Happy Super Tuesday: Six Months Until the Midterm Elections

Tomorrow, voters in states with three of the most important Senate contests that will determine control of the upper chamber will head to the polls for primary day.  Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia all have Democratic Senators up for re-election in states that President Trump did quite well in.  Voters in North Carolina, which has no Senator up for re-election this year, will also head to the polls tomorrow. 

 

The Senate map this year overwhelmingly favors Republicans.  Including the two special elections, Democrats have to defend 26 Senate seats while Republicans only have to defend nine.  Democrats have ten senators running for re-election in states that President Trump won while Republicans only have one senator running in a state won by Hillary Clinton. 

 

This fall, the 33 members of Senate Class 1 in addition to two Senators appointed to fill vacancies in Senate Class 2 will face the voters.  For three straight election cycles, Republicans have failed to make any gains in Senate Class 1. Many of the Senators up for re-election in red states this year have never really had to face tough re-election battles.  Senators in Senate Class 1 have most recently had to stand for re-election in 2006, the year the Democrats won control of both chambers in the most recent example of a “blue wave,” and 2012, the year President Obama won re-election.

 

It looks extremely likely that the three Senators whose have primaries tomorrow will make it to the general election as the Democratic Party’s nominee.  Only one of them, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, has attracted a primary challenger. Who Republican voters pick as their Senate candidates tomorrow may make or break Republican chances to win those Senate seats.  Most of the time, voters don’t realize that they’ve picked bad candidates until after it’s too late.  Republicans threw away two Senate seats in 2012 by nominating candidates who made major gaffes that cost them elections in states that Republicans should have no trouble winning in. Todd Akin, the Republican Candidate running against Missouri’s Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, made comments about “legitimate rape” that caused his poll numbers to tank and led to McCaskill beating him by double digits.  Ann Coulter pointed out that many conservative organizations and individuals had endorsed other candidates: “In the primary, John Brunner was endorsed by both Missouri Right to Life and the National Right to Life.  Sarah Steelman was endorsed by Sarah Palin.  Akin was endorsed by the Democratic party.”

 

A similar series of unfortunate events unfolded in Indiana, which began when State Treasurer Richard Murdock defeated incumbent Senator Richard Lugar in the Republican Primary.  Murdock made similar comments that led to a victory by Democratic Congressman Joe Donnelly in the general election.   

 

In 2017, sexual assault allegations surfaced against Republican Special Election Senate Candidate Roy Moore six weeks after the Republican primary runoff and less than five weeks before the general election.  America’s favorite virtue-signaler Jeff Flake actually bragged about supporting his Democratic opponent, showcasing a check he wrote to Doug Jones with the memo “country over party.”  Moore ultimately lost the election, thanks to many Republicans, including the state’s senior Senator Richard Shelby, backing write-in candidates.

 

Republicans hope to avoid making similar mistakes in 2018, as the gridlock in Congress indicates the need for a stronger Republican majority in the Senate.  As of right now, it looks like Republicans have only one candidate that could deal a death blow to Republicans’ plans to increase their Senate majority.  West Virginia Senate candidate Don Blankenship, who formerly served as CEO of Massey Energy, spent time in prison for his failure to follow safety standards, resulting in an explosion at a coal mine that killed 29 people.  Rep. Evan Jenkins and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey also seek to win the Republican Primary and face off against Senator Manchin, the most conservative/moderate Democrat in the Senate.  While Manchin has more crossover appeal than many of his fellow red state Democrats up for re-election, Republicans should not have to work very hard to win a Senate seat in a state where President Trump won by more than 40 points and swept every county in the state. 

 

Indiana also has three major candidates looking to unseat Senator Donnelly in a state that President Trump won by nearly 20 points.  Two of the three candidates have basically spent the entire primary season cannibalizing one another.  Reps. Todd Rokita and Luke Messer both serve in the United States House of Representatives and attended Wabash College together.  Maybe they forgot that brutal primaries often hurt a candidate when it comes to the general election.  A third candidate, Former State Rep. Mike Braun, has raced more money than the two Congressmen and has decided to wear the outsider label as a badge of honor.   

