This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
2020 United States Senate elections article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
![]() | Warning: active arbitration remedies The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article is related to post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people, which is a contentious topic. Furthermore, the following rules apply when editing this article:
Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page.
|
![]() |
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on 30 October 2015. The result of the discussion was keep. |
![]() | Individuals with a conflict of interest, particularly those representing the subject of the article, are strongly advised not to directly edit the article. See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. You may request corrections or suggest content here on the Talk page for independent editors to review, or contact us if the issue is urgent. |
![]() | This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() |
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
270towin does not use polling to determine its "consensus" forecast. It's merely an average of the polls we're already citing in the adjacent columns. This differs from something like fivethirtyeight's "Deluxe" forecast version from last year, which used polling data as well as factoring in other handicappers' ratings. I think adding a column for 270towin implies that they do original research. If we want to average the ratings, we can do it ourselves right here. My opinion on this might change as the year goes on and 270 starts adding more handicappers to its average. I believe it got all the way up to 15 back in 2016. But for now it's just the big 4. It doesn't offer much utility at most, and at worst it's mildly deceptive. The Savage Norwegian 20:34, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
Just reverted a good faith edit, changing all the (Republican)s to (R)s, etc. While I think the sentiment is good, it could potentially make things unclear with Independents, Libertarians, and others. A compromise would be leaving Republican and Democratic abbreviated and having all others long-form, but that makes for an inconstant-looking page. This page's length problems aren't solved by abbreviation, so I think we're good the way things are. The Savage Norwegian 19:31, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
The primary dates and runoff dates that haven't happen yet are in bold. North Carolina is in between the original date of March 3 and the runoff date of May 12, but there won't be runoffs, and the table doesn't say that. I recommend a new column with five possibilities that will leave the other columns the same but would eliminate the need for bold:
1. Original and runoff done 2. Original done and runoff unnecessary or not applicable (you don't have to break it down into states that can have runoffs but where it was unnecessary and states that do not have runoffs because we could tell that from the runoff column) 3. Original done and runoff upcoming 4. Original not done and runoff possible 5. Original not done and runoff not applicable to that state
EvanJ35 ( talk) 00:20, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
@ EvanJ35: I think we already have that in a sense because only dates that haven't passed are bolded. I think it's pretty clear. Smith0124 ( talk) 06:43, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
It would be clear if no states had runoffs. If it's in between the original primary date and the runoff primary if necessary date, and it doesn't say if the runoff is necessary, it doesn't tell if both, one, or neither party will have a runoff when it could say that. One way to change it would be after the original primary to put in the runoff date column "D," "R," "Both," or "Neither." Adding one letter or a word with four or seven letters wouldn't add as much width to the table as a new column would. The two states in between primaries are Alabama and Texas, both of which will have runoffs on July 14. Alabama will have a runoff for Rs, and Texas will have a runoff for Ds. Therefore, I would make Alabama say "July 14, 2020 (R)" and make Texas say "July 14, 2020 (D)." EvanJ35 ( talk) 14:24, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
I don't see how averaging the predictions and then putting them in a chart is original research. It is completely based on the verified information already in the article. Smith0124 ( talk) 04:43, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Could you please provide any reasons why you removed the ratings of Niskanen Center/Rachel Bitecofer, @ User:Skm989898? As of now, Niskanen/Bitecofer ratings have not been an object of complaint on the 2020 United States presidential election page. I do not see any point in removing them, Rachel Bitecofer appears to be a credible pundit working for a think thank relevant enough to have an own Wikipedia article. The presidential ratings have been cited by 270towin (the Congressional/Senate ratings not so far which could be explained by the fact that they have been out for only few days). -- Jamaika-Koalition ( talk) 05:30, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
How about we remove both of them and save people the trouble. Think Tanks and Websites that show political bias in any way has no place on this page. Only professional unbiased predictions belong on this page nothing more nothing less. Wollers14 ( talk) 03:05, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
@ Thesavagenorwegian: The Niskansen ratings were removed again, seemingly for no reason. I can't undo the edit. Smith0124 ( talk) 06:39, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
@ Thesavagenorwegian: There is a new case to add here regarding Niskansen ratings not only are they outliers with their ratings that not even match the big three being Cook,IE, and Sabato. They even listed multiple house races as competitive even though some of them are safe seats. To me this is a huge red flag and a big no no. Allow me to give an example: In Texas's 25th District which is a ruby red district, they list that as a tossup when the big three all list it as a Safe R Daily Kos has it as a safe R as well as RCP. I don't know how someone can look at that district and say "That is a tossup". To me that is not professional and the reasons you give for these ratings being included are not strong enough to keep these on. Just because they are on 270toWin does not mean we include it we have to look on how professional it is and after seeing the House ratings which I also will add is not included on the House ratings page, I am beside myself because if they list Safe Seats as competitive then something is not right here with this. I will also add that they do not have a score from 538 which you mentioned regarding Fox News so reliability is also a issue. Now, having said all that I conclude with this: We need standards and the standards used here to justify the inclusion are just plain ridiculous. Wollers14 ( talk) 04:05, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Don't you accuse me of lying I did look at the ratings I looked at the analysis that Bitecofer made and she offers no explanation of why specific ratings change she moved a blood red district into the tossup category whatsoever. If there is no explanation how can the ratings be trusted. She just doesn't do it for some reason which to me calls into question the professionalism used in this. Not to mention potential bias. At first I was fine with the ratings but after seeing the House ratings I almost thought I was color blind. We also should not make loose decisions like this. Also Daily Kos is NOT a think tank like Nishkanen is it is a blog and a website what focuses on center left politics. You want to know something else: They list one of the examples I already gave as a safe seat while Bitecofer says tossup. Look at Texas's 25th District and tell me that based off the info about it that that is a tossup. Besides when the 2010 midterms happened Bitecofer was just getting started in life. She needs more experience in this department some more years like Sabato or in this case more knowledge about how certain districts vote like David Wasserman of Cook. In this case I don't see any good reason to keep them because they seem not grounded in reality. Wollers14 ( talk) 00:12, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
When I said further review I meant that I reviewed it not anyone else and found that their explanations to not be satisfactory. I did not mean for it to imply a consensus I just meant that I reviewed it and read it over. Also due to the previously mentioned problems this seems like a data point that does not meet a professional criteria. Wollers14 ( talk) 00:56, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
So knowing what we know now what should we do about it and why? Wollers14 ( talk) 03:02, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
We can include Fox and have them or 538 replace Nishkanen on the chart but the reason they made their own ratings page on the house was to make the article shorter. There is no need to do the same here. Fox may be biased but they are professional with their ratings and do not skew toward anybody. I don't know why they were removed off of the 2018 page but whoever did would need a good explanation. Wollers14 ( talk) 05:27, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Smith got blocked indefinitely so here is a question should we remove the Nishkanen ratings from the Senate pages? I might remove them from the House pages due to the lack of explanations for their ratings since there appears to be no dispute over them. So again do we keep or remove them and replace them with Fox since they already released their ratings. Wollers14 ( talk) 05:14, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
@ Thesavagenorwegian: and @ Jamaika-Koalition: what do you guys want to do about the ratings Remove them and replace them with Fox or keep them? Wollers14 ( talk) 05:38, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Bernie Sanders is not an Independent. The DNC made it so that no one can run in their party unless they are a Democrat. Also his locked wiki page says he is a Democrat.
Also please stop counting the 2 Independents as Democrats. You do this in the section of seats needed to gain majority. Just because they caucus with the Democrats doesn't mean they are Democrats. They are independents.
Finally, stop counting the Vice President as a senator. You keep saying that if there's a 50/50 split in the Senate the Vice President would give a party the majority. The Vice President is NOT A SENATOR, so stop saying that it's 3-4 seats needed to gain majority. If the Senate is 50/50 then no party has a majority no matter who the Vice President is.... Infinity2323236 ( talk) 05:17, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
It doesn't matter if they "function as democrats" they are officially Independents and should only be counted as Independents no matter how partisan they vote..... I know the VP is a tiebreaker. But the VPs political party does not count towards Senate majority. So if the Senate is 50/50 (which it can't be anyways because of the Independents) no one would have a majority... The template is counting the VP as a Senator which is wrong. Infinity2323236 ( talk) 21:32, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
I think the Independents should be noted as Independents who caucus with Democrats, and I think people know that the VP isn't a senator. The purpose is to show what the Democrats need to gain control of the Senate, which is black-and-white, and black-and-white statements are what Wikipedia does. The purpose is not to compare how Democrats and Independents vote, or to predict how senators will vote on a specific thing, which is not what Wikipedia does anyway. If the election results in 48 Democrats, 50 Republicans, 2 Independents, and Biden's VP, the Democrats will have control. Since every senator caucuses with Democrats or caucuses with Republicans, that's what Wikipedia should say. If you think the Senate rules are unfair to Independents, that's a separate issue. It's Wikipedia's job to say how the real world is even if the real world doesn't make sense. EvanJ35 ( talk) 14:39, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
I've had a problem with persistent removal of what I believe to be valuable information from this page. The removal of filing deadlines for independent and minor party candidates has been repeatedly performed by Californianexile without explanation, despite my suggestion that they discuss their preference for this on the talk page. I've reverted it again, and hope this can be a place to discuss the matter if there is still a resistance to its inclusion. I've also had a problem with the removal of candidates from this page's candidate list because they aren't listed by sources with incomplete lists of candidates who are running; as a compromise, I accepted the removal of candidates in elections for which only one source was otherwise listed, but I've seen others removed too. Smith0124 removed candidates because they didn't deem the Green Papers reliable (why?), but also removed candidates for whom there were other sources. I've also seen sources used to list candidates even when they don't actually list candidates (e.g. AL2020 not listing Doug Jones and KS2020 not listing Kobach and Lindstrom). There seems to be little rhyme or reason to it, and I'd like it explained if not halted. In the meantime, I have added an additional source to every use of thegreenpapers for candidates on this article. - PutItOnAMap 17:50, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
Some conversations on this talk page should be archived as they are outdated. Sections 1-15 are all due to be archived. I'm not really sure how to do it. Smith0124 ( talk) 06:46, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
The subsection Competitive races subsection redundant. All of the points mentioned can be found either in this article's section about the race OR in the specific election's article. That is the point of these articles. It is also speculative arm chair punditry. The section is not, in my opinion, necessarily wrong in its conclusions, but it is clearly the opinion of the author and in some cases contradicts the above table. For example, it includes Kentucky, but does not include South Carolina. This is despite the fact that the table above gives them both identical ratings. I could just as easily speculate that South Carolina is a stronger case for a swing than Kentucky based on fundraising and demographics. However, that would not be appropriate for Wikipedia. I have marked the section as speculative and added other inline clean up tags-- Mpen320 ( talk) 05:58, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
I agree with this, especially as some of the comments are directly at odds with the cited sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.47.22.57 ( talk) 15:16, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
I will give the author of that section 24 hours to make their case why this section should be kept. To me it reeks of bias. If the user who made the section fails to respond I will remove the section. Wollers14 ( talk) 16:53, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I see no reason to delete the section. It's relevant. I tried my best to be unbiased, stating the facts only and using the same data points for each race, but obviously it needs editing. Just throwing the entire thing out isn't productive, lets just make it better. Smith0124 ( talk) 17:17, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Listen I like the suggestion of moving the information to the states sections where they should be that I believe PutItonaMap made. How about we just remove the section and put the information onto the state's sections with some things like North Carolina trending purple and unpopular incumbents due to Trump support removed because this is information that is not necessary and to some extent not proven facts. So I will support that suggestion because it follows more closely with previous pages. So Smith I believe that is a reasonable compromise. What say you? Wollers14 ( talk) 02:18, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
I’ve seen multiple articles about how Republican senators fear Trump is hurting their re-election chances. Smith0124 ( talk) 04:46, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
I can find some of those articles to cite. They are written by political scientists. Smith0124 ( talk) 07:07, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
So far no changes have been made. If we end up not reaching a compromise then I will take the section down until we do since we seem to not have agreement. If we did and I missed it let me know I do not wish to do this but we still have information that is not cited still on the page. Also don't focus on the ratings that's a different discussion. We need to deal with the section asap because it still has issues and nothing has been done yet. Wollers14 ( talk) 02:42, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Good timing. I was about to do it. I will list the problems in detail.
