Of course, many folks in the United States have an interest in the results of the next big election in November 2020, from the House to the Senate to the Presidency, as well as the state and local elections. I’ve talked about the 35 Senate races here, myself. But the Presidency is a little harder, since the mathematics of the Electoral College is confusing as votes are allocated two to a State plus the number of House members it has, making for wildly differing results depending on where votes are won – as President Trump demonstrated by losing the popular vote by several million votes, but winning the Electoral College.
Still, it comes down to what we call the mood of country: perceptions of policies, ideologies, dislikes & demonizations, likes and canonizations, perceived levels of competency, misleading statements from foreign entities, and a dozen other factors, which are then put together into a single vote (at least until Ranked Choice Voting goes national) by the voter. And while we wait for that final judgment day in November to come around, we have more than just polls to examine to forecast the future, and I’m not talking goat guts.
Special elections, those elections called to fill local or national elective offices prior to the big day!
As it happens, the Democrat’s propaganda machine likes to update me from time to time on these, and the first one of which I’ve taken any notice was last Tuesday, a special election to the New Hampshire House of Representatives, Merrimack 24. As it happens, in New Hampshire a district may send more than one representative to the legislature, with Merrimack 24 sending four. What happened in 2018?
They sent four Republicans.
2016? Ditto. In fact, it repeats back to 2012, where Ballotpedia stops.
But when one of the 2018 class passed away, a special election was called, which ended up pitting Kathleen Martins (D), an educator, against Elliot Axelman (R), an EMT. Democratic propaganda demonized Axelman, and it’s difficult to find much on his web site, beyond keeping taxes as low as possible and 2nd Amendment absolutism – neither of which fills me with feelings of wellness, as they are religious tenets of the current brand of Republican Party, but neither are alarmingly extremist, more naive than anything. Martins is even more bland.
Enough suspense, eh? Democrat Kathleen Martins beat Axelman, breaking the Republican lock on Merrimack 24, 1000 to 961. Yeah, the numbers are small enough that it only takes a small swing in sentiment for Martins to lose next time.
But consider this Ballotpedia tidbit as the greater context to this election:
In fact, the Republicans have held the chamber after the 2010, 2014, and 2016 elections; the 2018 elections signaled quite a change in the voter’s mood. Whether this means Martins will hold onto her seat is impossible to forecast, but the 2018 election behavior suggests that the Republicans have, at least temporarily, lost their grip on the sentiments of New Hampshire voters.
New Hampshire only has four electoral votes. Nevertheless, President Trump, in what I suspect is a calculated political ploy, has repeatedly claimed, without presentation of substantive evidence, that he in actuality won those four electoral votes, but the state was swamped with illegal votes that were not detected. These allegations were investigated and found to be without basis in fact. Whether this ploy will sway New Hampshire voters in November is to be seen, but I suspect President Trump, if he and his team continue to underperform in the realm of disaster response, will find it harder to find an inhabitant of New Hampshire who’ll take any such claims seriously in 2020.
