redistrictgirl

[redistrictgirl]

To maximize base turnout, the Democratic Party has to appeal to black voters, it has to appeal to Jewish voters, and it has to appeal to queer voters. These demographics vote overwhelmingly for Democrats but tend to be polarized on primary candidate choice. Savvy leadership can’t let any of them feel left out in the cold, and of course, has the moral imperative to fight for all marginalized groups.

It’s a tricky balancing act, so everyone pretends it isn’t real. Basically every ideological actor, left or right, either denies the importance of one of these groups or pretends that their preferred policies will make all three happy. That includes YOU, brave poster. Hell, that includes me sometimes.

Will someone figure the balance out in time for 2028? Maybe, and that someone could very well become a generational supernova among Democrats. Will party leadership figure it out? Considering that they’re already showing their bellies on mass deportations and voting to restrict insurance on trans kids… don’t count on it.

[redistrictgirl]

Agreed on wojaks and conspiracy theories being inherently reactionary. The former is a brand that values aesthetics above substance and the latter always seems to send people down an antisemitic rabbit hole.

I don’t see any fundamental issue with greentext. It’s just a story structure. Stories are very flexible things, even if you give them a structure.

the master's tools will never demolish the master's house

"how about this wojak i made"

no

"what about this conspiracy theory i came up with"

no, not that either

> how about greentext

stop that

[redistrictgirl]

2024 House Forecast Postmortem

My final House of Representatives forecast projected a median outcome of Republicans holding the chamber with 219 seats. They won 220 seats last month.

There was your warning sign for a red wave, I suppose.

It's also a sign that my House model is actually pretty damn good compared to the other equally-insufferable data nerds. I got the House composition dead-on in 2022 and only one seat off in 2024. (For reference, David's Models missed by a combined fourteen seats and FiveThirtyEight a combined eleven across both elections.)

Those two elections were very different - one was a midterm, the other a presidential year; one had deceptive circumstances, the other had deceptive polling; one saw pundits overestimate Republicans, the other saw pundits overestimate Democrats. It speaks to some genuine versatility with an admittedly small-ish sample size.

Also worth noting that, except for Carl Allen giving Democrats a 62% shot, everyone's probabilities were grouped fairly close together this cycle. A 55-45 vs. 45-55 difference can be meaningful but is hard to use for proving accuracy when reduced to a single binary winner. It's kind of cool (in a Pyrrhic way) that I was the only one to have Republicans as the favorite, but it doesn't mean as much as correlation statistics or seat counts at this level.

And clearly, something different happened with my Presidential forecast - I had the ultimate loser ahead for the entire cycle and wound up missing four states out of fifty. So where did the difference lie? I believe it was in my polling averages. It appears that I did not overestimate Democrats' share of the generic ballot, while I did overestimate Harris' share of the popular vote. I'll get more into those details in my other postmortems, but I suspect generic ballot polls tend to avoid pushing too many true undecideds in a way that presidential polling just doesn't. It may, then, be worth expanding my use of this polling average in my other forecasts.

But there's a lot of good signs for my general methodology here.

My r-scores saw a MASSIVE leap from 2022 - 0.86 for polling, 0.88 for fundamentals, and 0.89 for a combined score. Fundamentals outpacing polling was quite surprising, but a few district-level polls whiffed HARD this year, and with the overall low amount of data, it could have very well made the difference. That's why you include both in your model.

I had the wrong candidate in the lead for nine races, which is actually a little high compared to other forecasters, but I think is more than reasonable enough given that my model gave the average favorite about a 5-in-6 chance of winning their competitive House district - in a normal year, we'd expect about 20 whiffs by that metric!

Adjusting for undecideds was the biggest change I made to all of my models this year, and it definitely helped in the House, bumping up my polling average's r-score by 0.03.

Overall, I'm very happy with how my House model performed. Aside from a few possible minor tweaks, I don't plan to mess with it - not only am I happy with current performance, I don't want to risk the model getting pummeled in a cycle because I overtuned it for prior elections.