Listen Smith I just don't see a section like this fitting well on this page. I think the most logical solution is to take down the section and integrate the information to the states sections. This will cause curious minds to want to actually read information inside the individual articles rather than look at that and say "That's all I need" and leave when more information can be found in the articles. There are problems but this in my view is the most logical solution. Wollers14 ( talk) 20:39, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
I hope that addresses everything. Smith0124 ( talk) 20:55, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
Missouri never went blue in 2008. The federal level and the state levels can both determine a state's tint. It's elected Dem Governors which you mention in Kentucky's reasoning. Also Montana's polling is out of date since no poll has come out since April. Listen it's out of place and you do not seem to be budging putting all information in the states sections is a solution that sees the best of both worlds because the information listed would still be there and it would not be gone. So I just want to clarify that I do not look to destroy the information you put on just moving it to the states sections because they would be in one place if they were moved in them because the reader would see the ratings then wonder why they are a tossup and look in the states section and find out why. That is what the states section is for which makes the section you made kinda redundant with all due respect. Wollers14 ( talk) 21:39, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
Wrong. The polls taken during April are the only ones there. There are no polls listed on RCP or 538. Wollers14 ( talk) 00:30, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
The page is up to date. There are no new polls available. RCP and 538 don't lie when it comes to polls. Now back to the section. I will place a 12 hour time limit. So back to the subject. Wollers14 ( talk) 03:31, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
You still realize that I will not budge from taking the section down and moving the information to the states section. Also that poll was conducted in April. It is out of date since over a month has passed. Remember the time limit. Wollers14 ( talk) 05:27, 9 June 2020 (UTC) Actually wait scratch that. Including the time limit. Let's put it up to a vote with other users. Option 1 is to keep the section. Option 2 is to take it down and put the information listed into the states section below. We'll leave the vote open for one week. Whoever votes type one of the Options 1 or 2 and leave your name. Smith I think this is the best way to decide the fate of the section. Wollers14 ( talk) 05:44, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Listen, we can have a vote. But not a Rfc. Let's ask both @ Mpen320: and @ PutItOnAMap: since they are a part of this conversation too. They should voice their opinions on the matter at hand here since they contributed to this talk. Also be careful when negotiating I could have easily taken down the section if I wanted to and then we would have gotten into a edit war but I don't want that and neither do you. I do apologize for imposing the time limits and ultimatums and seemingly making this difficult. But remember this talk is about the fate of the section not about making it better that should be a separate talk this talk is about whether the section should be there or not. Now, since you are not budging and I am not budging I'm bringing the users who also contributed in this talk to break this impasse. Now let's wait and see what they have to say about it. Wollers14 ( talk) 06:18, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Fine. But after the election is over it's gone because there would be no point in keeping it any longer after November because the results at that point would be in. Also I will leave it to you to fix the problems mentioned above since this is your section. Also I was not trying to accomplish anything else besides the section being removed because a section like that was not what I was used to. I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like change that much. But let's just end this damn talk it's taken enough time already. If you cannot find the sources to explain approval ratings just say that their approval ratings are low and nothing else it will make it look less biased that way. I'm sorry if I acted hostile sometimes if you fail to achieve a goal you get a little upset and I try to be respectful but I was not. So go ahead and make the changes we talked about before and Montana is still a Lean R the poll you showed me was taken in April but released on May 5th normally polls "expire" after 1 month and as of right now it's June 9th. Enjoy and don't mess up. Wollers14 ( talk) 06:47, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
I'd like add to this some issues I've seen with the section (Haven't edited the page as I'm not quite familiar with how Wikipedia editing procedures work yet.)
MAYBE EXPLAIN WHAT "(flip)" MEANS? THAT WOULD BE USEFUL — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.211.162.71 ( talk) 16:00, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
Everyone I have news: Smith0124 the author of the section has been indefinitely blocked by an admin. So a new consensus may be required regarding the section. Since Smith is gone he will not be able to improve the section like he promised. So here is a key question do we keep it as is, make changes to it, or remove it completely? I'm asking anyone who is willing to answer. Wollers14 ( talk) 04:16, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
If you look at the twentieth century list, you will see that Democrats and Republicans are both fairly likely to win re-election to be elected in North Carolina. Hell, that Senate seat has flipped back and forth every election this century (Dole to Hagan to Thillis) by slim margins.-- Mpen320 ( talk) 21:05, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
North Carolina has always been a purple state it has elected officeholders statewide that are both Dem and GOP. The trending purple argument has holes in it. Wollers14 ( talk) 04:42, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
The Politico article linked states that Jones has raised over $8 million, yet the article itself says that Doug Jones "sturggled to raise money." Also, the Republican runoff is becoming very negative. I pointed those things out and someone deleted the edit without even bothering to check. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RemovedAgain ( talk • contribs) 18:35, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
So the Georgia special election links to Louisiana primary, but the Louisiana election links to jungle primary, which redirects to nonpartisan blanket primary. The two systems apparently have subtle differences, and the two pages have hatnotes to each other. Shouldn't the Louisiana election link to the Louisiana primary page? Is the Georgia special election really a Louisiana primary? Mdewman6 ( talk) 23:11, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 05:23, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
If I format something incorrectly here, please let me know as I am new. I personally don't think the 270towin ratings are appropriate for this page because they are based purely on polling, as stated on their site. It says they update them 3x daily so the ratings could shift a lot every time a new poll is released, which is something I've noticed-- I don't think a model based purely on polling is really as reflective of the state of the race when other rating sites (cook, sabato, even rcp I believe) take other factors into consideration.
On that note, I was wondering if it would be appropriate to add in the DDHQ (Decision Desk) ratings they just released? They use an extensive algorithm/methodology for their ratings that I felt more appropriately compares to the other prognosticators. I wasn't sure if DDHQ is considered reputable enough in political spheres outside twitter, so I wanted to check in before I went in and started adding/deleting things.
Yrg8033 ( talk) 05:53, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
@ Tartan357: I’m pretty sure your edit Special:Diff/976307615 and the surrounding ones introduced deprecated image syntax. Infoboxes aren’t supposed to have link syntax around the images anymore. I think. DemonDays64 ( talk) 14:44, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 18:43, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 19:22, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
Which FiveThirtyEight forecast model is being used? Can we include this in the reference? Banak ( talk) 13:32, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
Does 538 have more than one forecast model? Pentock ( talk) 15:29, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Consistent with the discussion at Talk:2020 United States House of Representatives election ratings#FiveThirtyEight Model, I am going to switch the FiveThirtyEight model on this page from Classic to Deluxe. FiveThirtyEight defaults to Deluxe, so it makes sense that we should be using that here too. Inks.LWC ( talk) 20:40, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
DDHQ means Decision Desk Headquarters. The link at the DDHQ prediction column goes to a page about decision desks in general. This should be redirected to Wikipedia's page for DDHQ if there is one. If there is not a Wikipedia page for DDHQ, should somebody make one? If a source is notable enough to have its predictions cited, isn't it notable enough to have its own page? If DDHQ doesn't have a page, the link should be deleted because the link to the decision desk page isn't specifically about the source. Having the DDHQ link go to a decision desk page would be like mentioning Fox News with a link to a generic page about news. EvanJ35 ( talk) 02:08, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
Could someone please cite the source where 538 specifically state these predictions leans, likely and safe specifically. @Ygr8033 has said that there is a prediction model that specifically says that but there is no citation. I am using the forecast that has been cited. I am using the same labels as the one on the presidential election page. I assume that the edits were made in good faith. @Ygr8033 as a wikipedia editor you’re obligated to cite your sources. As a reader I am confused as to where you are getting your information from. So try to explain it to me with a source with the predictions you’re referring to. If this is not addressed as a Wikipedia editor I feel obligated to use the predictions that are cited above. Pentock ( talk) 16:08, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
@Sbb618 thank you. I was using my iPhone so I did not see the map. Now that I used the computer I see the map now. I just assumed that the map was not cited. @Ygr8033 I’m sorry that I assumed that the source was not cited. Pentock ( talk) 19:15, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 22:53, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:
You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 23:53, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
With the addition of VoteFerret to the projections table, we now have eleven different sets of predictions for the Senate elections. I think we ought to narrow this list down a bit - it's getting to be a bit much to read, and is also getting kind of redundant. The House ratings page for 2020 has already taken similar action, removing Niskanen, Politico, and The Economist. I personally wouldn't be opposed to removing Niskanen, due to the fact that their ratings are rarely ever updated and I've heard the model is rather dubious. Any thoughts? -- The Banker of Seville ( talk) 18:41, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
@ Tartan357: It seems like a mild overreaction to remove the entirety of the information on the winners based on AP projections. The time to remove them was perhaps after the first few results were put on this page, not after 30 results were added. To revert that now seems disruptive. The RfC that you referred to seems to only concern the presidential elections and is not binding on all 2020 elections, such as the ones for the House and the Senate. If there were an intention that they would be binding on other elections, that would have been made clear.
