2018 Senate Toss Up Races-Polls-Bob Davis Podcast 751

2018 Senate Toss Up Races-Polls-Bob Davis Podcast 751

These days political coverage turns elections into sporting events. My mission is to provide political coverage without making predictions. Let’s start with the Senate in 2018 Senate Toss Up Races-Polls-Bob Davis Podcast 751.

November 6th 2018

First of all throughout this podcast I refer to election day as November 7th 2018. In fact it’s November 6th, 2018. Until election day, many of the questions people have about outcomes will remain unanswered. I’ll tell you why.

Statewide Races

Furthermore commentators love to make national predictions. It’s important to remember these are individual state elections. Despite efforts by the media to make you think these are national elections, they aren’t. They’re local elections. Find out more in 2018 Senate Toss Up Races-Polls-Bob Davis Podcast 751.

The Stakes Are High

Especially relevant are the stakes. The future of Donald Trump’s presidency is in the balance with these Midterm Elections regardless of the local and national issues driving them.  Much of the coverage of the 2018 midterm elections hinges on this truth.

Key Races

What it comes down to are about 6 or 7 key races in various states around the country. As we get closer to election day (November 6th 2018, by the way) the line up of so called toss up races might change.

Holding The Majority

Republicans currently hold 50 seats in the US Senate with one vacant seat. Democrats hold 48. 2 Independents caucus with democrats giving them 49 votes potentially. With Vice President Mike Pence, the republicans can count on a 51 seat majority.

Arizona’s governor will appoint a replacement for the late John McCain, giving the republicans a potential 52 vote majority.

Will republicans hold that majority?

Making Useless Predictions

Finally I am so tired of hearing these know it alls making predictions based on primary vote results and conventional wisdom. As you’ll hear in 2018 Senate Toss Up Races-Polls-Bob Davis Podcast 751 polling is pretty thin in some key races. It’s about time someone covered the story without telling you who’s going to win.

Trump’s Twitter Feed

In conclusion we’ll cover about 7 senate races worth talking about. Will the president’s twitter feed and rally machine help republicans or hurt them?

As far as predictions, I remember a sports writer’s response when I asked him which team was going to win the big game Sunday. He said “That’s why we play the game!”

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating Of Saint Paul

2018 Senate Toss Up Races-Polls-Bob Davis Podcast 751

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2018 House Toss Up Races-Story Lines-Predictions-Part 2-Podcast 717

2018 House Toss Up Races-Story Lines-Predictions-Part 2-Podcast 717

Continuing to run down the toss up races in the 2018 midterm elections for the US House. The big story line? A democrat wave will wrest control of the house from the republicans. In 2018 House Toss Up Races-Story Lines-Predictions-Part 2-Podcast 717.

From The Midwest Across To The Atlantic Coast

Kansas and Nebraska. East of the Mississippi to Iowa. Minnesota which has some of the closest House races in the country. Illinois in the northern suburbs, and the Land of Lincoln’s southern tip. Across to New York, Georgia, New Hampshire and more.

All About Political Junkies

The second of two parts of a mega podcasting effort for political junkies and subscribers who just want someone to objectively run down all the races in one spot. We’ll challenge some of the myths and tell you why some pundits say this year is a game changer. In 2018 House Toss Up Races-Story Lines-Predictions-Part 2-Podcast 717.

These days the biggest problem with the media is its penchant for trying to predict the future. Americans are ill served because of this problem. Expectations become truth. Final outcomes turn out to be much harder to predict. Democrats learned this the hard way in 2016’s presidential race.

Republicans Defending The Most Toss Up Seats

Especially relevant is the fact that as a political agnostic, I’m not afraid to tell you there is almost no polling to speak of, despite all the efforts to predict the outcome of 435 House Races. To be sure, the republicans are defending most of the toss up seats.

Why Democrats Believe This Will Be A Wave

Moreover after spending two days poring over election data and reading about local issues and personalties, I can tell you why democrats believe this will be a ‘wave’ election. Do their hopes have any basis in reality? Well. Listen and find out. In 2018 House Toss Up Races-Story Lines-Predictions-Part 2-Podcast 717.

With the Midterms 7 months away, anything can happen. Moreover primaries in some races will determine the tactical situation in many of the House districts in question. Both parties are furiously trying to raise enough money to compete. Will they be able to commit the resources they’re famous for in the special elections that grabbed all the headlines lately?

All Politics Is Local

That’s the old saying. What are the local issues, personalties and unique characteristics of places we don’t think very much about unless its our home? How many of those out of the way places may have an election that determines the future of our country? Check out 2018 House Toss Up Races-Story Lines-Predictions-Part 2-Podcast 717 and let’s talk. For the same kind of analysis on the US Senate Toss Up races, go here.

Sponsored by Reliafund Payment Processors and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul

2018 House Toss Up Races-Story Lines-Predictions-Part 2-Podcast 717

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Podcast 546

Podcast 546-What Is Next? Almost all media these days is advocacy journalism. It used to be called ‘yellow journalism’. Back in the day yellow journalism was characterized by newspaper publishers like William Randolph Hearst who, when an artist he’d sent to Cuba cabled Hearst the fact that the USS Maine had blown up because of an accident, famously replied, “You supply the pictures, I’ll supply the war!” Everywhere we turn these days we are bombarded with the surface arguments. The personalities, the propaganda, the arguing back and forth. It goes far beyond media bias. It has become media advocacy. Telling you and I who to vote for and why. Telling us what we are to believe in and what our country stands for, and why. It’s a fact of life on both sides of the fence. We end up going back and forth about nonsense, most of the time. For me to add to this noise, seems to be a waste of time. Of course I have my own point of view about politics these days, and I’ll try and save most of those observations for podcasts detailing state by state polls, or addressing specific issues when they need to be addressed. How you vote, who you vote for and why you vote the way you do is your business. The easy thing to do these days is turn on the microphone and bloviate about what happened on the campaign trail today. It is much harder to find something to discuss that goes beyond. Hence Podcast 546-What Is Next? How can we move to the next step in the country and the world. Not what happens after election day 2016, or Inauguration Day 2017. This question deals with what happens down the line. If we spent a fraction of our time actually trying to inform ourselves about issues we can know about, rather than consuming propaganda, we would be better citizens and better stewards of the future for the country. The answers to the things we can know about, aren’t in social media or even necessarily searchable. The answers are in libraries. We can’t be fully informed about an issue if we don’t even know what questions to search. So let’s get started answering the question, What’s Next? Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Hydrus Performance.

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