[redistrictgirl]

Oh. The phrasing confused me. But I agree. The American electorate wants big ideas and strong brands, whether they’re from the left (AOC, Tlaib), center (MGP, Golden), or right (Trump). Harris not only failed to provide either, but actively avoided them starting around the DNC.

People who know better can see a fake ass politician. She should have actually run for something

[redistrictgirl]

Are you… are you saying Chappell Roan should have run for office?

People who know better can see a fake ass politician. She should have actually run for something

[redistrictgirl]

As someone who lived in exurban Atlanta for a few years, something understated about the South is how much pressure there is to support and participate in bigoted institutions. The amount of propaganda you see and hear is just sickening. Conservative elites down there have a well-oiled machine that pivoted to MAGA populism flawlessly. That doesn’t exempt everyday white southerners from blame in their harmful actions, but it’s more complicated for quite a few of them than “I am a frothing racist” - certainly, it never starts there.

[redistrictgirl]

UPDATE: He lost. Gotham is safe

[redistrictgirl]

Look, let me be explicit.

First, I won’t disclose my opinions on Mace. Her bills are many times worse than anything a Democrat has done this week, and that’s all I can say without giving her the attention she wants.

Green’s threats are completely unacceptable. Once again, that’s all I can say without giving her the attention she wants.

Mike Johnson is a pile of garbage for unilaterally implementing a bathroom policy that a probable supermajority of Americans (including a third of Republicans) do not agree with, and that will make the working environment significantly worse for transgender people on Capitol Hill. The policy is cruel and needless, so I can only presume he is making a conscious effort to be cruel. I look forward to dancing on his grave when the time comes organically, and I pray his incompetence makes this the last policy “win” he ever sees.

Any politician or politically-inclined person who supports these three charlatans has a special place in… well, my autocomplete filled that part out, and you can do the rest.

I don’t know whether Ms. McBride should have decided to follow the rule - I imagine it was a tough decision for her as well. She shouldn’t have made an explicit announcement about it either way, not in November. Her tweets on Monday sufficed. She put herself and every other trans American in a worse position on Wednesday, especially with a national bathroom bill now imminent. I hope to God she wasn’t pressured to do this by another Dem - it’s sadly possible.

Senator John Fetterman (who I don’t always agree with) has had the only response to recent events that I think is sufficient.

I hope he will walk the walk and that other cis Congresspeople will follow his footsteps. It is the only shot we have at protecting transgender Americans for the next two years.

[redistrictgirl]

Congressman Maxwell Frost of Florida has been added to the list of confirmed post-election allies.

Which Politicians Are Sticking Up for the Trans Community?

So the first issue the new Trumpfecta is tackling is trans people in bathrooms. This is actually a rather shocking priority even within the context of Project 2025, but the recent election of Sarah McBride to the House of Representatives seems to have set off Nancy Mace - and the South Carolinian got her first priority in astonishingly short order. Before you doom about the future of queer rights, here are some Democrats across the ideological spectrum who are publicly, clearly sticking up for trans people even after the election. Politicians representing states or districts that are not safely Democratic themselves are bolded.

JB Pritzker (IL-GOV) - Commemorated Trans Day of Remembrance, stated “trans rights are human rights”

Andy Beshear (KY-GOV) - Defended decision to veto anti-trans legislation

Maura Healey (MA-GOV) - Criticized fellow Massachusetts Democrat Seth Moulton for implying support of trans sports ban

Alex Padilla (CA-SEN) - Provided trans-positive statement to Erin in the Morning

Richard Blumenthal (CT-SEN) - Provided trans-positive statement to Erin in the Morning

Tammy Duckworth (IL-SEN) - Provided trans-positive statement to Erin in the Morning

Ben Cardin (MD-SEN) - Provided trans-positive statement to Erin in the Morning

John Fetterman (PA-SEN) - Implied he would rather lose his Senate seat than misgender Ms. McBride (a mandatory misgendering rule in Congress has been floated by House Republicans) and publicly offered her use of his private bathroom

