What's at Stake in the 2018 Midterms

With the most important primary of the season in the rear view mirror, Republicans can pat themselves on the back for avoiding the worst case scenario.  However, the best case scenario did not play out either. Republicans failed to send a candidate to the general election in the California Senate race, making Dianne Feinstein the de facto Republican candidate.  Republicans also failed to shut out the Democrats in the top-two primaries where it looked like two Republicans might have a shot at advancing to the general election.  Republicans did manage to secure a place on the general election ballot in the gubernatorial race and that may help to avert a complete disaster this November.

While the nay-sayers have already written off the California gubernatorial race as a certain Democratic hold, keep a few things in mind.  In 2014, Democratic Presidential Hopeful Martin O’Malley could not run for re-election to a third term as Governor of Maryland.  He endorsed his Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown to succeed him.  No one thought that Republican candidate Larry Hogan had a chance to win in deep blue Maryland.  But he ended up beating Brown by nearly four percentage points. Nearly four years have passed since this staggering upset and the popular Governor Hogan looks like a clear favorite to win re-election this fall.  One of his potential opponents has gotten so desperate that he has actually run an ad showing him kissing his husband; something most straight politicians would not even do.  

A similar situation played out in Louisiana the following year.  Initially, everyone thought Republican Senator David Vitter or any other Republican would easily win the open gubernatorial contest.  However, Vitter ended up losing by double digits to little-known Democratic candidate John Bel Edwards.  Vitter’s reputation had taken a bit of a nose dive when he became implicated in a prostitution scandal during his tenure in the Senate. 

While voters have become increasingly rigid when it comes to supporting candidates of the same party for President and Federal offices, voters still remain open to supporting gubernatorial candidates who might not share their partisan affiliation.  For example, voters in conservative states might support a Democratic candidate for Governor if they don’t subscribe to Antifa or genuflect to Cecile Richards.  In most cases, Republican governors who hope to win in blue states basically act like liberals on the social issues; instead electing to focus on economic initiatives such as cutting taxes.  Governors whose partisan affiliation does not match the political leanings of their state often have to work with a legislature overwhelmingly dominated by the opposite party.    

2018 may present the last chance to save California.  Republican gubernatorial candidate John Cox and the Republicans in California’s Congressional delegation should take light in the fact that Josh Newman, the state Senator who spearheaded the increase in the gas tax just got recalled and replaced with a Republican.  According to The Daily Kos, Hillary won the 29^th district, formerly represented by Newman, with 53 percent of the vote in the 2016 Presidential Election.  While the Democrats have spent the past several months bragging about their upsets in special elections in districts carried by President Trump, this loss just cost them their two-thirds majority in the California State Senate, which will make it harder for them to pass their tax increases. 

While outgoing Democratic Governor Jerry Brown has not officially given his blessing to his Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, the Democratic candidate who hopes to succeed him as governor, it would come as quite a surprise if he did not endorse him. The far-left Newsom has actually vowed to raise taxes to pay for single-payer healthcare should he win the election.  Do voters really want to vote for higher taxes so they can feel better about themselves for supporting a candidate who shares their “hip” progressive values?   

While the future of California hangs in the balance in this year’s midterms, so does the future of the entire country.  The Democrats, who have become “hungry like the wolf” for impeachment, hope to take control of the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years.  The Democrats only need to pick up 23 seats in November, assuming that the seat won by Conor Lamb in the special election earlier this year goes back into the red column.  Hillary Clinton won 25 seats currently held by Republicans in the 2016 Presidential Election.  If Republicans want to hold the House, they must work to pick up at least a few of the 12 Democratic-held seats that President Trump carried in the 2016 election.   

If Republicans want to pick up any Senate seats during Trump’s tenure in the White House, they have to do so now.  They could not ask for a more favorable map.  The Democrats have a total of 26 seats this year; including ten seats in states that President Trump won.  Republicans will only have to defend nine; that number has risen from eight because of the unexpected resignation of Mississippi's Senior Republican Senator Thad Cochran.