Sdrqaz ( talk) 02:33, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
We not just remove the AP projections instead of the entire table that showed clearly what seats was up fo relection this cycle? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.251.193.12 ( talk) 11:54, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
Note: There is now a consensus to call races in the presidential election that have been unanimously called by news networks, so Senate races can now be called on this page if they have similarly been called unanimously by news networks. ― Tartan357 Talk 00:39, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Seeing as Kamala Harris has already been declared VP-elect, would it not make sense to change the amount of seats that Dems need to reach a majority from four to three? I'd do it myself but it's restricted Hellodiot ( talk) 21:20, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
No, I think it's relevant to say that if she had lost, then Democrats would have needed four.
47.139.40.127 ( talk) 21:57, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
1. In article lede:
Change "Republicans will be defending 23 seats in 2020, while the Democratic Party will be defending 12 seats.[9] Democrats will need to pick up three or four seats..." to "Republicans were defending 23 seats in 2020, while the Democratic Party were defending 12 seats.[9] Democrats needed to pick up three or four seats". because election has already happened, verbs should be past tense, not future tense.
2. In note a:
Change
"Thus, assuming that the two independents continue to caucus with the Senate Democratic Caucus and if Kamala Harris is elected vice president in the 2020 election, the Democrats will have to gain at least three seats to win a majority. If Mike Pence is reelected vice president, Democrats will have to gain at least four seats to win a majority. Democrats would also need 51 seats to control the senate at the beginning of the new congress, which is seated at the beginning of January, while a new Vice President would be sworn in on January 20."
to
"Thus, assuming that the two independents continue to caucus with the Senate Democratic Caucus, because Kamala Harris was elected vice president in the 2020 election, the Democrats needed to gain at least three seats to win a majority. If Mike Pence had been reelected vice president, Democrats would have needed to gain at least four seats to win a majority. Democrats will still need 51 seats to control the senate at the beginning of the new congress, which is seated at the beginning of January, while Harris will be sworn in on January 20."
because Harris won. 47.139.40.127 ( talk) 21:56, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
CHANGE In the regular election, incumbent Republican David Perdue will face Democrat Jon Ossoff, who won national name recognition while losing the most expensive House race in U.S. history in 2017.
TO In the regular election, Democrat challenger Jon Ossoff, a documentary film producer and investigative journalist, will face incumbent Republican David Perdue.[144] Ossoff, who won national name recognition while narrowly losing a race for the U.S. House in 2017. Since the November 3, 2020 election was too close to call, a runoff election for this Class II seat will be held January 5, 2021.[146] 174.99.50.168 ( talk) 23:54, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Hello! I see that there is a date in the infobox for the two special elections (AZ, GA) but not for any other elections. Is this just protocol or something? (Sorry, I'm new around here.) Thanks. Twassman ( talk) 19:58, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
What happened to the summaries of all of the original races? This page looks like somebody sliced off a huge chunk of it for no reason whatsoever. SRD625 ( talk) 17:20, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
...And it happened again SRD625 ( talk) 13:24, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
Randomly happens every now and then, no idea why it happens Jackprice1 ( talk) 02:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Is there anything we can do about it? SRD625 ( talk) 15:45, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Bernie Sanders and Angus King are independents, not democrats. Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar won under the DFL (The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party). In conclusion, democrats have 44 (subtracting those four senators) and republicans have 50. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.231.194.182 ( talk) 00:30, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
The DFL is part of the national Democratic Party, just like how the Maryland Democratic Party is part of the national Democratic Party; Democrats officially hold 46 seats, independence hold 2 but they caucus with the Democrats, Republicans hold 50, and two more seats are still up in the air SRD625 ( talk) 23:05, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Not moved. There is a strong consensus against moving the article at this time. ( closed by non-admin page mover) OhKayeSierra ( talk) 22:10, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
2020 United States Senate elections →
2020–21 United States Senate elections – I think this article should be renamed by having hyphen between the year 2020 and 2021. The reason is the Senate elections aren't over as there is with Georgia ones that need to be contested which will be held in January. So this doesn't make sense especially if the article refers to all Senate races. Another thing is that the separate articles about Georgia senate races already have hyphen between the year numbers, so why can't this article be as well?
ShadZ01 (
talk)
04:36, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
@ Martin m159: @ Nohomersryan: @ Hurricanehink: @ Barryob: @ Activist: @ Muboshgu: Love of Corey ( talk) 08:48, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
Oppose They are part of the 2020 election cycle. No need to make things overly confusing. Also, as others have said, not consistent with other election articles. -- Inspector Semenych ( talk) 18:26, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Most of the elections are over. I don't think this is what the "future-class" assessment is meant to encompass. Shouldn't this be reassessed? SecretName101 ( talk) 20:51, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 05:19, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
Ossoff has been projected as the winner by several major news outlets. I think we should color in the map. GeraldFordsEconomics ( talk) 21:25, 6 January 2021 (UTC)GeraldFordsEconomics
The article indicates both Georgia wins, but the infobox does not. Can we update the infobox? Difbobatl ( talk) 14:28, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
Hi, There has been some confusion surrounding which party has control of the Senate as a result of the Senate Election. According to my logic, the Republicans should be noted as having retained control of the Senate as a result of the Senate election. This election has an effective 50/50 split between Republicans and Democrats, similar to what happened in the 2000 United States Senate elections. Thus, the general precedent used on the 2000 page should be followed. In 2000, Republicans were in control before the election, but due to the 50/50 split Democrats won control for a few weeks because Al Gore had tie-breaking power. This change in control (albeit temporary) was still reflected in the article. After the Bush administration was sworn in, control reverted back to the Republicans as Dick Cheney had the tie-breaking power thereafter. This year is different from 2000, in that Republicans have technically retained control of the senate (albeit only temporarily) as a result of the senate elections because of the Republican administration still being in office and able to break ties. Democrats will take control of the senate only after Kamala Harris becomes vice-president (and thus gains tie-breaking power). That would be an event related to the presidential election, not the senate election. As a result of this complicated procedural logic, the Republicans should be listed first in the infobox, and McConnell should be noted as remaining majority leader after the senate election because the change in partisan control will technically happen in the middle of the Senate's term. Let me know if you have any questions. Brycecordry ( talk) 20:15, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with the logic that republicans should be listed as winning control.
Remember, we report what reliable sources say, not what we personally think. Reliable sources all say that Democrats won control of the senate, so that’s what we need to say. One could also make the case, BTW, that since the VP is President of the Senate, their election is part of the senate elections overall. But I think the key here is that RS say Dems will control the senate for the 117th congress, so we must too. Cpotisch ( talk) 23:26, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
Follow the precedent at 2000 United States Senate elections. -- GoodDay ( talk) 01:33, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
Cpoticsh brings up a good point. Could someone look back to archives and see what the reliable sources said after the 2000 election? That said, some so-called "reliable sources" are biased (toward one perspective or the other). Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and thus should be free from any "spin", be it from us Wikipedia editors or from the news reporters that contribute to the "reliable sources"; it is our job as Wikipedia editors to interpret the "reliable sources", get rid of any "spin" or over-generalization and then report the facts neutrally and impartially, for the purpose of reference and archival. I believe that following the internal precedent is important, so that consistency is maintained between the articles and thus a uniform Wikipedia style guide can be implied. This precedent should be influenced by looking at similar situations and interpreting the by-the-books procedure to determine the outcome of the senate election. Based on my interpretation, Republicans did indeed maintain control of the Senate as of the reorganization on January 3. There will be a change in partisan control after January 20, but changes in partisan control can and have happened in the middle of a Congress. Appropriate footnotes can and should be added to explain this, because the official outcome of this election may defy logic when compared to the perceived outcome. To eliminate this confusion, many media outlets may just report the perceived outcome and not get into the nitty-gritty detail that an encyclopedia should.
This brings up another question: is the existing precedent the best option? Or is there sufficient reason to change the precedent, and adjust the 2000 article accordingly. I believe the existing precedent is appropriate. As the Anonymous IP user stated above, we need to accurately discern the difference between the senate election and the presidential election. As we see this year, the presidential election can certainly impact the senate due to the inherent structure of the chamber, but the two elections are distinct. Keeping the two elections separate can help strengthen the difference between the different branches of government, which I feel have degraded over the years, in no small part due to online and social media, where users consume information in quick bites versus the (sometimes necessary) deeper explanations.
Lastly, I would like to digress that user GoodDay appears to be Canadian, as per her user page. I also exhibit a Canadian-like political culture; most of my political article editing is actually on Canadian/Westminster system pages. I have observed that Canadian/Westminster politics places much more value in precedent and tradition than does American politics. As such, the argument about precedent and logic may be moot when applied to an American political article (where American political culture should prevail).
Thanx.
