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I voted for Biden and for Democrats in 2020 in spite of major ideological differences I have with that party.
The GOP messaging is that if Dems control the Senate, America will swing hard to the left.
Let me explain why I don't believe the GOP's scare talk. With numbers.
The GOP messaging is that if Dems control the Senate, America will swing hard to the left.
Let me explain why I don't believe the GOP's scare talk. With numbers.
GovTrack puts out every year a list of the members of Congress by ideology. Here's the one for the most recent year they completed, 2019. It ranks the members of each chamber from most conservative to most liberal.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2019/senate/ideology
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2019/senate/ideology
If Ossoff and Warnock beat Perdue and Loeffler, the Senate will be evenly divided with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans with VP Harris having the tiebreaking vote. Control would go to the Democrats. But the most moderate members of both parties would have the most influence.
So I took the GovTrack rankings for 2019 and took out the rankings for the members who will definitely not be Senators in the next Congress (Alexander, Enzi, Gardner, Harris, Jones, Roberts and Udall).
And then I assumed the GOP's supposed "America-turns-socialist" scenario - assumed that neither Perdue or Loeffler will be in the Senate either.
McSally is already gone.
That leaves 90 Senators whose ideology was ranked in 2019 by GovTrack who will still be in the Senate.
McSally is already gone.
That leaves 90 Senators whose ideology was ranked in 2019 by GovTrack who will still be in the Senate.
Which Senators would constitute the known and measured ideological center of this new Senate in which there are 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans and the Democrats have control?
Here is what the list of the 20 most moderate Senators in such a Senate would look like.
Here is what the list of the 20 most moderate Senators in such a Senate would look like.
Of the 50 Democratic Senators, one of them, Sinema, is ranked to the right of 7 different Republicans.
Another Democrat, Manchin, is ranked to the right of 3 Republicans.
A third, Tester, is ranked almost exactly the same as Murkowski.
Another Democrat, Manchin, is ranked to the right of 3 Republicans.
A third, Tester, is ranked almost exactly the same as Murkowski.
The 20 most moderate Senators in this supposed GOP "Doomsday" scenario would include 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats.
And that horde of 50 Democrats would include 2 members who are ranked to the right of some of the 50 Republicans.
And that horde of 50 Democrats would include 2 members who are ranked to the right of some of the 50 Republicans.
In this Senate that the GOP warns us about, the known and measured ideological center of the Senate, from right to left, would be Joe Manchin and Susan Collins. In THAT ORDER.
The President-Elect of the United States, Joe Biden, is probably the most moderate of the more than two dozen Democrats who ran for the Presidency in 2020.
The House has a VERY slim Dem majority.
And if the Senate is evenly split w/Dems holding the gavel, the world won't end.
The House has a VERY slim Dem majority.
And if the Senate is evenly split w/Dems holding the gavel, the world won't end.
