The 115th Congress Senate Races: Rs Lost Two Seats; Final Result is 48 D - 52 R

THE REPUBLICANS MANAGED TO RETAIN CONTROL OF THE SENATE but by a smaller margin than before. The Question is ... can Sen McConnell keep the monolithic voting block together (he can afford to lose only three R votes instead of five) with such an unpredictable President in office? There are still a few moderates left in the GOP camp but it remains to be seen if they can stomach Trump enough to not go rogue.

IT IS NOW TIME TO FOLLOW THE 2016 US SENATE RACE where the outcome is as uncertain as it was in 2014. Just to memorialize the title of the previous version of this hub, I'll repeat it here

The 114th Congress and 2014 Mid-Term Election, My Esoteric Thinks Democrats Keep Senate 51-47 w/2 run-offs

and the Summary said:

Just as the 2008 Presidential election was historic in breaking the color barrier for the U.S. Presidency, so 2014 may be with the demise of the Republican Party. Political pundits don't think so, but I have my doubts.

I couldn't have been more wrong!

Obviously, I won't have to change the title much, will I.

12/28/2015: Democrats will win back the Senate majority in 2016

8/19/2016: 50/50 split with Vice President breaking ties and that both Independents continue to caucus with the Democrats.

11/2/16 : With six days to go, here is how the race to control the Senate stacks up where Democrats need to pick up four seats over what they have now to take official control:

1. Democrats/Independents have 36 out of 50 not up for election.
2. There are 10 States which are solidly in Blue hands giving the a total of 46 as the minimum number of States that the Ds will win. They need 5 seats to take back the Senate.
3. Republicans have 30 out of 50 States not up for reelection.
4. Republicans have 15 States certain to go their way giving them 45 Senate seats they will win. They are Short 6 seats to maintain control.
5. That leaves 9 contested seats and five more to keep control of the Senate.
6. It will be these ten that make the difference:

Let us take a look:

1. Arizona - McCain up 13 points: Republican (5 more to go)
2. Florida - Rubio up 5 points: still a toss up leaning Republican (4 more to go)
3. Indiana - Bayh up 3 points; still a toss up leaning Democratic (4 more to go)
4. Louisiana - Rs up by 13 points but there will be a run-off between an R and a D; leans R (3 more to go)
5. Missouri - Blunt up 1 point; still a toss up.
6. Nevada - Heck up 1 point; still a toss up.
7. New Hampshire - Ayotte up 2 points; Still a toss up.
8. North Carolina - Burr up 2 points; Still a toss up
9. Pennsylvania - McGinty up 3.5 points; probably Democrat (3 more to go)
10. Wisconsin - Feingold up 5 points; probably Democrat (2 more to go)

As things stand now the Ds need to win only 2 out of the 4 toss ups to gain control while the Rs need to win all three.

See TABLE 5 for State-by-State breakdown.

I AM A POLITICAL JUNKIE AND I SPENT a lot of computer bits analyzing the 2012 Presidential election. I think I did a good job predicting the size and the outcome of the Presidential and Senate races. I feel that I beat most of the TV pundits on TV and many of the individual polls. You rewarded me with some pretty high readership numbers, thank you.

I did the same for the 2014 Midterm election of the 114th Congress ... and failed miserably. This time around, for the 115th Congress, the 435 House seats and 34 Senate seats are up for grabs. It is very problematic that the Democrats can take back the House, but the odds are in their favor for the Senate. Why? Because of the 34 Senate seats in play, only 10 are held by Democrats and 24 by Republicans (the reverse of 2014), most are far-Right winners from the massacre of Democrats in the 2010 Mid-Term blow-out. The table below describes the sea change in Senate seats in 2010.

THERE ARE 54 REPUBLICAN, 44 DEMOCRATIC, AND 2 INDEPENDENT SENATORS (who caucus with the Democrats) in the 114th Congress. Of those, 34 are up for grabs; 24 Republicans and 10 Democrats. To return Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to the Minority Leadership (assuming he remains in the leadership position), the Democrats need to win 15 of the elections (in 2010, Republicans needed 21 wins, and they got it). That means the Democrats need to hold all 10 of their current seats and take 5 away from the Republicans.

At this moment in time, with 3 months before the election, the Democrats are guaranteed 4 wins in Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island because there are no Republican challengers; that leaves 17 "vulnerable" positions. 5; HI, New Mexico, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington which appear to be extremely safe. That leaves 12 for which there may be some doubt.

Now, consider the following table created from an analysis of the exit polls from the 2012 Presidential elections.

ONE REASON PRESIDENT OBAMA WON A SECOND TIME is very obvious once you understand this table - Women. Because I am trying to stuff multi-dimensions of information into a 2-dimension table, it can get a little obtuse; so let me try to unpack it a little bit.

• One dimension is looking at the Red, Blue, and Purple-leaning States, they run across the top.
• Another dimension is political party; those also run across the top with each State color divided into Ds and Rs.
• Then we have the percentage of Males and Females that voted in each State Group, and
• Finally we have the percentage of Males and Females that voted by Party in each State group.

So, what do we see?

• That the percentage of Males and Females who votes in each State group is basically constant at 47% for Males and 53% for Females; giving Females the louder voice in this election
• There is a distinct bias between political parties between genders and State groups. As you move from Red to Purple to Blue, it is easy to see 1) the switch from a Republican to Democrat bias and 2) that this is true in all cases, Females are more Democratically biased than Males
• Given the predominance of the Female voter in the 2012 election, you can easily see the bias toward Obama.

Now, let's consider this 2016 Senate race.