Brycecordry (
talk)
05:19, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
A tricky situation indeed, with that 17-day gap. If we're going to have Tom Daschle (D) listed at 2000 United States Senate elections infobox, as the elected majority leader? Then we must have Mitch McConnell (R) listed at 2020 United States Senate elections infobox, as the elected majority leader. Otherwise then, we use Trent Lott (R) & Chuck Schumer (D) respectively. GoodDay ( talk) 13:12, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
GoodDay is right. This consistency is what I have been arguing all along, just could not think of the correct words. I personally believe that we should put Tom Daschle and Mitch McConnell for 2000 amd 2020 respectively, but I couldn't care less what ultimately is decided as long as stuff is consistent. And sorry about the incorrect pronouns. Brycecordry ( talk) 17:54, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
I guess the question this discussion has come to is whether we (as Wikipedia) should write the articles according strictly to the laws and procedure (Daschle/McConnell), or whether we should ignore the procedural oddities and reflect only the final outcome (Lott/Schumer). As mentioned before, I advocate to retain existing precedent (Daschle/McConnell). According to my interpretation, the senate election is over as of January 3 when the Congress reorganizes. Whichever party controls the chamber at that time should be listed as the "winner" of the election. Even though partisan control will change only a few weeks later, that is nothing alarming as there can be other mid-session changes in control for other reasons (e.g. June 2001). These factors external to the senate and election should be noted if required but should not affect the "outcome" of the senate election. Besides, doing things this way reflects the separation of the different branches of government by keeping executive branch issues out of the article for the senate, a legislative branch institution. Brycecordry ( talk) 04:17, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
I think that consistency with 2000 is absolutely a secondary matter. The fundamental idea of Wikipedia is that we report what reliable sources say. We don't interpret the world ourselves. ALL reliable sources say that Democrats won control of the senate in 2020. See [1], [2], [3], and [4]. The Georgia races were part of the 2020 Senate elections and the Presidential race took place on the same day in November. This is the result of the 2020 election. And as I said before, I would argue that the election of the vice president is part of the senate elections because the VP is President of the Senate. So, because there is no policy saying I should do otherwise, and because it is the unanimous consensus of reliable sources that Democrats won the senate in 2020, I am going to have the infobox say just that. We can discuss it further here, but in the meantime, the article simply has to reflect RS. Cpotisch ( talk) 05:03, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
Don't use the 2000 election being listed wrong as an excuse to list 2020 wrong. If republicans had a majority once the elections were completed in 2000, then it should list that - with clarification about the 17 days that the democrats led. Similarly, the most important thing now is that independents caucus with the democrats and as of the inauguration democrats will have the majority. Rather than leaving it wrong and pointing to 2000, fix both of them! Difbobatl ( talk) 13:48, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
It appears that this discussion has turned into a question of generalization versus specificity, and may also be starting to involve individual users' partisan connotations. I have no real answer for this question of logic, and may be best decided by the Wikipedia higher-ups who can make a decision to formulate this sort of precedent. This way clear style-guide standards can be documented for the next time a situation like this year or 2000 happens. As such, I believe that I have little else to contribute to this discussion. I encourage a continued spirited debate around procedure and fact (not around partisan opinion) to hopefully get this question settled with the least hard feelings possible. Thanx. Brycecordry ( talk) 16:54, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
IMHO we should change Elected Majority Leader to Majority Leader after election in the infobox. Truth is the only official in the US Senate who gets elected or is the somewhat equal to the House Speaker in this situation, is the President pro tempore. The US Senate doesn't elect the majority leader. He/she merely becomes majority leader, because their party has the majority of seats. GoodDay ( talk) 17:42, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
Where are we getting the total votes for each party, as seen in the infobox? And does that include the runoffs? I want to make sure this is up to date, and update it if it's not. Thanks. Cpotisch ( talk) 03:01, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
Also, does this just count the votes in 2020/2021 or all the votes for sitting members of the senate? It's not clear. I think it is the former, which is confusing for a chart about all members of the senate. Most people would read it as a majority of votes for all the members of the senate going to republicans, which isn't true. Difbobatl ( talk) 20:46, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
@ Davide King:I noticed that a recent dispute on the content of the article was resolved by removing the independent column. I'd like to open this resolution to a discussion because this decision would impact the precedent of all articles on the US Senate elections since 2002 (I think), which all involved independent candidates. We need to have a unified consensus on this treatment of independents. Should we apply the new solution, to merge independents into the party with which they caucus? Or should we undo these changes and maintain the current precedent? I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Herbfur (Eric, He/Him) ( talk) 01:24, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
Independents should keep their own section. Either two, can easily vote with Republicans on any bill or resolution. GoodDay ( talk) 20:15, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
If you look at most countries, while independents may be "seperate" they are listed under a subheading with a total of the governing coalition. We have caucuses, rather than coalitions here, but the point remains. The independents should be added to the dems. The same would be true for any independents that have or will caucus with republicans - they should get added. If you want a separate column that's fine, but they should still be added in an obvious way. As per above comments, independent sources do add their numbers - on both sides of the spectrum, so this isn't biased. Difbobatl ( talk) 14:04, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Chiming in to voice my agreement that the independents should keep their own section. They are not Democrats, while they do contribute to the Democrats' majority. It's an important distinction that something like an encyclopedia should be showing. I get that it can be confusing at first, but that confusion is fleeting. The Savage Norwegian 18:01, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
I believe there is a misunderstanding of what "independent" is in this context. The two members being discussed caucus with the democrats, who are usually listed as having 48+2* members. For Senate organizational purposes, and definitely for determining a majority, they are part of the democrat's senate organization. The two at the center of this discussion sit as democrats on committees. The committee assignment is done by parties within their caucuses. If they didn't caucus with the dems, then it would make sense to not add their votes. Sen. Murkowski has indicated she is considering going independent, but would not caucus with the dems. In which case, she should either be part of 49+1* if she caucuses with the Republicans or a truly separate line if she does not caucus with either party - though that is unlikely, as she would then not sit on committees. Difbobatl ( talk) 20:13, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
I feel like the Louisiana section needs to be completely rewritten. That, or converted back to how it was about a week ago. Originally, it talked about how Bill Cassidy had defeated Mary Landrieu in 2014, was running for reelection, and got over 50% in the jungle primary. It was also noted that shreveport mayor Adrian Perkins was endorsed by the democratic party. The bit about Cassidy defeating Landrieu should be clarified to say that he defeat her in 2014 because that’s not what it looks like right now and the bit about Perkins being endorsed by the Democratic Party also seems kind of important. SRD625 ( talk) 14:41, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
"change Due to election laws in Georgia that require candidates to win at least 50% of the vote in the general election, both races advanced to runoff elections in January 2021. Democrats won both seats, and the partisan balance in the Senate was tied for the first time since 2001 after the 2000 elections. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris's tie-breaking vote will give Democrats control of the chamber by the smallest margin possible after the new administration takes office[14]15]"
to
"change Due to election laws in Georgia that require candidates to win at least 50% of the vote in the general election, both races advanced to runoff elections in January 2021. And both Democrats won the seats with the Support and Endorsement of Stacy Abrams. the partisan balance in the Senate was tied for the first time since 2001 after the 2000 elections. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris's tie-breaking vote will give Democrats control of the chamber by the smallest margin possible after the new administration takes office[14]15]" 193.188.123.25 ( talk) 19:15, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
Agreed SRD625 ( talk) 23:34, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
Though I do think it would be fair to mention Abrams in the section specifically about the Georgia Senate elections; after all, if it hadn’t been for the voter mobilization she’s been working on for the last two years, Republicans would still have control the Senate. I agree that mentioning all of the organizers for every race is overkill, but I feel like Abrams is important enough to at least be mentioned once or twice SRD625 ( talk) 00:38, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
I wouldn't take issue with talking about Abrams on the Georgia Senate election pages, but this is a broad overview article and I don't think we need to mention allies/endorsers barring some truly extraordinary circumstance. Orser67 ( talk) 16:32, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Chuck Schumer has become Senate Majority leader because of John Ossoff's and Raphael Warnock's victories in the Senate runoffs in Georgia. Typically when a party secures the majority in the Senate, in the main Wikipedia template the at the time minority leader is placed on the left because of the fact they have secured the majority as a result of that year's senate elections. Right now McConnel is currently on the left side of the template, when he should be on the right since the Republicans have lost their Senate majority. Can someone please go fix this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C0:8701:7040:F91F:CAF3:4C48:1F50 ( talk) 04:56, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 01:06, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
WhatANiceDog is a brand new user and I can't quite figure out what they're doing but they continue to add links to google docs as a source here as well as Daily Kos which is not considered generally reliable but they don't seem to be reversing their edits despite the breach of 1RR here (which I didn't realize, and have self reverted myself) so opening this for discussion. BEACHIDICAE🌊 18:55, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
My mistake. I'm new to editing Wikipedia and did not realize that I was violating a rule when repeatedly reposting an edit. Additionally, I did not realize Daily Kos was considered an unreliable source.
I understand how Daily Kos could be considered a concerning or unreliable source. In the article I'm mentioning, though, the proportions are created using election results and census data. That data is aggregated, shared, and manipulated in a google docs spreadsheet. There is a methodology page as well. So I think, despite the reputation of the website, the information of that article seems both transparent and accurate.
Additionally, there are similar edits regarding proportions to many of the US House of Representatives elections wiki pages. These edits only cite a .gov page with election statistics.
I can come up with a more detailed argument for the edit, but I just wanted to post this before I received some sort of ban. Also, sorry if I'm making some sort of error in posting this, or in how I'm detailing this post, etc.
WhatANiceDog ( talk) 19:47, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:
You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 22:52, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
I feel that there is a serious problem with including Popular vote swing sections on the election infoboxes in US Senate elections. The core of this issue is that there are different sets of states up each cycle, and said sets have different partisan characters to them. It makes the data appear skewed based on which sets are compared.
So the math can be explained quite simply. For the class 3 Senate seats (last up in 2016) and class 1 Senate seats (last up in 2018), the states that are up are more Democratic overall than the nation as a whole by modern partisan metrics calculated based on results from Presidential elections. But the class 2 Senate seats (last up in 2020) are way more Republican overall by the same metric. So what this means is that Trump (while losing the national popular vote by 4.45 point) in 2020 actually won the Presidential vote if you leave out the states that the class 2 seats exclude, and Biden wins it by quite a bit more than the size of his national win if you leave out the states that the class 1 seats exclude. This has serious and simple implication when it comes to calculating swings in the US Senate vote. When you compare a popular vote of class 1 seats to a popular vote of class 2 seats, the class 2 seats will be produce a more Republican national tally barring a massive national opinion swing on a scale that almost never happens. There is also an issue related to uncontested seats that can skew the numbers more, especially when caused by Republicans failing to get a candidate through the top 2 primary of California, which also makes the swing seem even bigger in this case.
I have actually ran numbers myself towards figuring out the average outcome of how the popular vote likely goes in 2016, 2018, and 2020 if every state were to have a seat up, and if both Democrats and Republicans were to have a candidate in every race, and here are the results I got:
2016: Dems win by 1.77 points
2018: Dems win by 10.18 points
2020: Dems win by 3.44 points
Overall the swing still exists from 2018 to 2020 towards Republicans, but its quite clear that its far far away from being the seismic 20 plus point shift that you get from taking face value popular votes as used by the infobox in this page, and its also a misnomer to say that Republicans won the popular vote in the 2020 US Senate elections on the same metric, given that such a win was only achieved by leaving out a set of states that Democrats would have won by a huge amount.