Republicans still have to play a little bit of defense in this year’s Senate map, even though they have to defend only one seat in a state that Hillary Clinton won.  While Hillary only won Nevada by a few percentage points, incumbent Republican Senator Dean Heller will still have to put up a good fight to defend his Senate seat, which has become one of the Democrats’ top targets.  Republicans will also have to fight for every vote in Arizona, where virtue-signaling Never Trumper Jeff Flake has decided not to run for re-election to his Senate seat.  Arizona is one of a few states that became more Democratic in 2016, thanks to half a century of an immigration policy that favors low-skilled migrants.  The House Republicans who have jumped on the discharge petition bandwagon should keep that in mind as they seek to give amnesty to the “dreamers,” while doing little to address the President’s priorities of building a wall and putting an end to chain migration and the diversity lottery; in other words, policies that will actually prevent a future “dreamer” crisis down the road.       

Republicans may have a surprisingly hard time holding onto the Senate seat in Tennessee, held by retiring Trump critic Bob Corker, who got booed at a recent rally the President held on behalf of his potential successor Marsha Blackburn.  The Democrats have recruited former Governor Phil Bredesen, who swept every county in the state during his 2006 re-election bid. Times have changed a lot in the past twelve years since Bredesen won re-election. For one thing, the Democratic Party has completely transformed from a faux-working class party to a socialist party.  It has also made clear its contempt for everyday Americans; referring to them as “bitter clingers” and a “basket of deplorables.”  Even Chris Matthews admitted during a recent appearance on “Morning Joe” that the Democratic Party has developed a bad case of elitism. 

We’ve seen this movie before.  In 2012, the Democrats thought that running Former Nebraska Governor and Senator Bob Kerrey would help them hold onto the Senate seat held by retiring Democrat Ben Nelson.  After all, Nebraska had sent Kerrey to Washington for two terms, including in the “Republican Revolution” in 1994.  But their efforts backfired.  Kerrey ended up losing the general election to State Senator Deb Fischer by double digits. 

In 2016, Indiana’s Democratic Senate candidate Baron Hill bailed out of the Senate race four days before the withdrawal deadline, hoping that the State Democratic Party would replace him with Former Senator Evan Bayh, who had also served as governor.  The Democratic Party did as Hill wished.  While the first poll showed Bayh beating Republican nominee Todd Young by more than 20 points, Young ended up beating Bayh by around 10 points.   

Hopefully Tennessee will realize that now matter how much they like Bredesen, his presence in the Senate will risk giving power to a radical left coalition focused on advancing their agenda, which consists of “transgender bathrooms, open borders, NFL protests, filthy comedians (and) partial birth abortion,” as Laura Ingraham put it.

In 2020, on the other hand, the Republicans will have to defend 21 seats while the Democrats will only have to defend twelve. Republicans have only one painstakingly obvious pick up opportunity; the Senate seat in Alabama currently held by Democrat Doug Jones and formerly held by Attorney General Sessions.  Republicans could possibly pick up a Senate seat in Michigan, which President Trump narrowly won in the 2016 Presidential election.  They will have to defend seats in Colorado and Maine, two states won by Hillary Clinton.  At this point, the most vulnerable Senators on the ballot in 2020 look like Cory Gardner or Colorado and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both of whom have become “amnesty squishes,” as Ann Coulter would say.      

Because they may face an uphill battle in 2020, Republicans need to make the most of 2018.  During an interview with Laura Ingraham earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reminded the American people that the Senate has control over personnel, unlike the House.  He made the courageous decision to cancel the August recess in an effort to confirm some of the President’s cabinet and judicial nominees, which the Democrats have done everything in their power to stall. McConnell warned that “If we lose the Senate, the President will be kneecapped for the last two years of his term on judicial appointments, on appointments to the cabinet, boards and commissions and all of that.  I think the American people need to understand the consequences for this Administration if we were to lose the Senate.”  If the Republicans lose the Senate now, the Senate will almost certainly remain in Democratic hands for the remainder of the Trump Presidency; taking into account the Senate maps of 2020 and 2024.   

The American people have a clear choice ahead of the 2018 midterms.  To paraphrase President Obama, President Trump may not be on the ballot this fall, but his policies are.  This election will have consequences, one way or another.