Ron Wyden (OR-SEN) - Provided trans-positive statement to Erin in the Morning

Peter Welch (VT-SEN) - Provided trans-positive statement to Erin in the Morning, specifically referencing health care

Patty Murray (WA-SEN) - Stated that Democrats can win elections without “sacrificing” trans people

Maxwell Frost (FL-10) - Commemorated Trans Day of Rememberance

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) - Criticized bathroom bills

Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) - With respect to McBride, called on Republicans to “stop the bigotry”

So to my fellow Trans Americans, we’re not alone. And we don’t have to just rely on these politicians either - we have our families (found or otherwise) and each other.

Notes

This list is almost certainly incomplete - if you have a quote or statement from a politician specifically defending the transgender community, please share it so I can update the list! Several senators and governors provided statements in an article from Erin in the Morning. Erin Reed is an elite journalist, I encourage you to check her out.

[redistrictgirl]

Which Politicians Are Sticking Up for the Trans Community?

So the first issue the new Trumpfecta is tackling is trans people in bathrooms. This is actually a rather shocking priority even within the context of Project 2025, but the recent election of Sarah McBride to the House of Representatives seems to have set off Nancy Mace - and the South Carolinian got her first priority in astonishingly short order. Before you doom about the future of queer rights, here are some Democrats across the ideological spectrum who are publicly, clearly sticking up for trans people even after the election. Politicians representing states or districts that are not safely Democratic themselves are bolded.

JB Pritzker (IL-GOV) - Commemorated Trans Day of Remembrance, stated “trans rights are human rights”

Andy Beshear (KY-GOV) - Defended decision to veto anti-trans legislation

Maura Healey (MA-GOV) - Criticized fellow Massachusetts Democrat Seth Moulton for implying support of trans sports ban

Alex Padilla (CA-SEN) - Provided trans-positive statement to Erin in the Morning

Richard Blumenthal (CT-SEN) - Provided trans-positive statement to Erin in the Morning

Tammy Duckworth (IL-SEN) - Provided trans-positive statement to Erin in the Morning

Ben Cardin (MD-SEN) - Provided trans-positive statement to Erin in the Morning

John Fetterman (PA-SEN) - Implied he would rather lose his Senate seat than misgender Ms. McBride (a mandatory misgendering rule in Congress has been floated by House Republicans) and publicly offered her use of his private bathroom

Ron Wyden (OR-SEN) - Provided trans-positive statement to Erin in the Morning

Peter Welch (VT-SEN) - Provided trans-positive statement to Erin in the Morning, specifically referencing health care

Patty Murray (WA-SEN) - Stated that Democrats can win elections without “sacrificing” trans people

Maxwell Frost (FL-10) - Commemorated Trans Day of Rememberance

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) - Criticized bathroom bills

Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) - With respect to McBride, called on Republicans to “stop the bigotry”

So to my fellow Trans Americans, we’re not alone. And we don’t have to just rely on these politicians either - we have our families (found or otherwise) and each other.

Notes

This list is almost certainly incomplete - if you have a quote or statement from a politician specifically defending the transgender community, please share it so I can update the list! Several senators and governors provided statements in an article from Erin in the Morning. Erin Reed is an elite journalist, I encourage you to check her out.

[redistrictgirl]

My TikTok For You page, two weeks after the election, is starting to populate itself with Kamala Harris thirst slideshows. This is probably the lowest the left has ever been politically.

[redistrictgirl]

Looks like I was the only forecaster to have Republicans as favorites in the House. Definition of a Pyrrhic victory and all, and I still have to improve my statewide models, but I can't help but feel a little cocky about basically hitting a bullseye in the lower chamber two cycles in a row.

[redistrictgirl]

The way I see it, Republicans have three paths to ending our democracy:

SCOTUS (including Roberts and Gorsuch) straight-up saying “yeah you can be God-emperor, have fun.”

