After defeating Tea Party, GOP primed to defeat Democrats
- By Mitchell Blatt
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail China.org.cn, November 3, 2014
On Nov. 4, voters in America go to the polls to vote in elections that will probably give the Republican Party control of the Senate. After six long and grueling years of fighting President Obama's agenda, a Republican victory would give the GOP full control to block his polices in Congress for the last two years of his presidency.
|
|
|
Midterm elections happen every four years and are 'mid-way' through a four-year presidential term. |
The elections this week are the easy part for the GOP. The hard part has been keeping the party from being overtaken by extremists in the run-up to November's elections.
If the Republicans win, it will be because they ran quality candidates in most races after having defeated Tea Party candidates who threatened to poison the GOP's brand and lose Senate races. The radical Tea Party faction of the GOP cost the party important races in 2010 and 2012.
In 2010, for example, the GOP had a relatively good year, winning control of the House of Representatives from the Democrats and picking up six Senate seats, but Tea Party and Christian conservative activists definitely lost at least one (Delaware), and possibly two more (Nevada and Colorado) Senate seats by nominating bad candidates. 2012's elections were a humiliation for the GOP, brought about by Christian conservatives and Tea Party candidates who focused their campaigns on an abortion ban, and the GOP actually lost a total of two Senate seats.
Now the Republicans need to gain six seats in order to form a majority in the Senate, which would give them a majority in both houses of the legislature. They have a good chance of doing so. Five Thirty Eight, a data journalism website run by famed prognosticator Nate Silver, gave the GOP a 68.3 percent chance of victory on Oct. 31.
The problems Republicans faced in 2010 and 2012 have been minimized. Six Republican incumbents faced challenges from (often kooky) Tea Party candidates, but all six managed to beat their fringe opponents, unlike in previous years.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)