I’ve seen a lot of updates from liberals over the weekend who seem to be preparing for the worst tomorrow because from their POV there’s no way to win some of these races.
Democrats can win any race if every eligible Democrat votes. It’s just basic numbers — elections are determined by turnout.
I looked at Mississippi from their Senate race in 2014 because I think that’s an example of a state that is reliably red every year but with a sizable Democratic population who probably feel like voting is a waste of time because their state is red, but it doesn’t have be. I also picked Mississippi because it has one of the highest felony disenfranchisement rates in the country — almost 10% of the voting age population can’t vote because of a felony. (x) Since Black people make up the majority of prisoners, that’s another blow to the Democratic vote in Mississippi.
And it still doesn’t have to be a red state.
In 2014, there were 2,200,605 native-born Mississippians over the age of 18 (I didn’t count foreign-born because I couldn’t find stats for what percentage of them are citizens now). (x) At a 10% felony disenfranchisement rate, that’s 1,980,544 eligible voters.
Only 617,920 people voted in the 2014 Senate election, 59.9% (378,481) for the Republican and 37.9% (239,439) for the Democrat. (x) If that same percentage carried over to nonvoters, that’s 516,434 Democratic votes that weren’t cast, for a total of 755,873 votes.
We can actually assume that Mississippi is more than 38% Democrat because they went 44% for Obama two years earlier and and because there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in every state in the South even though elections are regularly won by Republicans. (x)
Republicans are playing a lot of dirty tricks with this election, from disenfranchising Native Americans who only have a PO Box to throwing away registrations because of a signature to lying about early voting at the polls. There will be more tricks tomorrow, but you have to vote. This could very well be the last opportunity for Democrats to wrest power from the Republican party because they will do everything in their power to make sure we never get close again. They already win elections in states where there are more registered Democrats.
Compare this chart of states which require registration by party with the 2016 electoral map.
These are the states Trump won (with their electoral votes) where there are more registered Democrats than Republicans:
NC 15
KY 8
LA 8
FL 29
WV 5
PA 20
Clinton would have won if every registered Democrat had voted EVEN IF every registered Republican had as well.
There isn’t a single election up for grabs in this country that we can’t win if we overwhelm the tricks with sheer numbers. Republicans motivate with fear and anger. So be more afraid and more angry than they are! Remember where we were two years ago and how fast the political landscape has devolved since then. We have two more years of that to look forward to if you don’t vote.
Be even more afraid — what do you think will happen in every race we lose tomorrow? Republicans will make it that much harder to win next time. Thanks to the Supreme Court, we lost the most important part of the VRA while Obama was President — what do you think happens to voting rights under Trump with both chambers of Congress and the Supreme Court on his side?
So be very afraid, but let that fear mobilize you and take a friend to the polls who never votes because they think their vote is pointless. Tell lazy young people that Democrats outnumber Republicans all over the country, even in red states, states that stay Red because their Republicans are angrier and more afraid than their Democrats, so they actually go to the polls. I’m safe here in New York. It’s easy for me to tell y’all down in Georgia or Florida or Texas to go vote because I live in NYC and we are reliably Blue. If I could vote for you, I would, but all I can do is give you the numbers and paint a picture with them. Show the picture to whoever needs to see it – none of your races are hopeless if everybody actually votes.
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