If you look at all 36 Senate races as they stand now

[dsc]

which includes 2 each in blood red Oklahoma and in South Carolina, plus having a Senate race in Texas with none in California, New York. Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Florida we got 47 percent of the vote outside of Alabama. Alabama was unopposed so no votes were counted. Thus we might have fallen to 45 percent with Alabama included but there are votes left to count so we could be back up to say 46 when all is said and done. This shows just how unfairly divided the US Senate is. We got more votes by a mile in 2012 and we got some more votes even in 2010. In short, even in this Senate which is nearly certain to be divided at best 53 to 47, and likely to be 54 to 46, we got more votes than our opponents and not by a trivial amount. That is something that should be kept in mind when we discuss the concept of mandates for programs.

[femmocrat]

1. I am hoping that Toomey in PA is vulnerable.

He rode in with Corbett four years ago and no one has heard from him since.

He co-sponsored a gun "control" (or something) bill with Joe Manchin, so that will alienate him with the hunters.

Fingers crossed.

[Man from Pickens]

2. Senate seats are two per state

Meaning two seats in a low-pop state like OK are just as valuable as two seats in a high-pop state like CA. When you look at the map, there are way way way too many seats that Democrats are simply forfeiting, giving the GOP an unwarranted and unearned advantage.

Leaving these 'blood-red' seats uncontested is self-defeating. Dean had it right with his '50-state strategy'. Every one of these seats needs to be contested.

[dsc]

3. we ran opponents there

but they lost. The only unopposed seat, and I have no idea how that came about, was in Alabama were Sessions ran unopposed.

[Man from Pickens]

5. I'm talking real efforts, not token placements

I saw nothing from Democrats in SC. Two seats forfeited without a fight. Sure this is deep-red, but Graham at least is not at all loved by his own party and could have been vulnerable with the right opposition.

[dsc]

6. I have some sympathy with that argument

but for me the most glaring case was Maine. Collins ran essentially unopposed and that is inexcusible.

[BlueCaliDem]

4. The Founding Fathers wanted us to revisit the Constitution every 19 years to keep it up to date,

but they initially drafted the Constitution to favor a few moneyed landowners, not the citizenry.

Thomas Jefferson on that:

Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of nineteen years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right. It may be said, that the succeeding generation exercising, in fact, the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the constitution or law had been expressly limited to nineteen years only. In the first place, this objection admits the right, in proposing an equivalent. But the power of repeal is not an equivalent. It might be, indeed, if every form of government were so perfectly contrived, that the will of the majority could always be obtained, fairly and without impediment. But this is true of no form. The people cannot assemble themselves; their representation is unequal and vicious. Various checks are opposed to every legislative proposition. Factions get possession of the public councils, bribery corrupts them, personal interests lead them astray from the general interests of their constituents; and other impediments arise, so as to prove to every practical man, that a law of limited duration is much more manageable than one which needs a repeal." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:459, Papers 15:396

Were we a true democracy, the Senate, like the House, would have a proportionate number of Senators relative to the size of the population in any given State. As it stands now, Wyoming with their 550,00 people gets as many Senators as California with our 38 MILLION people.

That said...as the election results in the above States have shown time and again, where there are more people voting, Democrats/Liberals win. Where there are fewer people voting, Republicans/Conservatives win. And there's no denying that turnout this time around was pathetic.

Only 36% of eligible voters who share our liberal principles bothered to take time out of their busy lives, and vote, and that always favors Republicans who are fanatical when it comes to voting. Combine that with voter suppression laws enacted in crucial States and you have the answer why we lost.

Too many don't consider voting as our civic duty as an American citizen to have a say in our representative government. They believe is something you do when you have the time or inclination, taking on a laissez faire attitude about something that, in the past, people have been beaten, tortured, hanged, shot, and murdered for in order to win for us the right of that precious vote today. And that's just heartbreaking.

[Yupster]

10. It's better than it was

For our first 140 years, the Constitution said senators were chosen by the state legislatures, not the voters.

That was to be the states' assurance that the federal government would not take power away from the states. The states would control one house of the congress.