MappedTables ( talk) 19:52, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 05:07, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
2020 United States Senate elections article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
![]() | Warning: active arbitration remedies The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article is related to post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people, which is a contentious topic. Furthermore, the following rules apply when editing this article:
Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page.
|
![]() |
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on 30 October 2015. The result of the discussion was keep. |
![]() | Individuals with a conflict of interest, particularly those representing the subject of the article, are strongly advised not to directly edit the article. See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. You may request corrections or suggest content here on the Talk page for independent editors to review, or contact us if the issue is urgent. |
![]() | This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() |
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
270towin does not use polling to determine its "consensus" forecast. It's merely an average of the polls we're already citing in the adjacent columns. This differs from something like fivethirtyeight's "Deluxe" forecast version from last year, which used polling data as well as factoring in other handicappers' ratings. I think adding a column for 270towin implies that they do original research. If we want to average the ratings, we can do it ourselves right here. My opinion on this might change as the year goes on and 270 starts adding more handicappers to its average. I believe it got all the way up to 15 back in 2016. But for now it's just the big 4. It doesn't offer much utility at most, and at worst it's mildly deceptive. The Savage Norwegian 20:34, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
Just reverted a good faith edit, changing all the (Republican)s to (R)s, etc. While I think the sentiment is good, it could potentially make things unclear with Independents, Libertarians, and others. A compromise would be leaving Republican and Democratic abbreviated and having all others long-form, but that makes for an inconstant-looking page. This page's length problems aren't solved by abbreviation, so I think we're good the way things are. The Savage Norwegian 19:31, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
The primary dates and runoff dates that haven't happen yet are in bold. North Carolina is in between the original date of March 3 and the runoff date of May 12, but there won't be runoffs, and the table doesn't say that. I recommend a new column with five possibilities that will leave the other columns the same but would eliminate the need for bold:
1. Original and runoff done 2. Original done and runoff unnecessary or not applicable (you don't have to break it down into states that can have runoffs but where it was unnecessary and states that do not have runoffs because we could tell that from the runoff column) 3. Original done and runoff upcoming 4. Original not done and runoff possible 5. Original not done and runoff not applicable to that state
EvanJ35 ( talk) 00:20, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
@ EvanJ35: I think we already have that in a sense because only dates that haven't passed are bolded. I think it's pretty clear. Smith0124 ( talk) 06:43, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
It would be clear if no states had runoffs. If it's in between the original primary date and the runoff primary if necessary date, and it doesn't say if the runoff is necessary, it doesn't tell if both, one, or neither party will have a runoff when it could say that. One way to change it would be after the original primary to put in the runoff date column "D," "R," "Both," or "Neither." Adding one letter or a word with four or seven letters wouldn't add as much width to the table as a new column would. The two states in between primaries are Alabama and Texas, both of which will have runoffs on July 14. Alabama will have a runoff for Rs, and Texas will have a runoff for Ds. Therefore, I would make Alabama say "July 14, 2020 (R)" and make Texas say "July 14, 2020 (D)." EvanJ35 ( talk) 14:24, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
I don't see how averaging the predictions and then putting them in a chart is original research. It is completely based on the verified information already in the article. Smith0124 ( talk) 04:43, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Could you please provide any reasons why you removed the ratings of Niskanen Center/Rachel Bitecofer, @ User:Skm989898? As of now, Niskanen/Bitecofer ratings have not been an object of complaint on the 2020 United States presidential election page. I do not see any point in removing them, Rachel Bitecofer appears to be a credible pundit working for a think thank relevant enough to have an own Wikipedia article. The presidential ratings have been cited by 270towin (the Congressional/Senate ratings not so far which could be explained by the fact that they have been out for only few days). -- Jamaika-Koalition ( talk) 05:30, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
How about we remove both of them and save people the trouble. Think Tanks and Websites that show political bias in any way has no place on this page. Only professional unbiased predictions belong on this page nothing more nothing less. Wollers14 ( talk) 03:05, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
@ Thesavagenorwegian: The Niskansen ratings were removed again, seemingly for no reason. I can't undo the edit. Smith0124 ( talk) 06:39, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
@ Thesavagenorwegian: There is a new case to add here regarding Niskansen ratings not only are they outliers with their ratings that not even match the big three being Cook,IE, and Sabato. They even listed multiple house races as competitive even though some of them are safe seats. To me this is a huge red flag and a big no no. Allow me to give an example: In Texas's 25th District which is a ruby red district, they list that as a tossup when the big three all list it as a Safe R Daily Kos has it as a safe R as well as RCP. I don't know how someone can look at that district and say "That is a tossup". To me that is not professional and the reasons you give for these ratings being included are not strong enough to keep these on. Just because they are on 270toWin does not mean we include it we have to look on how professional it is and after seeing the House ratings which I also will add is not included on the House ratings page, I am beside myself because if they list Safe Seats as competitive then something is not right here with this. I will also add that they do not have a score from 538 which you mentioned regarding Fox News so reliability is also a issue. Now, having said all that I conclude with this: We need standards and the standards used here to justify the inclusion are just plain ridiculous. Wollers14 ( talk) 04:05, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Don't you accuse me of lying I did look at the ratings I looked at the analysis that Bitecofer made and she offers no explanation of why specific ratings change she moved a blood red district into the tossup category whatsoever. If there is no explanation how can the ratings be trusted. She just doesn't do it for some reason which to me calls into question the professionalism used in this. Not to mention potential bias. At first I was fine with the ratings but after seeing the House ratings I almost thought I was color blind. We also should not make loose decisions like this. Also Daily Kos is NOT a think tank like Nishkanen is it is a blog and a website what focuses on center left politics. You want to know something else: They list one of the examples I already gave as a safe seat while Bitecofer says tossup. Look at Texas's 25th District and tell me that based off the info about it that that is a tossup. Besides when the 2010 midterms happened Bitecofer was just getting started in life. She needs more experience in this department some more years like Sabato or in this case more knowledge about how certain districts vote like David Wasserman of Cook. In this case I don't see any good reason to keep them because they seem not grounded in reality. Wollers14 ( talk) 00:12, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
When I said further review I meant that I reviewed it not anyone else and found that their explanations to not be satisfactory. I did not mean for it to imply a consensus I just meant that I reviewed it and read it over. Also due to the previously mentioned problems this seems like a data point that does not meet a professional criteria. Wollers14 ( talk) 00:56, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
So knowing what we know now what should we do about it and why? Wollers14 ( talk) 03:02, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
We can include Fox and have them or 538 replace Nishkanen on the chart but the reason they made their own ratings page on the house was to make the article shorter. There is no need to do the same here. Fox may be biased but they are professional with their ratings and do not skew toward anybody. I don't know why they were removed off of the 2018 page but whoever did would need a good explanation. Wollers14 ( talk) 05:27, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Smith got blocked indefinitely so here is a question should we remove the Nishkanen ratings from the Senate pages? I might remove them from the House pages due to the lack of explanations for their ratings since there appears to be no dispute over them. So again do we keep or remove them and replace them with Fox since they already released their ratings. Wollers14 ( talk) 05:14, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
@ Thesavagenorwegian: and @ Jamaika-Koalition: what do you guys want to do about the ratings Remove them and replace them with Fox or keep them? Wollers14 ( talk) 05:38, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Bernie Sanders is not an Independent. The DNC made it so that no one can run in their party unless they are a Democrat. Also his locked wiki page says he is a Democrat.
Also please stop counting the 2 Independents as Democrats. You do this in the section of seats needed to gain majority. Just because they caucus with the Democrats doesn't mean they are Democrats. They are independents.
Finally, stop counting the Vice President as a senator. You keep saying that if there's a 50/50 split in the Senate the Vice President would give a party the majority. The Vice President is NOT A SENATOR, so stop saying that it's 3-4 seats needed to gain majority. If the Senate is 50/50 then no party has a majority no matter who the Vice President is.... Infinity2323236 ( talk) 05:17, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
It doesn't matter if they "function as democrats" they are officially Independents and should only be counted as Independents no matter how partisan they vote..... I know the VP is a tiebreaker. But the VPs political party does not count towards Senate majority. So if the Senate is 50/50 (which it can't be anyways because of the Independents) no one would have a majority... The template is counting the VP as a Senator which is wrong. Infinity2323236 ( talk) 21:32, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
I think the Independents should be noted as Independents who caucus with Democrats, and I think people know that the VP isn't a senator. The purpose is to show what the Democrats need to gain control of the Senate, which is black-and-white, and black-and-white statements are what Wikipedia does. The purpose is not to compare how Democrats and Independents vote, or to predict how senators will vote on a specific thing, which is not what Wikipedia does anyway. If the election results in 48 Democrats, 50 Republicans, 2 Independents, and Biden's VP, the Democrats will have control. Since every senator caucuses with Democrats or caucuses with Republicans, that's what Wikipedia should say. If you think the Senate rules are unfair to Independents, that's a separate issue. It's Wikipedia's job to say how the real world is even if the real world doesn't make sense. EvanJ35 ( talk) 14:39, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
I've had a problem with persistent removal of what I believe to be valuable information from this page. The removal of filing deadlines for independent and minor party candidates has been repeatedly performed by Californianexile without explanation, despite my suggestion that they discuss their preference for this on the talk page. I've reverted it again, and hope this can be a place to discuss the matter if there is still a resistance to its inclusion. I've also had a problem with the removal of candidates from this page's candidate list because they aren't listed by sources with incomplete lists of candidates who are running; as a compromise, I accepted the removal of candidates in elections for which only one source was otherwise listed, but I've seen others removed too. Smith0124 removed candidates because they didn't deem the Green Papers reliable (why?), but also removed candidates for whom there were other sources. I've also seen sources used to list candidates even when they don't actually list candidates (e.g. AL2020 not listing Doug Jones and KS2020 not listing Kobach and Lindstrom). There seems to be little rhyme or reason to it, and I'd like it explained if not halted. In the meantime, I have added an additional source to every use of thegreenpapers for candidates on this article. - PutItOnAMap 17:50, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
Some conversations on this talk page should be archived as they are outdated. Sections 1-15 are all due to be archived. I'm not really sure how to do it. Smith0124 ( talk) 06:46, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
The subsection Competitive races subsection redundant. All of the points mentioned can be found either in this article's section about the race OR in the specific election's article. That is the point of these articles. It is also speculative arm chair punditry. The section is not, in my opinion, necessarily wrong in its conclusions, but it is clearly the opinion of the author and in some cases contradicts the above table. For example, it includes Kentucky, but does not include South Carolina. This is despite the fact that the table above gives them both identical ratings. I could just as easily speculate that South Carolina is a stronger case for a swing than Kentucky based on fundraising and demographics. However, that would not be appropriate for Wikipedia. I have marked the section as speculative and added other inline clean up tags-- Mpen320 ( talk) 05:58, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
I agree with this, especially as some of the comments are directly at odds with the cited sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.47.22.57 ( talk) 15:16, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
I will give the author of that section 24 hours to make their case why this section should be kept. To me it reeks of bias. If the user who made the section fails to respond I will remove the section. Wollers14 ( talk) 16:53, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I see no reason to delete the section. It's relevant. I tried my best to be unbiased, stating the facts only and using the same data points for each race, but obviously it needs editing. Just throwing the entire thing out isn't productive, lets just make it better. Smith0124 ( talk) 17:17, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Listen I like the suggestion of moving the information to the states sections where they should be that I believe PutItonaMap made. How about we just remove the section and put the information onto the state's sections with some things like North Carolina trending purple and unpopular incumbents due to Trump support removed because this is information that is not necessary and to some extent not proven facts. So I will support that suggestion because it follows more closely with previous pages. So Smith I believe that is a reasonable compromise. What say you? Wollers14 ( talk) 02:18, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
I’ve seen multiple articles about how Republican senators fear Trump is hurting their re-election chances. Smith0124 ( talk) 04:46, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
I can find some of those articles to cite. They are written by political scientists. Smith0124 ( talk) 07:07, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
So far no changes have been made. If we end up not reaching a compromise then I will take the section down until we do since we seem to not have agreement. If we did and I missed it let me know I do not wish to do this but we still have information that is not cited still on the page. Also don't focus on the ratings that's a different discussion. We need to deal with the section asap because it still has issues and nothing has been done yet. Wollers14 ( talk) 02:42, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Good timing. I was about to do it. I will list the problems in detail.
