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That vote in 1994 was the first time Rs took control of congress in many decades. It was historical. It changed the way we view midterms.
What was historical about it and what changed about the way "we' view midterms?
So uh, pretty interesting result in the Massie primary yesterday.
It was the first time in many decades that Rs took control of the house, it was only since then that we "expected" control to change in a mid term. Largely because voter turnout is much lower and it takes less people to effect change. So if there's dissatisfaction with the President, less people can turn out and put in people to stymie a president's agenda. This midterm election will be significant in that (as long as I can remember) people didn't vote for a candidate simply because of an endorsement. I don't recall ever seeing an endorsement (from Trump) as having this much impact on a candidate. As much as people like to say the MAGA movement is crumbling, it looks to be gaining momentum as far as I can see. We'll see what Cassidy and Massie do for revenge here soon. They like to say that Massie voted with the Rs close to 90% of the time. However, voting with the Rs on insignificant things and then NOT voting on significant things 10% is what doomed him. Having said all that, Trump still does not have complete control like Nancy Pelosi did, getting there but not yet. Can you believe it was only 30 years ago that Ds and Rs still negotiated in good faith? I don't believe we'll get back to that so the only alternative is to create a party that votes as a block, we're still a bit too fractured. Why in the world can the senate NOT pass the save act that has support from 3/4s of the public as an example? They have not yet figured out that voting as a solid block, they can push through a LOT more legislation. Until then, the minority Dems are better at blocking legislation than the majority Rs are at passing legislation. Why? Because the Dems stick together.
TM
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Politics ended in 1994 when R's took control of the house. Clinton and the democrats negotiated in good faith and they got nothing for it. Republicans proceeded to impeach Bill over some BS, stole the florida election in 2000, did 9/11, started 2 quagmire wars, crashed the economy, lost their minds when Obama got elected, sold their souls shot Trump Russia and Israel, did COVID, and are now crashing the economy again. Just a rotten bunch.
I posted this in a thread last year comparing CA and TX districts. The racial gerrymandering in the south will be self evident as it gets undone.
California minority party (Republican) -
2024 general election: 38% Trump - 6M voters
2025 House representation: 9/52 seats = 17%
21% under-representation of the Republican party in CA prior to prop 50.
Projected 2026: 4/52 seats = 7%
31% under-representation of the Republican party in CA after prop 50.
Texas minority party (Democrat) -
2024 general election: 42% Harris - 4.8M voters. (Ok, so by this metric of the popular vote, the Democrats deserve 4% more representation in TX than Republicans deserve in CA.)
2025 House representation: 12/37 seats = 32%
10% under-representation of the Democrats prior to Gerrymandering
Projected 2026: 7/37 seats = 19%
23% under-representation of the Democrats post-gerrymandering.
My takeaway is that both states underrepresented the minority party. However CA remains significantly worse, while disenfranchising an additional 1.2M minority-party voters than TX does.
The 94 midterms were definitely significant with the R's taking over. That's for sure. As far as Massie goes, do a little deep dive into who funded his opponent. I call it election interference. I think we traded one of the few real America first Congressmen for a brown noser who was afraid to debate. I don't care much for rubber stamp Congressmen.
While who funded his opponent, 89% of Massie's money came from democrats or liberal PACs. He's not immune to that complaint.
Also, from someone at the Federalist,
"Why did Massie lose tonight? Massie went from principled libertarian during COVID, to GOP leadership lapdog under McCarthy, to anti-Trump Epstein obsessive in 2025 after tweeting about that issue a whopping three (3) times in the decade prior. The nail in the coffin for him was voting against OBBB in 2025 because, according to Massie, it did too much to secure the border. Trump mercilessly trashed Massie in 2020–calling him a “disaster” for America and Kentucky and saying he should be thrown out of the GOP entirely—but Massie easily swatted that away and won 81-19, so you can’t say he only lost because of Trump. He went toe-to-toe with Trump on COVID in 2020 and won overwhelmingly. Massie lost because he went from being perceived as a quirky but lovable nerd who seemed to genuinely believe everything he said, to looking like a clout-chasing influencer who cared more about getting TV time with Democrats on an issue he clearly never cared about until five minutes ago than he did about representing his voters. We’ll never know what caused the apparent personality change—maybe it was the death of his wife, maybe it was the McCarthy race followed by McCarthy’s ouster, or maybe it was a desire for notoriety or media acclaim and a lucrative podcasting career outside of Congress—but the drastic change was undeniable, as was the seeming lack of interest in much of anything happening in Kentucky. Blame Trump, blame Israel, blame Epstein, blame the tragic death of a spouse, I don’t care. But you cannot just wave away 2020 Massie going face-to-face with the Trump machine and winning in a rout only to get smoked six years later. Massie’s voters didn’t really change all that much, but he did, and they noticed."
Those are not necessarily gerrymandering. Gerrymandering, whether good or bad, is intentionally changing voting district boundaries to push out the other party from gaining a voting majority in most districts, which in states like CA or TX probably means that you will end up with a few districts that vote 70-90% for the minority party while voting 30-40% in a lot more districts.
But if you want to use your data as proof of gerrymandering then you would also be making the assertion that over the last 30 years it has been far more of a tool of the Republicans, wouldn't you?