That was changed by the Seventeenth Amendment.

[Zorra]

7. Another reason splitting the country up would be awesome.

I'm making plans to move from my red state to a blue state right now; it's hopeless, and I hate being governed by corrupt, ignorant leaders. The republicans here have gerrymandered things in my Congressional district here so obviously that voting for a Dem candidate for the House is only symbolic.

[Yo_Mama]

8. This doesn't make sense to me - you can't mix votes from different elections.

The seats up for grabs this year skewed to the R side, so that's how you get this result. The essence of district/state voting is that voters in that area select the person they want. Naturally the end result doesn't match with the popular vote by party.

Of course, looking at the House map, maybe we should be glad that all the senators don't come up for election in the same year.

In fact, maybe you should rethink your hypothesis. Because House seats are allocated to states by Census population counts, and when you look at the result, the reality is that right now D support is concentrated in a few geographical areas. In the new Senate D's will be about 85% of the R's, and in the new House D's will be about 75% of the R's.

The Senate was set up to be a balancing wheel in the federal government to provide more continuity, and it's working as designed.

[dsc]

12. the house is exceptionally gerrymandered

In 2012, we got a majority of the two party vote in MI, OH, PA, NC, and WI and got nowhere near a majority of the seats in any of those states. In no state, not a single one, did that happen to the GOP. I will admit we didn't get a majority in any of them except MI this time but the results, with the exception of one seat in NC, were the same. In short, the House has become divorced from being a democratically representative body.

[cilla4progress]

9. Disincentives to voting

Voter intimidation - if photo i.d. is required, it should be provided free by fed/state government

Logistical difficulty of getting to polls - favors old, retired, higher income people with more autonomy in their jobs - should all be vote by mail as it is in my state of Washington. Should have pre-stamped ballot envelopes. National holiday also a good idea.

Knowing that the game is rigged. Why bother?

Uninspiring candidates, i.e., Martha Coakley, even Allison Grimes with her running away from the Pres. solid record on the economy, ACA, national security.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. You can't meaningfully compare popular vote between elections.

Presidential elections bring far more people to the polls.

[dsc]

13. the Senate representation was determined by the votes of three elections

so yes, we can do that.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

15. But that compares fractions, not absolute numbers!

Comparing the fractions of the votes won in three elections *is* a reasonably meaningful thing to do. The fraction of votes won is a reasonable (not perfect) proxy for the fraction of the electorate that supports you. So if you average fraction of vote over three years, you'll get a reasonable picture of average political support over three years.

But comparing the total number of votes wrong is meaningless, because the number of votes won scales not just with popularity, but also with what else is on the ballot, so it's not a useful proxy for level of political support.

[CBGLuthier]

14. Any way you look at it, the senate is undemocratic, the truest indicator of our status as a republic

Add in the fact it is without a doubt the most worthless collection of rich assholes the world has ever seen who seem to revel in their absolute inability to get anything done no matter which party is in charge and I see no reason this country would not be a hell of a lot better off without them.

They are in every sense the american equivalent of the English House of Lords. Useless and entitled.

[branford]

16. The Senate is working exactly as intended.

We are a federal republic, and the states have interests and rights that are recognized by the Constitution. The equal allocation of senators among the states was an important compromise necessary for ratification of the Constitution and to ensure that big states like NY did not dominate the small states like RI and VT. Until the Constitution was amended, the state legislatures even selected their federal senators. The Senate is perfectly democratic under this rationale, every state gets the same two votes.

Moreover, the Senate was designed as the slower and more contemplative body, and a bulwark against populist trends. That is why senate terms are 6 years, only a third of senators are up for election every two years, the Senate confirms executive appointments, a two-thirds vote is required for treaties, etc.

Much of what you dislike about the Senate is considered an intentional and wanted feature, not bug. Nevertheless, just as we amended the Constitution to permit the direct election of senators, it can be amended to eliminate the Senate or even institute a parliamentary-style government. Good luck trying convince states like VT, NH, RI, DE, and others to even entertain the notion.