Listen Smith I just don't see a section like this fitting well on this page. I think the most logical solution is to take down the section and integrate the information to the states sections. This will cause curious minds to want to actually read information inside the individual articles rather than look at that and say "That's all I need" and leave when more information can be found in the articles. There are problems but this in my view is the most logical solution. Wollers14 ( talk) 20:39, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
I hope that addresses everything. Smith0124 ( talk) 20:55, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
Missouri never went blue in 2008. The federal level and the state levels can both determine a state's tint. It's elected Dem Governors which you mention in Kentucky's reasoning. Also Montana's polling is out of date since no poll has come out since April. Listen it's out of place and you do not seem to be budging putting all information in the states sections is a solution that sees the best of both worlds because the information listed would still be there and it would not be gone. So I just want to clarify that I do not look to destroy the information you put on just moving it to the states sections because they would be in one place if they were moved in them because the reader would see the ratings then wonder why they are a tossup and look in the states section and find out why. That is what the states section is for which makes the section you made kinda redundant with all due respect. Wollers14 ( talk) 21:39, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
Wrong. The polls taken during April are the only ones there. There are no polls listed on RCP or 538. Wollers14 ( talk) 00:30, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
The page is up to date. There are no new polls available. RCP and 538 don't lie when it comes to polls. Now back to the section. I will place a 12 hour time limit. So back to the subject. Wollers14 ( talk) 03:31, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
You still realize that I will not budge from taking the section down and moving the information to the states section. Also that poll was conducted in April. It is out of date since over a month has passed. Remember the time limit. Wollers14 ( talk) 05:27, 9 June 2020 (UTC) Actually wait scratch that. Including the time limit. Let's put it up to a vote with other users. Option 1 is to keep the section. Option 2 is to take it down and put the information listed into the states section below. We'll leave the vote open for one week. Whoever votes type one of the Options 1 or 2 and leave your name. Smith I think this is the best way to decide the fate of the section. Wollers14 ( talk) 05:44, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Listen, we can have a vote. But not a Rfc. Let's ask both @ Mpen320: and @ PutItOnAMap: since they are a part of this conversation too. They should voice their opinions on the matter at hand here since they contributed to this talk. Also be careful when negotiating I could have easily taken down the section if I wanted to and then we would have gotten into a edit war but I don't want that and neither do you. I do apologize for imposing the time limits and ultimatums and seemingly making this difficult. But remember this talk is about the fate of the section not about making it better that should be a separate talk this talk is about whether the section should be there or not. Now, since you are not budging and I am not budging I'm bringing the users who also contributed in this talk to break this impasse. Now let's wait and see what they have to say about it. Wollers14 ( talk) 06:18, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Fine. But after the election is over it's gone because there would be no point in keeping it any longer after November because the results at that point would be in. Also I will leave it to you to fix the problems mentioned above since this is your section. Also I was not trying to accomplish anything else besides the section being removed because a section like that was not what I was used to. I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like change that much. But let's just end this damn talk it's taken enough time already. If you cannot find the sources to explain approval ratings just say that their approval ratings are low and nothing else it will make it look less biased that way. I'm sorry if I acted hostile sometimes if you fail to achieve a goal you get a little upset and I try to be respectful but I was not. So go ahead and make the changes we talked about before and Montana is still a Lean R the poll you showed me was taken in April but released on May 5th normally polls "expire" after 1 month and as of right now it's June 9th. Enjoy and don't mess up. Wollers14 ( talk) 06:47, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
I'd like add to this some issues I've seen with the section (Haven't edited the page as I'm not quite familiar with how Wikipedia editing procedures work yet.)
MAYBE EXPLAIN WHAT "(flip)" MEANS? THAT WOULD BE USEFUL — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.211.162.71 ( talk) 16:00, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
Everyone I have news: Smith0124 the author of the section has been indefinitely blocked by an admin. So a new consensus may be required regarding the section. Since Smith is gone he will not be able to improve the section like he promised. So here is a key question do we keep it as is, make changes to it, or remove it completely? I'm asking anyone who is willing to answer. Wollers14 ( talk) 04:16, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
If you look at the twentieth century list, you will see that Democrats and Republicans are both fairly likely to win re-election to be elected in North Carolina. Hell, that Senate seat has flipped back and forth every election this century (Dole to Hagan to Thillis) by slim margins.-- Mpen320 ( talk) 21:05, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
North Carolina has always been a purple state it has elected officeholders statewide that are both Dem and GOP. The trending purple argument has holes in it. Wollers14 ( talk) 04:42, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
The Politico article linked states that Jones has raised over $8 million, yet the article itself says that Doug Jones "sturggled to raise money." Also, the Republican runoff is becoming very negative. I pointed those things out and someone deleted the edit without even bothering to check. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RemovedAgain ( talk • contribs) 18:35, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
So the Georgia special election links to Louisiana primary, but the Louisiana election links to jungle primary, which redirects to nonpartisan blanket primary. The two systems apparently have subtle differences, and the two pages have hatnotes to each other. Shouldn't the Louisiana election link to the Louisiana primary page? Is the Georgia special election really a Louisiana primary? Mdewman6 ( talk) 23:11, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 05:23, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
If I format something incorrectly here, please let me know as I am new. I personally don't think the 270towin ratings are appropriate for this page because they are based purely on polling, as stated on their site. It says they update them 3x daily so the ratings could shift a lot every time a new poll is released, which is something I've noticed-- I don't think a model based purely on polling is really as reflective of the state of the race when other rating sites (cook, sabato, even rcp I believe) take other factors into consideration.
On that note, I was wondering if it would be appropriate to add in the DDHQ (Decision Desk) ratings they just released? They use an extensive algorithm/methodology for their ratings that I felt more appropriately compares to the other prognosticators. I wasn't sure if DDHQ is considered reputable enough in political spheres outside twitter, so I wanted to check in before I went in and started adding/deleting things.
Yrg8033 ( talk) 05:53, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
@ Tartan357: I’m pretty sure your edit Special:Diff/976307615 and the surrounding ones introduced deprecated image syntax. Infoboxes aren’t supposed to have link syntax around the images anymore. I think. DemonDays64 ( talk) 14:44, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 18:43, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 19:22, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
Which FiveThirtyEight forecast model is being used? Can we include this in the reference? Banak ( talk) 13:32, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
Does 538 have more than one forecast model? Pentock ( talk) 15:29, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Consistent with the discussion at Talk:2020 United States House of Representatives election ratings#FiveThirtyEight Model, I am going to switch the FiveThirtyEight model on this page from Classic to Deluxe. FiveThirtyEight defaults to Deluxe, so it makes sense that we should be using that here too. Inks.LWC ( talk) 20:40, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
DDHQ means Decision Desk Headquarters. The link at the DDHQ prediction column goes to a page about decision desks in general. This should be redirected to Wikipedia's page for DDHQ if there is one. If there is not a Wikipedia page for DDHQ, should somebody make one? If a source is notable enough to have its predictions cited, isn't it notable enough to have its own page? If DDHQ doesn't have a page, the link should be deleted because the link to the decision desk page isn't specifically about the source. Having the DDHQ link go to a decision desk page would be like mentioning Fox News with a link to a generic page about news. EvanJ35 ( talk) 02:08, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
Could someone please cite the source where 538 specifically state these predictions leans, likely and safe specifically. @Ygr8033 has said that there is a prediction model that specifically says that but there is no citation. I am using the forecast that has been cited. I am using the same labels as the one on the presidential election page. I assume that the edits were made in good faith. @Ygr8033 as a wikipedia editor you’re obligated to cite your sources. As a reader I am confused as to where you are getting your information from. So try to explain it to me with a source with the predictions you’re referring to. If this is not addressed as a Wikipedia editor I feel obligated to use the predictions that are cited above. Pentock ( talk) 16:08, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
@Sbb618 thank you. I was using my iPhone so I did not see the map. Now that I used the computer I see the map now. I just assumed that the map was not cited. @Ygr8033 I’m sorry that I assumed that the source was not cited. Pentock ( talk) 19:15, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 22:53, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:
You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 23:53, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
With the addition of VoteFerret to the projections table, we now have eleven different sets of predictions for the Senate elections. I think we ought to narrow this list down a bit - it's getting to be a bit much to read, and is also getting kind of redundant. The House ratings page for 2020 has already taken similar action, removing Niskanen, Politico, and The Economist. I personally wouldn't be opposed to removing Niskanen, due to the fact that their ratings are rarely ever updated and I've heard the model is rather dubious. Any thoughts? -- The Banker of Seville ( talk) 18:41, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
@ Tartan357: It seems like a mild overreaction to remove the entirety of the information on the winners based on AP projections. The time to remove them was perhaps after the first few results were put on this page, not after 30 results were added. To revert that now seems disruptive. The RfC that you referred to seems to only concern the presidential elections and is not binding on all 2020 elections, such as the ones for the House and the Senate. If there were an intention that they would be binding on other elections, that would have been made clear.
