A GOP Supermajority in 2018?

The midterm elections would normally go against the President’s Party.  The sitting president will lose support in either chamber of Congress.  The last time this was not the case was in 2002 – the first election after 9/11 – when the President’s Party has gained a handful of seats in the House and Senate.

There are two extreme possibilities in 2018, each one representing the best case for either party.  One of them represents history (a Democratic House) and the other represents structure and maths (a filibuster-proof Republican Senate).

If you tune in to mainstream media, you will keep hearing how good it is for Democrats when it comes to the House.  Given issues of gerrymandering, that outcome remains to be seen.  So I am a bit sceptical that that will materialise.

The 2018 Senate map however, looks much tougher for Democrats.  Assume Roy Moore, the Republican Senate candidate for Alabama wins the special election on Tuesday.  For one, the party has made net gains in the past three consecutive cycles for the class of senators that will be up for election in 2018 (Class 1).  In fact, more than half of the Democratic caucus (25) is found in Senate Class 1.

To make matters tougher, 10 of these Democrats represent states that Trump won in 2016.  They include Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.  Fivethirtyeight has released an analysis where one’s vote for senate and president have corresponded in recent years.  This means is that if you subscribe to that theory, Republicans should end up with up to 62 seats after the elections on 6th November 2018. Even if Democrats win Nevada and Arizona, the only two states they have a realistic chance to gain, Republicans still have the 60 they need to quash a filibuster.  Take note this does not include what may happen in Minnesota where a special election will be called in 2018 to fill in the vacancy that would be left by Al Franken when he steps down at the end of the year due to allegations of misconduct.  Some analysts worry that a Republican may do well enough to win that seat and that takes Republicans up to a healthy 61.

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What does this mean? It means that Republicans can ram through virtually any piece of  legislation they want to without fear of Democrats blocking them.  Republicans won’t have to worry about deploying a ‘nuclear option’, something that they used to push through the appointment of controversial Supreme Court Justice nominee Neil Goursuch.   Republicans won’t have to rely on a technique called reconciliation to push through major pieces of their agenda.

 

And here is an added bonus: former White House chief strategist and Trump ally Steve Bannon warned Republican incumbents that they may be subject to a primary.  In 2018, Bannon does not need to primary them because there aren’t that many Republican incumbents to primary in the first place.  It means he can handpick as many ‘Roy Moore’-like or ‘Trump’-like candidates directly and they won’t have to worry about beating an incumbent Republican.  They will be then able to  directly challenge their Democratic rivals in the general election.  If they all win, not only do you have a Republican-friendly supermajority in the Senate, but a Bannon/Trump/Moore-friendly supermajority one as well.

 

The president’s ratings may be in the mid-to-upper 30s for now and even if they stay there on 6th November 2018, it’s where the President is popular that counts.  It’s completely useless if the President’s unpopularity is concentrated in California, New York, and Washington state, yet still above water in the 30-something states he won last year.