I (probably) won! Uh...now what?
I know you don't want to read this, hear this, even
think this, but
we are probably going to lose the Senate. Yes, it's possible the polls could be slanted against us, but as Nate "the Great" Silver reminds us,
it's equally likely that the polls are slanted against the GOP.
Like you, I've seen several diaries explaining how, actually, we're potentially poised to win! Our GOTV efforts trump theirs! The pollsters don't contact cell phones! We lead in early voting in crucial states like NC! Democrats always trail in early voting in Colorado!
But here's the thing: even given all this, we are probably going to lose. To deny this is to turn ourselves into Mitt Romney's campaign team on Election Night 2012. Let's not kid ourselves: we're the underdogs in this fight.
Does that mean I'm giving up? Far from it! I made GOTV calls yesterday and today and you should, too(it's not too late)! And if we manage to pull out a win, it will be awesome! But even if we don't, it's not all doom and gloom.
Head below the orange cloud of hopes and dreams to read three reasons why.
1) They lose the filibuster
That's right: the biggest tool in the Republican obstructionist arsenal - the filibuster - will be out of their hands. Of course, with Republicans setting the agenda, you might think that's a moot point: it isn't.
Why not? Because they will be transformed from a party that can simply obstruct bills to a party that must pass bills. And it's a lot easier to call someone out on a bill they voted for than a bill they obstructed. For example, "He voted to take away your Medicare," sounds much better than, "He didn't vote in favor of bringing a bill extending your Medicare to the floor."
This will also highlight the empty attic of Republican ideas for moving the country forward. Yes, they can now pass a repeal of Obamacare out of Congress - 50 times, if they want - which the President will veto even if Democrats don't filibuster it themselves. But somewhere down the line, they will need to craft some legislation on something - immigration, healthcare, budget, something - and then everyone will see what they're really up to. Who knows, the spotlight may even highlight the rifts in the party enough to make the cracks bigger.
2) What goes around, comes around
Many people are going to talk about the 2016 Senate electoral map in the coming days, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it except to say that the GOP is defending 24 seats and we are defending 10. Of those 10, the only non-blue states are Colorado and Nevada, where the Presidential ground game will be hot. The GOP, on the other hand, is defending seats in blue states like Illinois and Pennsylvania, and swing states like Florida and Ohio.
According to fivethirtyeight, the most likely (~43%) electoral scenario going into 2016 is for the GOP to have 52 or 53 seats, and in about half of those scenarios, that includes Kansas independent Greg Orman, who has said he will caucus with the majority (which, I assume, means that if the majority changes during his term, so will he). This means Democrats will need to pick up one to four seats* to regain the majority...not too tall of an order.
But here's the thing: the GOP knows this, too. They know they probably have only two years in the Senate majority. So if they were thinking of pulling some trick like abolishing the filibuster to ram some unpleasant bills through, they'll probably think twice, knowing the tables will be turned on them in just two years.
Abolishing the filibuster wouldn't do them any good anyway. See, Obama isn't up for re-election ever again. And his party isn't up for re-election with him as President. So while the GOP could pass all the filibuster-free legislation it wanted - out of both houses - Obama could veto it all with impunity.
While I'm not particularly optimistic that Obama's final two years with a Republican House and Senate would be as productive as (ultimately, post-impeachment) Clinton's, there's reason to anticipate a change of tactics, at least, if not strategy.
3) Presidential math
I would not want to be a Republican running for President in 2016. Counting up all the electoral votes of ONLY states (and DC) that have voted Democratic in all of the last six Presidential elections (i.e. since 1992) already gets you to 242 electoral votes...just 28 shy of a 270-to-win win. By contrast, doing the same with red states only nets you 101.
Adding states that have only flipped to the other party once or twice in the last six elections brings the Democratic total to 252 (with Iowa and New Hampshire) and the Republican total to 206 (mostly from Southern states that voted for Clinton and NC, which voted Obama in '08).
Add the now-reliably-blue New Mexico to the blue column and you get 257 blue, 206 red. Assuming those votes are all "safe" (although changing demographics in Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina make all of those states more purple than the GOP would like), this means that a Democratic presidential candidate in 2016 would only need to win Ohio OR Virginia OR Florida OR Colorado-and-Nevada OR pick off North Carolina OR Georgia OR Arizona plus one other.
By contrast, a GOP candidate would need to win Ohio AND Virginia AND Florida AND two of three of Arizona, Colorado or Nevada AND hold on to North Carolina AND Georgia. Could this happen? Yes...but it's not hard to see who has the upper hand.
And with changing demographics, it's likely that Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia only get bluer as their urban centers expand, and Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico get bluer, too, as their Hispanic/Latino and urban populations increase. And with every red state that turns purple and every purple state that turns blue, the GOP electoral math turns sour.
And that's something to be very, very happy about.
*One seat if the GOP has a 52-48 majority including Orman and a Democratic vice president is elected in 2016 as tiebreaker coupled with an Orman flip. Four seats if the GOP has a 53-47 majority not including Orman and - horrors! - a Republican vice-president is elected in 2016.
Update 11:25 PM: Thanks to all for the recs and great comments on my first diary! Alas, it appears the polls were in fact skewing slightly...but in the wrong direction. This was one I really wanted to be wrong about.