Sdrqaz ( talk) 02:33, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
We not just remove the AP projections instead of the entire table that showed clearly what seats was up fo relection this cycle? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.251.193.12 ( talk) 11:54, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
Note: There is now a consensus to call races in the presidential election that have been unanimously called by news networks, so Senate races can now be called on this page if they have similarly been called unanimously by news networks. ― Tartan357 Talk 00:39, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Seeing as Kamala Harris has already been declared VP-elect, would it not make sense to change the amount of seats that Dems need to reach a majority from four to three? I'd do it myself but it's restricted Hellodiot ( talk) 21:20, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
No, I think it's relevant to say that if she had lost, then Democrats would have needed four.
47.139.40.127 ( talk) 21:57, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
1. In article lede:
Change "Republicans will be defending 23 seats in 2020, while the Democratic Party will be defending 12 seats.[9] Democrats will need to pick up three or four seats..." to "Republicans were defending 23 seats in 2020, while the Democratic Party were defending 12 seats.[9] Democrats needed to pick up three or four seats". because election has already happened, verbs should be past tense, not future tense.
2. In note a:
Change
"Thus, assuming that the two independents continue to caucus with the Senate Democratic Caucus and if Kamala Harris is elected vice president in the 2020 election, the Democrats will have to gain at least three seats to win a majority. If Mike Pence is reelected vice president, Democrats will have to gain at least four seats to win a majority. Democrats would also need 51 seats to control the senate at the beginning of the new congress, which is seated at the beginning of January, while a new Vice President would be sworn in on January 20."
to
"Thus, assuming that the two independents continue to caucus with the Senate Democratic Caucus, because Kamala Harris was elected vice president in the 2020 election, the Democrats needed to gain at least three seats to win a majority. If Mike Pence had been reelected vice president, Democrats would have needed to gain at least four seats to win a majority. Democrats will still need 51 seats to control the senate at the beginning of the new congress, which is seated at the beginning of January, while Harris will be sworn in on January 20."
because Harris won. 47.139.40.127 ( talk) 21:56, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
CHANGE In the regular election, incumbent Republican David Perdue will face Democrat Jon Ossoff, who won national name recognition while losing the most expensive House race in U.S. history in 2017.
TO In the regular election, Democrat challenger Jon Ossoff, a documentary film producer and investigative journalist, will face incumbent Republican David Perdue.[144] Ossoff, who won national name recognition while narrowly losing a race for the U.S. House in 2017. Since the November 3, 2020 election was too close to call, a runoff election for this Class II seat will be held January 5, 2021.[146] 174.99.50.168 ( talk) 23:54, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Hello! I see that there is a date in the infobox for the two special elections (AZ, GA) but not for any other elections. Is this just protocol or something? (Sorry, I'm new around here.) Thanks. Twassman ( talk) 19:58, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
What happened to the summaries of all of the original races? This page looks like somebody sliced off a huge chunk of it for no reason whatsoever. SRD625 ( talk) 17:20, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
...And it happened again SRD625 ( talk) 13:24, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
Randomly happens every now and then, no idea why it happens Jackprice1 ( talk) 02:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Is there anything we can do about it? SRD625 ( talk) 15:45, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Bernie Sanders and Angus King are independents, not democrats. Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar won under the DFL (The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party). In conclusion, democrats have 44 (subtracting those four senators) and republicans have 50. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.231.194.182 ( talk) 00:30, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
The DFL is part of the national Democratic Party, just like how the Maryland Democratic Party is part of the national Democratic Party; Democrats officially hold 46 seats, independence hold 2 but they caucus with the Democrats, Republicans hold 50, and two more seats are still up in the air SRD625 ( talk) 23:05, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Not moved. There is a strong consensus against moving the article at this time. ( closed by non-admin page mover) OhKayeSierra ( talk) 22:10, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
2020 United States Senate elections →
2020–21 United States Senate elections – I think this article should be renamed by having hyphen between the year 2020 and 2021. The reason is the Senate elections aren't over as there is with Georgia ones that need to be contested which will be held in January. So this doesn't make sense especially if the article refers to all Senate races. Another thing is that the separate articles about Georgia senate races already have hyphen between the year numbers, so why can't this article be as well?
ShadZ01 (
talk)
04:36, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
@ Martin m159: @ Nohomersryan: @ Hurricanehink: @ Barryob: @ Activist: @ Muboshgu: Love of Corey ( talk) 08:48, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
Oppose They are part of the 2020 election cycle. No need to make things overly confusing. Also, as others have said, not consistent with other election articles. -- Inspector Semenych ( talk) 18:26, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Most of the elections are over. I don't think this is what the "future-class" assessment is meant to encompass. Shouldn't this be reassessed? SecretName101 ( talk) 20:51, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 05:19, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
Ossoff has been projected as the winner by several major news outlets. I think we should color in the map. GeraldFordsEconomics ( talk) 21:25, 6 January 2021 (UTC)GeraldFordsEconomics
The article indicates both Georgia wins, but the infobox does not. Can we update the infobox? Difbobatl ( talk) 14:28, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
Hi, There has been some confusion surrounding which party has control of the Senate as a result of the Senate Election. According to my logic, the Republicans should be noted as having retained control of the Senate as a result of the Senate election. This election has an effective 50/50 split between Republicans and Democrats, similar to what happened in the 2000 United States Senate elections. Thus, the general precedent used on the 2000 page should be followed. In 2000, Republicans were in control before the election, but due to the 50/50 split Democrats won control for a few weeks because Al Gore had tie-breaking power. This change in control (albeit temporary) was still reflected in the article. After the Bush administration was sworn in, control reverted back to the Republicans as Dick Cheney had the tie-breaking power thereafter. This year is different from 2000, in that Republicans have technically retained control of the senate (albeit only temporarily) as a result of the senate elections because of the Republican administration still being in office and able to break ties. Democrats will take control of the senate only after Kamala Harris becomes vice-president (and thus gains tie-breaking power). That would be an event related to the presidential election, not the senate election. As a result of this complicated procedural logic, the Republicans should be listed first in the infobox, and McConnell should be noted as remaining majority leader after the senate election because the change in partisan control will technically happen in the middle of the Senate's term. Let me know if you have any questions. Brycecordry ( talk) 20:15, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with the logic that republicans should be listed as winning control.
Remember, we report what reliable sources say, not what we personally think. Reliable sources all say that Democrats won control of the senate, so that’s what we need to say. One could also make the case, BTW, that since the VP is President of the Senate, their election is part of the senate elections overall. But I think the key here is that RS say Dems will control the senate for the 117th congress, so we must too. Cpotisch ( talk) 23:26, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
Follow the precedent at 2000 United States Senate elections. -- GoodDay ( talk) 01:33, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
Cpoticsh brings up a good point. Could someone look back to archives and see what the reliable sources said after the 2000 election? That said, some so-called "reliable sources" are biased (toward one perspective or the other). Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and thus should be free from any "spin", be it from us Wikipedia editors or from the news reporters that contribute to the "reliable sources"; it is our job as Wikipedia editors to interpret the "reliable sources", get rid of any "spin" or over-generalization and then report the facts neutrally and impartially, for the purpose of reference and archival. I believe that following the internal precedent is important, so that consistency is maintained between the articles and thus a uniform Wikipedia style guide can be implied. This precedent should be influenced by looking at similar situations and interpreting the by-the-books procedure to determine the outcome of the senate election. Based on my interpretation, Republicans did indeed maintain control of the Senate as of the reorganization on January 3. There will be a change in partisan control after January 20, but changes in partisan control can and have happened in the middle of a Congress. Appropriate footnotes can and should be added to explain this, because the official outcome of this election may defy logic when compared to the perceived outcome. To eliminate this confusion, many media outlets may just report the perceived outcome and not get into the nitty-gritty detail that an encyclopedia should.
This brings up another question: is the existing precedent the best option? Or is there sufficient reason to change the precedent, and adjust the 2000 article accordingly. I believe the existing precedent is appropriate. As the Anonymous IP user stated above, we need to accurately discern the difference between the senate election and the presidential election. As we see this year, the presidential election can certainly impact the senate due to the inherent structure of the chamber, but the two elections are distinct. Keeping the two elections separate can help strengthen the difference between the different branches of government, which I feel have degraded over the years, in no small part due to online and social media, where users consume information in quick bites versus the (sometimes necessary) deeper explanations.
Lastly, I would like to digress that user GoodDay appears to be Canadian, as per her user page. I also exhibit a Canadian-like political culture; most of my political article editing is actually on Canadian/Westminster system pages. I have observed that Canadian/Westminster politics places much more value in precedent and tradition than does American politics. As such, the argument about precedent and logic may be moot when applied to an American political article (where American political culture should prevail).
Thanx.
