WI: 2012 Senate elections go better for the Democrats

This is something of a minor political WI, but, let's say, for whatever reason, possibly due to a more successful stimulus bill and a more-quickly recovering economy. The Democrats come out of the 2012 Senate elections with 60 seats. Even if the Republicans maintain control of the House, Obama now has a clearler mandate. What does he do with it? Is there less obstructionism? How does this effect the 2014 election?
 
How would the Democrats be able to gain 60 seats after the 2012 senate elections is the biggest question here. I mean the fact that they managed to gain 2 seats was already very impressive considering how many deep red state senate seats Democrats were holding.

At best Democrats would be able to win Neavda and Arizonia (two states they came fairly close to winning) and might be able to get Ben Nelson to run again and maybe be able to win. That would get the Democrats up to 58 seats including the two New England "independents". How are they going to gain an extra two seats in that scenario, especially since the scenario I just laid out is already a Dem wank anyway.

You would have to go back to the 2010 senate elections and change some of the results there for your scenario to be realistically plausible. And let's be real, Democrats still having a filibuster proof senate majority in Obama's second term is pretty unrealistic.
 
The Democrats did quite well as it was. 2006 had after all been a good year for them in Senate elections, and in early 2012 it was widely expected that they would lose seats, not gain them. I suppose they could have gained more if there had been even more Republican candidates willing to say crazy things about pregnancies caused by rape, but it is remarkable that the Democrats were able to gain even two seats that way...
 
Even if the Democrats somehow came up with 60 seats, they would still need a majority in the House to pass any legislation. Without that, every major bill they try to pass is toast from Day 1. And getting a House majority is a lot harder than in the Senate thanks to gerrymandering which is controlled by the individual states, which in turn were largely controlled by the GOP. In 2012 the Democrats won the popular vote in House elections, but still came up 33 seats short of a majority. So you would need a landslide Democratic victory in the likes of 1964 to get a filibuster-proof majority and a working House majority.

At the end of the day, the GOP would have to nominate someone extremely unpopular for President in order for the Democrats to get the landslide victory needed.
 
2012 was an excellent Democratic year. After 2000 and 2006 there were vanishingly few opportunities, and yet the Democrats still made gains (2018 ought to be apocalyptic for Democrats. The fact that gains are even conceivable is mind-boggling).

Your better bet is have 2010 (and 2014) be less Republican...
 
2012 was an excellent Democratic year. After 2000 and 2006 there were vanishingly few opportunities, and yet the Democrats still made gains (2018 ought to be apocalyptic for Democrats. The fact that gains are even conceivable is mind-boggling).
Um...What? The party that controls the presidency almost ALWAYS loses seats in the midterms. especially when that President's approval rating has yet to break 50%.
 
Um...What? The party that controls the presidency almost ALWAYS loses seats in the midterms. especially when that President's approval rating has yet to break 50%.
The Dems are defending 5 seats Trump won by 15+ and their third best pickup chance is either Tennessee or Texas.

Dems could conceivably win national vote by 10 and lose a net of 5+ Senate seats because of the map
 
The Dems are defending 5 seats Trump won by 15+ and their third best pickup chance is either Tennessee or Texas.

Dems could conceivably win national vote by 10 and lose a net of 5+ Senate seats because of the map
The House exists.
 
This could probably prevent the Trump tax cuts and the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh confirmations. Why? If the Democrats had 58 seats after 2012 and lost nine in 2014, and then gained two seats in 2016 (like IOTL), they'd have 51 Senate seats, and they'll be able to filibuster the Trump agenda to no end.

And if the Democrats ITTL hold the Senate post-2018 (conceivable since you could have depressed Trump voter turnout without the tax cuts and the conservative SCOTUS nominations and still have the much higher Dem enthusiasm in 2018), Trump will have done almost nothing to keep his campaign promises and he could lose by 2020.
 
1) Keep Ben Nelson from retiring
2) Win in Arizona (3% margin)
3) Win in Nevada (1.2% margin)

That gets you to 56 Democrats and 2 Democrat-Caucusing independents. It's really hard to improve on that given how the Democrats did historically and the electoral map that year.

If you got David Freudenthal and Phil Bredesen to run for Senate in Wyoming and Tennessee respectively you could make those races competitive. Freudenthal was reelected Governor in 2006 with 70% of the vote and Bredesen was reelected Governor in 2006 with 68% of the vote - both of whom having won every county in their states.
 
I don't think even Ben Nelson could have won in NE in 2012. PPP Polling--a Democratic polling company--had his approval rating at 36-55 in October-November 2011. https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/PPP_Release_NE_1005424.pdf Yes, it did show Nelson only four points behind Jon Bruning and actually leading Deb Fischer 41-39, but Fischer was not yet the GOP nominee (as a state legislator she probably did not have name recognition at the time anywhere near Nelson's or Bruning's --indeed she did not overtake Bruning in the GOP primary polls until May 2012) and with an incumbent senator that unpopular in a state that Republican, the undecided voters are likely to go to the GOP nominee.

In short, the Republicans didn't win NE in 2012 because Ben Nelson didn't run; it is more likely that Ben Nelson didn't run because he saw the Republicans were likely to win.
 
The best way for the Democrats to win an additional seat in 2012 would be for Shelly Berkley not to have ethical problems...
 
1) Keep Ben Nelson from retiring
2) Win in Arizona (3% margin)
3) Win in Nevada (1.2% margin)

That gets you to 56 Democrats and 2 Democrat-Caucusing independents. It's really hard to improve on that given how the Democrats did historically and the electoral map that year.

If you got David Freudenthal and Phil Bredesen to run for Senate in Wyoming and Tennessee respectively you could make those races competitive. Freudenthal was reelected Governor in 2006 with 70% of the vote and Bredesen was reelected Governor in 2006 with 68% of the vote - both of whom having won every county in their states.

How about in Texas? Can Ted Cruz lose as well?
 
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