YES, THE YOUNGER YOU ARE, THE MORE LIKELY you are to vote Democratic. The older you are, however, the more likely you are to vote and to vote Republican. Even so, the two trends do not tend to cancel each other out, but instead, worked to Obama's advantage.

There were initially six age stratifications but they were reduced to four after combining ones with similar results, to wit: 18 - 24 with 24 - 29, and 40 - 49 with 50 - 64. As you can see, the youth vote, 18 - 39, comprised from a low of 32% of the vote in Red States to 37% in Purple States. The more mature votes (that is me), on the other hand, dropped from a high of 20% in the Red States to a low of 15% in the Purple States. Roughly 48% of the vote was made of "transitional" voters between the ages of 40 and 64 (remember, this is an average as there were only a total of 31 States which had exit polls).

Because the size of the youth vote overwhelmed that of the mature vote,combined with the fact that it was lopsidedly in favor of President Obama; it was more than enough to off-set the less impressive advantage Romney had with the "transitional" and mature voter.

The 2016 Presidential and Congressional races can't necessarily rely on a repeat of this demographic. It was Barack Obama who energized the youth vote in 2012; in 2016 it was Senator Bernie Sanders. But Bernie lost the nomination battle to Hillary Clinton, so the question is ... how many of those currently energized young voters can Clinton retain and how many will matriculate to the Green Party or simply drop out again?

Do we find the same to be true if the vote is look at along racial lines?

SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK; is there a racial bias in American politics? Table 4 would be the first clear evidence it may be true. When we consider all the tables together in combination with some other knowledge, it becomes even more evident. But, a true picture can't be developed until you look at say the Clinton (a white Democratic victory) and Bush 43 (a white Republican victory) exit polls in the same manner and do a statistical comparison. Nevertheless, it is not an unreasonable hypothesis to make given America's history of racial intolerance.

Let us see why. First consider some racial demographics for the U.S. According to a PEW Research analysis of eligible voters in 2016:

• White Alone - 69.1% (Down from 71.1%)
• Hispanic - 12.1% (Up from 10.8%)
• Black - 12.1% (Up from 12%)
• Other - 6.7% (Up from 6.1%)

This demographic shift clearly favors the Democrats in both the 2016 Presidential and Congressional races. This is especially true for Hispanics who not only have a higher percentage in eligible voters but, because of Donald Trumps anti-Hispanic rhetoric, are more likely to vote.

For the Exit Polls, those sampled self-identified themselves as follows:

• White Alone - 75% (White Alone w/Hispanic included for Population is 77.9%)
• Hispanic - 9%
• Black - 14%
• Other - 7%

From this, one can see that people vote probably vote relative to their proportion of the population. Most likely that includes the White/Hispanic group which is problematic because Hispanic is an ethnic group while White is a race and many Hispanics identify themselves as White. I was rather curious if this was going to be the result because I have heard pundits say Blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented at the ballot boxes; which may have been true in past elections, but not in this one.

Consider that if it were up to those who identified themselves as "White" in America, at least in the Exit Polls, Obama would not be President. Nevertheless, that is not the way it came down in 2012. What did present itself is that White's rejected Obama with only 32% voting for him in Red States, 42% in Purple States, and a paltry 48% in Blue states; remember around five of those percentage points are probably Hispanic in ethnicity to boot.

Once we turn our attention to the other two groups plus the catch-all "Other" do we understand the Great Divide in America and the problem the Republican Party faces in 2014 and on. Romney was, relative to other Republicans, a moderate; yet the best he could do was pick up 38% in the "Other" category in the Purple States. That simply doesn't bode well for any State-wide candidate and if the Republicans keep further alienating the Hispanic community as it seems they are dead set on doing, things are only going to get worse for them.

Now let's turn our attention to a final demographic captured in Table 4, gender-tiy-race; a key statistic in my analysis.

TABLE 4 STRATIFIED TWO TO THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTORS in the election at the same time, Gender and Race; the next level of detail would have been to produce information stratified by Gender-Race-Age, but, unfortunately, they didn't crank out those numbers. Nevertheless, this table says a lot all by itself!

As you scan the table left-to-right and top-to-bottom, you will see where I bolded certain numbers. These percentages are ones where more than 50% voted for President Obama. Notice the one lonely bolded 56% for White Women in Blue States; that is the ONLY instance where a Black President garnered more than 50% of the vote from White People ... what does that suggest to you? I know know what it tells me, especially when I combine with these two other points:

• other studies have shown that Gen X youth seem to have begun to turn the corner regarding racism because they are more focused on Individuals than, unlike previous generations, Groups. As a result, when their "different strokes for different folks" tolerance level is measured, it is much higher than for the generations between theirs and mine (the almost-dead generation)
• the results of the youth vote from the exit polls across the Red, Purple, and Blue States clearly bear these findings out.

Add those to the fact that Obama couldn't win the majority of the White vote in States that are supposedly heavily Democratic suggest strongly to me racism is a factor. But, as I said before, until put up against similar polls for Obama's first election, Clinton and Bush 43; one can't be certain, You can't tell anything from the Red or Purple State results, by the way because you would expect similar results with or without racism involved; maybe not to such a degree, but it would had to discern.

That 56% from White Women, however, along with the minority vote, especially the Hispanic vote since it leaned more Democratic than normal, is what kept Obama in the White House.

Consider that around 5% of the White vote, as previously mentioned, is Hispanic, and the current numbers which self-identified Hispanics are voting Democratic already, the damage Republicans can do to themselves if they continue to ignore the fact they are truly frustrating the Hispanic community. How much closer to the Black voting percentages will the Hispanic voters climb to as they attempt to elect Congressman that will enact laws to benefit them?