Brycecordry (
talk)
05:19, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
A tricky situation indeed, with that 17-day gap. If we're going to have Tom Daschle (D) listed at 2000 United States Senate elections infobox, as the elected majority leader? Then we must have Mitch McConnell (R) listed at 2020 United States Senate elections infobox, as the elected majority leader. Otherwise then, we use Trent Lott (R) & Chuck Schumer (D) respectively. GoodDay ( talk) 13:12, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
GoodDay is right. This consistency is what I have been arguing all along, just could not think of the correct words. I personally believe that we should put Tom Daschle and Mitch McConnell for 2000 amd 2020 respectively, but I couldn't care less what ultimately is decided as long as stuff is consistent. And sorry about the incorrect pronouns. Brycecordry ( talk) 17:54, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
I guess the question this discussion has come to is whether we (as Wikipedia) should write the articles according strictly to the laws and procedure (Daschle/McConnell), or whether we should ignore the procedural oddities and reflect only the final outcome (Lott/Schumer). As mentioned before, I advocate to retain existing precedent (Daschle/McConnell). According to my interpretation, the senate election is over as of January 3 when the Congress reorganizes. Whichever party controls the chamber at that time should be listed as the "winner" of the election. Even though partisan control will change only a few weeks later, that is nothing alarming as there can be other mid-session changes in control for other reasons (e.g. June 2001). These factors external to the senate and election should be noted if required but should not affect the "outcome" of the senate election. Besides, doing things this way reflects the separation of the different branches of government by keeping executive branch issues out of the article for the senate, a legislative branch institution. Brycecordry ( talk) 04:17, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
I think that consistency with 2000 is absolutely a secondary matter. The fundamental idea of Wikipedia is that we report what reliable sources say. We don't interpret the world ourselves. ALL reliable sources say that Democrats won control of the senate in 2020. See [1], [2], [3], and [4]. The Georgia races were part of the 2020 Senate elections and the Presidential race took place on the same day in November. This is the result of the 2020 election. And as I said before, I would argue that the election of the vice president is part of the senate elections because the VP is President of the Senate. So, because there is no policy saying I should do otherwise, and because it is the unanimous consensus of reliable sources that Democrats won the senate in 2020, I am going to have the infobox say just that. We can discuss it further here, but in the meantime, the article simply has to reflect RS. Cpotisch ( talk) 05:03, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
Don't use the 2000 election being listed wrong as an excuse to list 2020 wrong. If republicans had a majority once the elections were completed in 2000, then it should list that - with clarification about the 17 days that the democrats led. Similarly, the most important thing now is that independents caucus with the democrats and as of the inauguration democrats will have the majority. Rather than leaving it wrong and pointing to 2000, fix both of them! Difbobatl ( talk) 13:48, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
It appears that this discussion has turned into a question of generalization versus specificity, and may also be starting to involve individual users' partisan connotations. I have no real answer for this question of logic, and may be best decided by the Wikipedia higher-ups who can make a decision to formulate this sort of precedent. This way clear style-guide standards can be documented for the next time a situation like this year or 2000 happens. As such, I believe that I have little else to contribute to this discussion. I encourage a continued spirited debate around procedure and fact (not around partisan opinion) to hopefully get this question settled with the least hard feelings possible. Thanx. Brycecordry ( talk) 16:54, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
IMHO we should change Elected Majority Leader to Majority Leader after election in the infobox. Truth is the only official in the US Senate who gets elected or is the somewhat equal to the House Speaker in this situation, is the President pro tempore. The US Senate doesn't elect the majority leader. He/she merely becomes majority leader, because their party has the majority of seats. GoodDay ( talk) 17:42, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
Where are we getting the total votes for each party, as seen in the infobox? And does that include the runoffs? I want to make sure this is up to date, and update it if it's not. Thanks. Cpotisch ( talk) 03:01, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
Also, does this just count the votes in 2020/2021 or all the votes for sitting members of the senate? It's not clear. I think it is the former, which is confusing for a chart about all members of the senate. Most people would read it as a majority of votes for all the members of the senate going to republicans, which isn't true. Difbobatl ( talk) 20:46, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
@ Davide King:I noticed that a recent dispute on the content of the article was resolved by removing the independent column. I'd like to open this resolution to a discussion because this decision would impact the precedent of all articles on the US Senate elections since 2002 (I think), which all involved independent candidates. We need to have a unified consensus on this treatment of independents. Should we apply the new solution, to merge independents into the party with which they caucus? Or should we undo these changes and maintain the current precedent? I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Herbfur (Eric, He/Him) ( talk) 01:24, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
Independents should keep their own section. Either two, can easily vote with Republicans on any bill or resolution. GoodDay ( talk) 20:15, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
If you look at most countries, while independents may be "seperate" they are listed under a subheading with a total of the governing coalition. We have caucuses, rather than coalitions here, but the point remains. The independents should be added to the dems. The same would be true for any independents that have or will caucus with republicans - they should get added. If you want a separate column that's fine, but they should still be added in an obvious way. As per above comments, independent sources do add their numbers - on both sides of the spectrum, so this isn't biased. Difbobatl ( talk) 14:04, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Chiming in to voice my agreement that the independents should keep their own section. They are not Democrats, while they do contribute to the Democrats' majority. It's an important distinction that something like an encyclopedia should be showing. I get that it can be confusing at first, but that confusion is fleeting. The Savage Norwegian 18:01, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
I believe there is a misunderstanding of what "independent" is in this context. The two members being discussed caucus with the democrats, who are usually listed as having 48+2* members. For Senate organizational purposes, and definitely for determining a majority, they are part of the democrat's senate organization. The two at the center of this discussion sit as democrats on committees. The committee assignment is done by parties within their caucuses. If they didn't caucus with the dems, then it would make sense to not add their votes. Sen. Murkowski has indicated she is considering going independent, but would not caucus with the dems. In which case, she should either be part of 49+1* if she caucuses with the Republicans or a truly separate line if she does not caucus with either party - though that is unlikely, as she would then not sit on committees. Difbobatl ( talk) 20:13, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
I feel like the Louisiana section needs to be completely rewritten. That, or converted back to how it was about a week ago. Originally, it talked about how Bill Cassidy had defeated Mary Landrieu in 2014, was running for reelection, and got over 50% in the jungle primary. It was also noted that shreveport mayor Adrian Perkins was endorsed by the democratic party. The bit about Cassidy defeating Landrieu should be clarified to say that he defeat her in 2014 because that’s not what it looks like right now and the bit about Perkins being endorsed by the Democratic Party also seems kind of important. SRD625 ( talk) 14:41, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
"change Due to election laws in Georgia that require candidates to win at least 50% of the vote in the general election, both races advanced to runoff elections in January 2021. Democrats won both seats, and the partisan balance in the Senate was tied for the first time since 2001 after the 2000 elections. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris's tie-breaking vote will give Democrats control of the chamber by the smallest margin possible after the new administration takes office[14]15]"
to
"change Due to election laws in Georgia that require candidates to win at least 50% of the vote in the general election, both races advanced to runoff elections in January 2021. And both Democrats won the seats with the Support and Endorsement of Stacy Abrams. the partisan balance in the Senate was tied for the first time since 2001 after the 2000 elections. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris's tie-breaking vote will give Democrats control of the chamber by the smallest margin possible after the new administration takes office[14]15]" 193.188.123.25 ( talk) 19:15, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
Agreed SRD625 ( talk) 23:34, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
Though I do think it would be fair to mention Abrams in the section specifically about the Georgia Senate elections; after all, if it hadn’t been for the voter mobilization she’s been working on for the last two years, Republicans would still have control the Senate. I agree that mentioning all of the organizers for every race is overkill, but I feel like Abrams is important enough to at least be mentioned once or twice SRD625 ( talk) 00:38, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
I wouldn't take issue with talking about Abrams on the Georgia Senate election pages, but this is a broad overview article and I don't think we need to mention allies/endorsers barring some truly extraordinary circumstance. Orser67 ( talk) 16:32, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Chuck Schumer has become Senate Majority leader because of John Ossoff's and Raphael Warnock's victories in the Senate runoffs in Georgia. Typically when a party secures the majority in the Senate, in the main Wikipedia template the at the time minority leader is placed on the left because of the fact they have secured the majority as a result of that year's senate elections. Right now McConnel is currently on the left side of the template, when he should be on the right since the Republicans have lost their Senate majority. Can someone please go fix this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C0:8701:7040:F91F:CAF3:4C48:1F50 ( talk) 04:56, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 01:06, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
WhatANiceDog is a brand new user and I can't quite figure out what they're doing but they continue to add links to google docs as a source here as well as Daily Kos which is not considered generally reliable but they don't seem to be reversing their edits despite the breach of 1RR here (which I didn't realize, and have self reverted myself) so opening this for discussion. BEACHIDICAE🌊 18:55, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
My mistake. I'm new to editing Wikipedia and did not realize that I was violating a rule when repeatedly reposting an edit. Additionally, I did not realize Daily Kos was considered an unreliable source.
I understand how Daily Kos could be considered a concerning or unreliable source. In the article I'm mentioning, though, the proportions are created using election results and census data. That data is aggregated, shared, and manipulated in a google docs spreadsheet. There is a methodology page as well. So I think, despite the reputation of the website, the information of that article seems both transparent and accurate.
Additionally, there are similar edits regarding proportions to many of the US House of Representatives elections wiki pages. These edits only cite a .gov page with election statistics.
I can come up with a more detailed argument for the edit, but I just wanted to post this before I received some sort of ban. Also, sorry if I'm making some sort of error in posting this, or in how I'm detailing this post, etc.
WhatANiceDog ( talk) 19:47, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:
You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 22:52, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
I feel that there is a serious problem with including Popular vote swing sections on the election infoboxes in US Senate elections. The core of this issue is that there are different sets of states up each cycle, and said sets have different partisan characters to them. It makes the data appear skewed based on which sets are compared.
So the math can be explained quite simply. For the class 3 Senate seats (last up in 2016) and class 1 Senate seats (last up in 2018), the states that are up are more Democratic overall than the nation as a whole by modern partisan metrics calculated based on results from Presidential elections. But the class 2 Senate seats (last up in 2020) are way more Republican overall by the same metric. So what this means is that Trump (while losing the national popular vote by 4.45 point) in 2020 actually won the Presidential vote if you leave out the states that the class 2 seats exclude, and Biden wins it by quite a bit more than the size of his national win if you leave out the states that the class 1 seats exclude. This has serious and simple implication when it comes to calculating swings in the US Senate vote. When you compare a popular vote of class 1 seats to a popular vote of class 2 seats, the class 2 seats will be produce a more Republican national tally barring a massive national opinion swing on a scale that almost never happens. There is also an issue related to uncontested seats that can skew the numbers more, especially when caused by Republicans failing to get a candidate through the top 2 primary of California, which also makes the swing seem even bigger in this case.
I have actually ran numbers myself towards figuring out the average outcome of how the popular vote likely goes in 2016, 2018, and 2020 if every state were to have a seat up, and if both Democrats and Republicans were to have a candidate in every race, and here are the results I got:
2016: Dems win by 1.77 points
2018: Dems win by 10.18 points
2020: Dems win by 3.44 points
Overall the swing still exists from 2018 to 2020 towards Republicans, but its quite clear that its far far away from being the seismic 20 plus point shift that you get from taking face value popular votes as used by the infobox in this page, and its also a misnomer to say that Republicans won the popular vote in the 2020 US Senate elections on the same metric, given that such a win was only achieved by leaving out a set of states that Democrats would have won by a huge amount.
MappedTables ( talk) 19:52, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 05:07, 2 August 2022 (UTC)