what we learned in the 2016 election cycle was that the republican voter suppression tactics are extremely effective.

i'm not going to get into the details of american senate or house races from up here in canada. but, don't be surprised if the democrats have a hard time getting the vote out - or if that is, at least, the official narrative.

it's the people that scream 'fake news' that are pushing fake news. my analysis at the time was that if the vote is fair then hillary will win - but the vote is not fair, so you should expect trump to win. the details of predicting specific seat numbers in the house and senate is a much more complicated problem, and suppression is a much more variable factor. but, the same basic narrative is likely to hold.

the polling isn't wrong.

the vote is being suppressed.

i'm not in a position to make a prediction as to the outcome right now, and will likely not be before november.

but, the methodological pushback i want to present is the following: it's not clear why you'd vote for a democrat in the house or senate if you don't like donald trump, both because it's not causal and because trump may actually have an easier time getting much of his mandate through with a democratic congress. much of the pushback against trump is coming from corporate democrats, who are broadly on the right of the spectrum, and more similar to house republicans than house democrats. trump may be personally unpopular, but i may speak for a number of people when i suggest that i don't like him but am pleasantly surprised by a percentage of his policies. i could easily imagine a scenario where donald trump is the lesser evil in 2020. so, this is far too simplistic a way to understand what's going to happen.

i mean, if you want to fall into the cliche that he's unprecedented, that's more or less what i'm saying. but let's get out head around that. all the way.