bragging on national TV about his getting the prosecutor fired while investigating Burisma Holdings Limited, a Ukrainian natural gas company doing business with Joe's son Hunter Biden, or Hunter Biden's compensation & contract execution that wreak of nepotism @ the U.S. vice presidential level. The hostile anti-American media sees no possible perception of any of these Clinton or Biden dealings being wrong or worthy of any investigation.
We have descended past the point where we can have free elections & peaceful transfers of power because it would undo all the work the socialist Democrats have done to brainwash our children starting with primary education & running through elementary & secondary schools & college. This brainwashing has far too many of the citizenry, especially the young, willing to throw away their heritage of liberty, as they become enemies of capitalism in favor of a government-dependent socialist life, after graduating from college with tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt & no viable or visible gainful employment.
It should be obvious that the Democrats hatred of Trump shows that Democrats cannot tolerate the peaceful transfer of power from BO to Trump where the power of the people, as a result of an election, is given to the person chosen to lead the U.S. Such a peaceful transfer, if allowed to happen without constant & intentional harmful interference, would start to reverse years of socialist brainwashing in the kindergarten through college government school system – a system Neal Boortz called "more dangerous to America than al Qaeda" - as people see for themselves the benefits of replacing government dependence with limited government, personal responsibility, & free enterprise.
Before Trump, Democrats thought they had the country on a glide path to socialism. After Trump won, Dems had to resort to attacking free market speakers on college campuses & people dining or wearing MAGA hats. Tactics of tyranny designed to intimidate & shut up any opposition have been regularly used since Hillary lost the election of 2016.
But the current belligerent antagonistic state of affairs has progressed way past the peaceful transfer of power from BO to Trump. It is now something that half of the country just cannot stand or tolerate. We will keep this up until we destroy ourselves & one of God's two great gifts to the world – America. The Democrat socialists cannot afford to let Trump govern, without their constant interference, so that people see the fruits of free market capitalism after BO expanded every government program he could find during his eight years in office.
This predicament is important enough that one reader sent me the following message after the last post – "I remind people even if having heart surgery go & vote first."
