The 100-Day Dash

How time flies.  Less than 100 days remain between now and the 2018 midterm elections.  Everyone obsesses over the “generic ballot,” which ultimately means nothing.  We live in the United States, not Great Britain.  Democrats could end up winning a majority of the nationwide popular vote while Republicans maintain control of both houses of Congress.  That’s exactly what happened in 2012.  That may also pan out in 2018, especially considering the fact that the Democrats will capture nearly 100 percent of the popular vote in the California Senate race thanks to the top-two primary system.  In addition, the number of Democrats without Republican opponents in House races far exceeds the number of Republicans without Democratic opponents; which will drive up the Democratic share of the vote in the nationwide popular vote tally.  

In the House, Republicans start off at a disadvantage.  The Democrats only need 23 seats to regain control of the House of Represenatives, and Hillary Clinton won 25 seats currently represented by Republicans.  The number of Clinton-won seats held by Republicans initially stood at 23 but court-ordered redistricting in Pennsylvania (by the State’s Democratic-dominated Supreme Court) increased   About a third of those incumbents have decided not to run for re-election.  On the other hand, the Democrats have to defend thirteen seats that President Trump carried in the 2016 Presidential election.  According to Breitbart, the Republicans must win the following 61 seats in order to maintain control of the House of Represenatives.  Breitbart compiled the list using the ratings from the Cook Political Report as of Wednesday.  I have highlighted seats rated Likely Republican in red, Lean Republican seats in pink, tossup seats in purple and Leans Democratic seats in blue. 

1.      Arizona 6

2.      Arkansas 2

3.      California 4

4.      California 21

5.      California 45

6.      California 48

7.      Colorado 3

8.      Florida 6

9.      Florida 15

10.  Florida 16

11.  Florida 18

12.  Florida 25

13.  Florida 26

14.  Florida 27

15.  Georgia 6

16.  Georgia 7

17.  Illinois 13

18.  Illinois 14

19.  Indiana 2

20.  Kansas 2

21.  Kansas 3

22.  Michigan 1

23.  Michigan 6

24.  Michigan 7

25.  Minnesota 2

26.  Minnesota 3

27.  Missouri 2

28.  Montana at-large

29.  Nebraska 2

30.  New Jersey 3

31.  New Mexico 2

32.  New York 1

33.  New York 11

34.  New York 22

35.  New York 24

36.  North Carolina 2

37.  North Carolina 8

38.  North Carolina 9

39.  North Carolina 13

40.  Ohio 1

41.  Ohio 10

42.  Ohio 12

43.  Ohio 14

44.  Ohio 15

45.  Pennsylvania 1

46.  Pennsylvania 10

47.  Pennsylvania 16

48.  South Carolina 1

49.  Texas 7

50.  Texas 21

51.  Texas 23

52.  Texas 31

53.  Utah 4

54.  Virginia 2

55.  Virginia 5

56.  Virginia 7

57.  Washington 3

58.  Washington 5

59.  West Virginia 3

60.  Wisconsin 1

61.  Wisconsin 6

In addition to these 61 Republican-held seats, the Breitbart article argues that Republicans have to flip open seats in Minnesota’s 1^st and 8^th Congressional Districts in addition to Pennsylvania’s 14^th Congressional District from blue to red, or, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would say, from red to blue.  For some incomprehensible reason, the list assembled by Breitbart includes Florida’s 27^th Congressional District, which Hillary captured with 60 percent of the vote.  Republicans have plenty of better options to choose from not included on this list, including several districts won by President Trump.  President Trump won Iowa 1, Iowa 3, Illinois 12, Kentucky 6, Maine 2, Michigan 8, Michigan 11, and New York 19; all of which the Cook Political Report lists as toss-ups.  The Breitbart list simply provides a list of seats that would give the Republicans a bare majority in the House of Representatives.  Shouldn’t Republicans aim for at least a little bit higher? 

While Republicans have a slight disadvantage in the House, they could not ask for a better Senate map.  Republicans only have to defend nine seats this year, while Democrats have to defend a whopping 26, including ten in states carried by President Trump.  In other words, Republicans will get to play a lot more offense than defense in the Senate races.  Republicans hold a narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate; they have an opportunity to increase that margin.  While they have to defend one seat in a state carried by Hillary Clinton (Nevada), as well as open seats in Arizona and Tennessee, they have plenty of pickup opportunities that could offset these potential losses.  Republicans will have definitely missed an opportunity if they do not manage to pick up Senate seats this year.  In the next two election cycles, Republicans will have to defend the lion’s share of seats; including two in states carried by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential Election.