 

Ohio Republicans also hope to unseat Senator Sherrod Brown, especially after President Trump won the state by nearly 10 points in the 2016 election.  Brown finds himself much farther left on the political spectrum than Donnelly or Manchin, although he has made common cause with the Trump Administration on the issue of trade.  After 2012 nominee Josh Mandel dropped out of the race, Republicans scrambled to find a replacement.  President Trump has endorsed Rep. Jim Renacci, who dropped out of the gubernatorial race to fill the void left by Mandel.  All of the other candidates in the race have virtually no name ID.     

 

Only one of the four states holding primaries tomorrow also has a gubernatorial election.  Ohio’s Republican Governor John Kasich, who has established a reputation as a Trump critic, cannot run for re-election because of term limits.  The Republican primary has shaped up as a contest between Attorney General Mike Dewine and Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor while Former Attorney General and Head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Richard Cordray and Former Congressman and Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich hope to win the Democratic Primary.

 

As far as important House races on the ballot tomorrow, the overly confident Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has two targets in Indiana, four targets in North Carolina, six targets in Ohio, and two targets in West Virginia.  Most of these seats, especially in Indiana and West Virginia, should not flip unless the nightmare of a blue wave comes to fruition.  If Democrats pick up any of these targets, even the more competitive races in North Carolina and Ohio, then it probably means the Democrats will take over the House.  The Republican Congressional Campaign Committee only has one target on the list with a primary tomorrow, flipping that seat looks like a long shot at this point.   

 

With the midterm elections six months away, many crucial primaries still remain.  Seven more red State Democrats have yet to learn the identities of their Republican opponents in the general election.  Democratic Senators in Montana, Missouri, North Dakota, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania will also have to defend seats in states that President Trump won. For a complete list of upcoming election dates, check out my political calendar.  

 

Perhaps no other primary will have more consequences for the battle for the House than the California primary, which will take place on June 5.  Hillary Clinton won seven Congressional districts currently held by Republicans.  Two of these seven Republicans decided not to run for re-election, which made Democrats extremely confident that they could pick up those seats.  However, California’s top-two primary system may put a wrinkle into those plans. Because of the large number of Democrats that have filed to run in both districts compared to a smaller amount of Republicans, two Republicans could very well advance into the general election, shutting the Democrats out.  On the flip side, the top-two primary system could shut Republicans out of the Senate and gubernatorial races in the Golden State, if two Democrats end up getting the highest shares of the vote on Primary Day.  As of right now, it looks like a near certainty that the California Senate race will feature two Democrats while far-left Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom will surely end up as one of the candidates for Governor. Whether or not he will face a Republican or Democrat will remain a mystery for another month. 

 

While the Democrats find themselves overextended in this year’s Senate races, the Republicans have to defend an astronomical amount of gubernatorial seats this year.  The Republicans have to defend 26 seats while the Democrats only have to defend nine, not including Alaska’s Independent Governor Bill Walker.  Nearly one-half of the incumbent Republican governors in states with gubernatorial elections this year cannot run for re-election because of term limits, which will certainly make it harder for Republicans to hold some of those seats.  While on paper, Democrats should not have trouble winning in four blue states overwhelmingly won by Hillary Clinton, governors in three of the four states have sky-high approval ratings; meaning that they will probably win re-election in spite of their state’s blue tilt in Presidential elections.  Popularity of the incumbent governor serves as a much better predictor of the results of gubernatorial races than Presidential election results in the state, as opposed to Senate and House races, which increasingly mirror the results of Presidential election results.

 

With Election Day six months away, Republicans look likely to pick up at least a couple of seats in the Senate while losing seats in the House and in the Governors’ mansions.  Republicans may try to downplay unfavorable election results, particularly if they lose the House, by stating that the party in the White House tends to lose seats in midterm elections.  Instead of coming up with excuses in the event of a hypothetical loss, Republicans should try coming up with giving voters an excuse to vote for them.  They have 183 days to make their case.