Democrat wins Va. House seat in recount by single vote; creating 50-50 tie in legislature

[u/slaysia]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrat-wins-va-house-seat-in-recount-by-single-vote-creating-50-50-tie-in-legislature/2017/12/19/3ff227ae-e43e-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?utm_term=.82f2b85b50fa

[u/Califia1]

Not only tax revenue, but forcing Republicans to continue fighting pot legalization in broad daylight will only ensure their continued collapse.

[u/WatchOutForCats → u/[deleted]]

That's why it's the job of normal, intelligent Americans to ensure the collapse by voting in 2018.

[u/turkeyfox → u/[deleted]]

I'm pretty sure the term he used was "bigly".

[u/mmmmm_pancakes → u/[deleted]]

You may not be aware of this, but I'd bet 90% of redditors would spell out the term as "bigly". I've lived in New York for several years and spend way too much time following politics, and this is still the first I've heard of that "big league" interpretation.

[u/Tasgall → u/mmmmm_pancakes]

You should try to expand your bubble then - I hate the guy and I'll make fun of his accent, but it was obvious the first time I heard him say it that it was "big league". The expression isn't that uncommon, especially if you're around people who are into sports like baseball.

[u/turkeyfox → u/[deleted]]

I googled it and Trump claims he uses the term big-league and it just sounds like bigly. TIL

[u/JemmaP → u/[deleted]]

They just lost an Alabama Senate seat and the Virginia House, sugar.

If that's not collapsing, I don't know a souffle from a shit sandwich.

[u/ryegye24 → u/[deleted]]

In a normal year with a generic Republican the Republican should win a statewide election in AL by ~30 points. There are states that swing further right on average, but AL is remarkably consistent among states in its lean. Before the Washington Post article broke the sex scandal Moore was only up +10. He was already missing 20 points from his lead. That's huge.

[u/VerySecretCactus → u/ryegye24]

Fair point.

[u/jl55378008 → u/[deleted]]

Virginia's local districts are drawn to give Republicans a major advantage. Every state-wide office is democratic, but repubs have used district advantages to keep the house of delegates. This year, even gerrymandering wasn't enough to keep them from getting fucking swamped.

[u/egregiousRac → u/jl55378008]

When you have this much of a swing gerrymandering can actually hurt the guilty party. The idea is to clump a bunch of the opposition into a couple districts, then spread the rest such that every district is x+5-10. That means that although each seat isn't rock solid, on average you will end up with more seats.

When there is a ten point swing this backfires. Suddenly you are losing far more seats than you should.