In no set of races will Republicans find themselves at a bigger disadvantage than the gubernatorial races.  Republicans have to defend 26 governorships this year, including quite a few where the incumbents cannot run for re-election due to term limits.  Democrats have to defend nine seats; including three in the deep blue states of California, Hawaii, and New York.   While very few people will ultimately focus on state legislative elections, the results of those races will have an impact on who gets to draw Congressional districts following the next Census; which will in turn impact the balance of power in Washington for the next decade.  The Democrats lost more than 1,000 legislative seats during President Obama’s reign as Supreme Leader of the Church of Liberalism, which took place concurrently with his tenure as President of the United States. 

I have assembled a “rubric” that highlights the best and worst case scenarios for Republicans on Election Day.  Considering the fact that I graduated from high school just five years ago, I have become quite familiar with rubrics.

 

	A	B	C	D	F
House	-Republicans increase their House majority	-Republicans maintain their House majority	-Republicans lose their House majority	-Republicans lose their House majority	-Republicans lose their House majority
Senate	-Republicans pick up a substantial amount of Senate seats	-Republicans pick up a handful of Senate seats	-Republicans pick up Senate seats	-Republicans maintain control of the Senate by a narrow margin	-Republicans lose control of the Senate
Governorships	-Republicans pick up governorships	-Republicans see little change in the number of governorships they control	-Republicans lose a few governorships	-Republicans lose a handful of governorships	-Republicans lose a significant  number of governorships and state legislative seats

At this point, Republicans do not look like they will get an “A” or an “F” on Election Night 2018.  In order for them to get an “A,” they would need to pick up seats in the House,  pick up several Senate seats and actually add another seat to their already impressive gubernatorial portfolio. In order for them to get an “F,” they would have to lose control of the Senate and suffer monumental losses in the House along the lines of what happened in 2010 and 1994 to the Democrats; where they ended up losing more than fifty seats.  Republicans will most likely get a “B,” “C,” or a “D” on November 6; hopefully, for the sake of the country, they will walk away with at least a “B.”    

History says that Republicans should find themselves at a disadvantage, especially in the House.  After all, the President’s party has lost House seats in the midterm elections in all but two cases since World War II.  In 1998, Republican overreach on the issue of impeaching the perjurous President Bill Clinton turned “Slick Willie” into a sympathetic figure, allowing his party to make gains in the House.  In 2002, President George W. Bush enjoyed an extremely high approval rating within his own party and among the public at large, allowing Republicans to pick up seats in both houses of Congress.  Even in the good year of 2002, Republicans still ended up incurring a net loss in gubernatorial seats as many of the governors swept into office by the “Republican Revolution” of 1994 faced term limits.

While the party in the White House has only increased House seats twice since the end of World War II, the party in the White House has managed to either increase its share of Senate seats or seen no net change in the number of Senate seats in four midterm elections since World War II.  Three of those four elections took place shortly after the 500-day mark of a new Presidency, when all three respective Presidents enjoyed intraparty approval ratings north of 80 percent.         

In 2018, President Trump does not have an exceptionally high approval rating but then again, he didn’t on Election Day 2016 either and he still won.  President Trump has created a booming economy and he enjoyed a very high approval rating in his own party at the 500-day mark of his Presidency, second to that of only President Bush in 2002.  For a historical perspective, President Trump enjoyed roughly the same approval rating within his own party as the first President Bush did at the same point in his Presidency.  That fall, Republicans ended up losing seven seats in the House and one seat in the Senate.  Republicans cannot afford to alienate their base; passing another “omnibus” bill at the end of September just five weeks before the midterms could hurt their chances to hold onto the House.  Fortunately, it looks like President Trump will not sign another piece of crap bill like that again.  

As the Breitbart article pointed out, the task of retaining the House majority “is no more daunting than the task faced by the Trump campaign in securing an Electoral College victory in the 2016 Presidential election.”  Republicans must successfully execute this daunting task as well as the less daunting task of maintaining control of the Senate. As Former President Obama said, “Elections have consequences.”  Electing Democrats to the House of Representatives will lead to impeachment hearings for President Trump in addition to erasing the possibility of ever achieving a balanced budget and guaranteeing that construction will never begin on the “big, beautiful wall.” Electing Democrats to the Senate will derail all of the progress President Trump has made in putting conservative judges on the bench. The 100-day dash has begun.  99 days to go.