Trying to rig elections (when Democrats control almost every executive position in swing state governments)

Trump and/or Vance simply refusing to leave the White House

Only the latter feels highly plausible to me, and it’s just as likely to lead to a completely impotent Fed as a 10+ year regime if it succeeds without consequence.

I tell you this not as blind reassurance - the Trump/Vance admin will be brutal even in the best four-year-long case - but to tell you to keep your eye on the ball as we organize.

[redistrictgirl]

Noticed people reblogging my presidential forecast two days after polls closed. I appreciate your faith in me even if it defies logic and chronology.

[redistrictgirl]

It actually seems that it was… less close than this, even without undecideds breaking for Mr. Trump. A full postmortem of my model and strategies for future improvement will be discussed on this blog once all votes are counted. Apologies to anyone who got their hopes up from this model.

I believe that I will be able to improve my accuracy on statewide races in the future, and I already have ideas how to. However, I’m still fairly confident my House model will be the most accurate of any forecaster.

As of November 4th, 2024, the race for the US Presidency is a dead heat (52% chance for Kamala Harris).

Dear God, this is close, but overall, the Vice President has remained at least a nominal favorite for the entire election cycle in this forecast. She did fall behind in Pennsylvania's polling average, a major blow to her chances overall, but Mr. Trump closed out relatively weakly in the Southeast and lost a little ground in Wisconsin. Here are the states without an overwhelming favorite, from right to left:

Alaska (93% for Trump)

Maine's Second Congressional District (80% for Trump)

Georgia (78% for Trump)

Arizona (76% for Trump)

North Carolina (64% for Trump)

Nevada (53% for Harris)

Pennsylvania (54% for Harris)

Wisconsin (58% for Harris)

Nebraska's Second Congressional District (72% for Harris)

Michigan (73% for Harris)

Maine (92% for Harris)

Minnesota (94% for Harris)

New Mexico (94% for Harris)

Thank you for joining this ride with me. Stay calm and relax for a day (except for voting, if you haven't yet).

[redistrictgirl]

We’ll have to run a full analysis once all the votes are counted but it’s very possible that this is at least part of the story.

I think the bottom line is that this election was a red vortex on the current administration - the closer Democrats stuck to Biden, the deeper they fell. Sometimes this meant swing voters opting for the Republican, sometimes it meant pissing off your own base and having them stay home. Democrats with their own brand (North Carolina Dems as a whole, Jared Golden, AOC, Tlaib, MGP, Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester, and as much as I hate to admit it Colin Allred) actually performed quite well for *any* year.

The Democratic coalition is spread too thin ideologically. The tent was too big. If we have further free and fair elections, we need to build around the three demographics who stuck with us - Black voters, Jewish voters, and queer voters - and find the nearest 30% of the electorate to them.

AP is saying she lost by 5 million votes. which means even if all 2 million third party voters had voted for kamala harris (which would never have happened because of the libertarian party & RFK to be clear), she still would have lost.

instead of blaming leftists and palestinians for voting third party, you should be blaming the democrats for running a trash campaign. a campaign based in genocide, ethnic cleansing, cracking down on the border, children in cages, endless war with russia, endless war in korea, endless war in SWANA, the promise of war with china, refusing to actually defend (let alone protect) trans and queer people, and the list goes on. the democratic party is actively contributing to the rise of fascism in the united states, and they have been for 50 years.

[redistrictgirl]

It also appears that Sarah McBride, the first transgender congresswoman, will receive more votes than Kamala Harris in Delaware, although the margin will be closer.

In New York, Prop 1 ran twelve points ahead of Harris.

LGBT voters were one of the few constituencies to outright swing towards Democrats according to exit polling, and unlike Black voters, they’re everywhere in roughly even proportion.

As long as legitimate elections continue, we have an IMMENSE amount of leverage to make or break the next political alignment.

Ditching the queer community would be political suicide for Democrats.