I don't get it, why is my data showing that it's been more a tool of the Republicans?
Are we in agreement that a map without any gerrymandering would be drawn geographically, say by county? If this is the case, which I believe it is, Democrats would never win any medium-large state again. Here's a map of how the individual counties voted in the 2024 general.
Democrats rely on gerrymandering their urban populations across the state.
You got it all wrong man. That deep red district in Kentucky actually wanted a congressman that votes with the left. This is clearly "The Jews" oppressing the people and colonizing the state of Kentucky.
That's a ridiculous argument. Land doesn't vote, people vote. The voting districts are supposed to be designed that individual voters have an equal voice. Your hypothetical would give Loving County TX(population 64) the same voting power for Congress as Harris County TX(population 4.8 million).
before trump was elected the right wouldn't shut the fuck up about the epstein files
after trump was elected the epstein files were a hoax, and every republican that still supported the release of the files has been primaried.
kind of weird how easy you are manipulated
Not quite as ridiculous as you state. The districts should not look like a snake through the state just to get a vote for a particular party. I get what he's saying about a border of a district. OF course one county has a different population and would require pairing up with adjacent counties. But when you look at maps of how it's presently done, the maps look like someone threw paint on the wall. But we know that's not the case, they are very studied to get the most desirable representation of the party that drew the map.
TM
You’re comparing land mass, not population.
A giant red county in Wyoming might have 6,000 people in it. A blue suburban county outside Atlanta or Philly can have over a million. It can literally take 12–15 rural red counties to equal the population of part of one urban blue county.
Congressional districts are based on equal population, not equal square miles. Otherwise empty desert would get more representation than actual people.
As for the last 30 years (since the 1994 Contract on America election) Republicans have had a higher percentage of house seats than the percentage of overall votes for house members in 11 of 14 elections. Using your correlation equals causation logic, that means that they have been benefiting from gerrymandering, correct?
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I don't think you are getting the point. Maybe Massie's money did come from democrats or liberal PACs, I don't know that to be a fact. However, they were not doing it on behalf of a foreign country like AIPAC.
As far as the Federalist writer's opinion goes, we could have a copy and paste war on conflicting opinions anout Massie that could reach 500 pages. Not interested. And you don't need to search for other justifications for being against Massie. He's not a Trump fluffer. That's it and I get it.
So while I respect and think about your opinions (slightly different than my own 😉) . Do you know if they spent money to get Massie out or Gallrein in? I think that would make a difference. But also, Massie did himself in. He has a very MAGA constituency that he's supposed to represent. If he listened and acted on what his people wanted, it wouldn't matter how much money got spent or by who. He'd still have his seat. It's almost impossible to unseat a sitting senator in the primaries.
TM
To get him out or support his opponent makes no difference to me. It's still foreign interests interfering with our elections. I don't claim to know what the voters in his district wanted or even if the AIPAC money made the difference. Now we will never know. Is it possible that AIPAC spent this money because they agreed with Gallrein's policy statements on things like immigration, farm policy ect? Don't make me laugh when my lips are chapped. I doubt that Gallrein's positions on policy were at all different than Massies. With one exception: allegiance to Israel. Why do I say that? Only a couple years ago they did the same thing in a Democrat primary and it was for one reason, Bowman critcized Israel. I'm pretty sure that at the end of the day you would prefer that foreign interests stayed out of our business. And make no mistake, that's what AIPAC is. So we have little disagreement here except that it's 2 loyal Americans disagreeing about the merits of a primary candidate in an American election. Perfectly legitimate. I don't even care if American citizens, loyal to Israel, voice their opinion. But throw over 30 million dollars into 1 house primary to hopefully affect the outcome to the benefit of a foreign country? Fuck that.
Pit Row
I understand and respect your position. And it's a legit concern. Also, do you feel that way on a smaller scale? Like, should Texas money be allowed to influence CA elections? IE: Should borders of states matter as well as border of nations? And the question is not to judge your answer like so many ask only to critique. I don't know how many representatives races are funded by aipac but it seems like 100% of representatives get money from out of state.
TM
It's pretty complicated. In the case of AIPAC, they are a superpac and not allowed to donate directly to a candidate. What they do is buy ad time or space to say what they want. Either for a candidate or against one. To attempt to control that is really stepping on the First Amendment which is vital to protect. (See what I did there?) 1A is specifically for protecting political speech and not to protect your right to call your neighbor an asshole. I don't have any answers as to how to keep this from happening but I don't want some government agency deciding who can exercise their A1 privileges and who cant. If a group of American citizens decide to pool their money and buy ad time or space on the free market to make a political point, I want that protected. See Citizens United, which I supported which also puts me in the minority. In the end all someone can do is try to get the truth out about certain organizations and what they are really up to.
And thanks for taking my rant seriously. I try to do the same with opinions that are sincere and not just bumper sticker bullshit.
Oddly enough I agree on the Citizens United. As I understand it, if the government is going to regulate and tax a business, they absolutely should have a right to spend money to express their political opinion. Same as me, I'm going to be taxed and regulated so I should be able to voice who I want to represent me for what I believe are my best interests. You might have to rethink your whole existence finding out we agree on something. 🤣
TM
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