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passiveporcupine

(8,175 posts)
Mon Mar 14, 2016, 05:53 PM Mar 2016

We have a job to do

A total of 469 seats in the U.S. Congress (34 Senate seats and all 435 House seats) are up for election on November 8, 2016.

The big story of the 2016 congressional election cycle is whether or not the Democratic Party will be able to regain control of the Senate. In order to take the chamber back, Democrats will need to gain five seats in 2016, a difficult but not impossible task. The majority of vulnerable seats are held by Republican incumbents, many of whom are freshmen who were swept into office in the Republican wave of 2010. Additionally, Democrats only have 10 seats to defend in 2016, while 24 Republican incumbents are up for re-election.

Assuming that the Senate does block any nominee (for SCOTUS) of President Obama, confirmation will be left to the newly elected Senate in 2017. This puts increased pressure on both parties to win the Senate in 2016, as the chamber will have the ability to confirm or deny the next president's nominees. This could also raise the issue of Republican obstructionism in battleground states and potentially harm Republican incumbents who need to appeal to more moderate voters in order to win re-election. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said of the issue, "I believe that many of the mainstream Republicans, when the president nominates a mainstream nominee, will not want to follow Mitch McConnell over the cliff. The American people don't like this obstruction. When you go right off the bat and say, 'I don't care who he nominates, I am going to oppose him,' that's not going to fly."

There is significantly less at stake in the U.S. House in 2016, as control of the chamber is very unlikely to be in question. In order to flip the chamber, the Democratic Party would need to pick up 30 seats, a nearly impossible task. While it would be very difficult for the Democratic Party to gain control of the chamber in this election cycle, Democrats can still hope to reduce the majority that the Republican Party holds. Republicans currently hold their largest majority in the U.S. House since 1928.


Lots more info here, for people like me who don't know enough about current politics and what we are facing this November.

https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Congress_elections,_2016

Nothing is impossible if we work together, support our congressmen/women and get out the vote! This is part of what Bernie needs us to do so he can make waves once elected.

Feel The Bern!
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