Category: 2018 midterms

Initial 2020 Map

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I still have a few more takeaways from the midterms to share with you. But to take a break from it, I want to share with you my initial map of where the 2020 race stands from an Electoral College perspective. For those who are not up to speed with how candidates win the presidency, they need states that have at least 270 electoral votes between them to do so. These ratings and map are based on the 2016 and 2018 election results. This is just a starting point and can change depending on what we find out during the 2020 campaign season. We have solid, likely, lean and tossup categories. In the lists below, I will mainly focus on the likely, lean, and tossup states.

1. Likely Democratic – these states have been reliable sources of Republican electoral votes until 2004. Although these were competitive, Hillary Clinton carried them by relatively healthy margins in 2016.
– Virginia
– Colorado

2. Lean Democratic – Democrats have won these competitive states by narrow margins in 2016.
– Minnesota
– Nevada
– New Hampshire

3. Tossup – This list consists of formerly blue wall states that Donald Trump successfully flipped to the Republican column. Before 2016, these states have voted Democratic in at least five consecutive elections. However, in the 2018 midterm cycle, Democrats have won both the Senate seats and Governor’s mansions in all these states. This means that Democrats clearly have a fighting chance to win back all of them.
– Michigan
– Pennsylvania
– Wisconsin

4. Lean Republican – Given the relatively surprise upsets by Ron Di Santis and Rick Scott in Florida, it seems like Florida could be slipping away from Democrats. On the other hand, a split decision in Arizona during the 2018 midterms – Doug Ducey (R) for governor and Kyrsten Sinema (D) for senator – could provide Democrats hope in being more competitive in statewide races. Democrats may have failed to win the gubernatorial race in Iowa but they have won two House districts in the state.
– Arizona
– Florida
– Iowa

5. Likely Republican – The Democrats’ failure to pickup any federal or statewide contests in Ohio after Trump’s 2016 win shows that Democrats are facing an uphill struggle to win the state back. Although Democrats are competitive in North Carolina and Georgia, the reality is that voter suppression and difficulty to win university-educated white men make victories in these two southern states elusive for the blue team. As for Texas, in addition to similar factors that Democrats face in the two Southern states I mentioned, it remains to be seen whether the party’s performance in the Senate race was an O’Rourke thing or a Democratic thing. For instance, as Rafael Eduardo Cruz’s margin in the Senate race was less than three percent, Greg Abbott easily cruised to reelection in the gubernatorial race.
– Georgia
– North Carolina
– Ohio
– Texas


Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Midterm Takeaway 3: Order of Projections Matter

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At about 20.00 ET of election night, FiveThirtyEight’s projections of Democrats retaking the House have dipped below 50 per cent. Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams were trailing their respective races. Joe Donnelly was still about 15 points behind. Only Jennifer Wexton of Virginia 10 was called (a widely expected call). Shortly after that, networks projected Republican Congressman Andy Barr would defeat Air Force veteran Amy McGrath and hold on to his Kentucky 6 seat. Based on those results, it shouldn’t surprise one to hear Van Jones saying that such results were ‘heartbreaking’. The punditry was almost in agreement that there was no ‘blue wave’ or ‘blue tsunami’.

Just over an hour later, after the 21.00 hour struck, the calls started coming in thick and fast in the House in favour of Democrats. And before the 22.00 hour was upon us, the Republican-leaning Fox News projected Democrats would ultimately gain the House. Of course, that was viewed with initial scepticism by Democrats as a ruse to suppress voters in the west. The key bellwethers of Virginia 2 and Virginia 7 were called in favour of the Democrat. Even New York 11, mostly within Staten Island, was a Democratic upset. At that point, it was clear that Democrats were on target to pick up the House. Watch how different Van Jones’ reaction was shortly after 23.00 (just three hours after his initial ‘heartbreaking’ comments) when CNN called Democrats would win the House.

On Thursday, former Republican now TV presenter Joe Scarborough pointed out to Democratic gains down the ballot. They have won seven governorships, seven state legislative chambers, and hundreds of state legislative seats. On top of​ that, Nate Cohn thinks that based on his models, Democrats are favoured to win most of the remaining seats, especially as Orange County districts have not yet reported fully (and data is pointing to the strong possibility that Orange County districts will be entirely devoid of Republican representation, think about it especially as that county has been the Republican’s bread-and-butter in the Golden State​ for a long time). Democrats have more than doubled the number of trifectas they had from 2016 (including two trifectas in New Jersey and Washington they’ve won last year). If that’s not enough in state governments, Democrats will have 27 Attorney generals in the New Year. Even in the Arizona Senate seat, whose results were initially friendly to Republican Martha McSally, prognosticators indicate that one would now rather be Democrat Krysten Sinema.

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Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter has made it clear that with Democratic gains so far, Democrats ought to see this a good night.

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Still, given these objective measures, the point in all of this is that the order in which races are called matters when it comes to building a narrative. It is unfortunate for Democrats that Gillum, Abrams, McGrath, and Donnelly all had the misfortune of standing in states whose polls closed relatively early in the evening. In the absence of information from other key races, the mainstream media, being what they are, would have to create a narrative out of the unrepresentative information they have to fill the vacuum. It creates glum faces, perhaps even panic for Democrats when there was no need to do so.

To be fair, Republicans were on the receiving end of this in 2016. Before polls closed in the rust belt states at 21.00 ET, everyone was thinking Democrats were on their path to winning. Then came the initial Wisconsin and Michigan returns where the Democrat was underperforming, ​and Trump was overperforming. That changed, and revealed everything we needed to know.

So if the media wasn’t in the business of creating horseraces for a living, what should this mean? Quite simply, one has to wait until we have all the pieces to create a narrative that doesn’t dash a party’s hopes or creates emotional roadblocks. I have to admit, despite the objectively good night for Dems once this is all over, the fact that Abrams and Gillum were standing in States that were first to close, made it emotionally draining.

Midterm Takeaway 2: Moms in, Mobs out – the Culture War is On

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This is the second in the series of my takeaways from the recently concluded 2018 midterm elections. You can read the first takeawayheree.

In a previous article, I argued that this midterm was going to be a battle of battlefronts, particularly history vs structure. On one hand, the history side suggests that the President’s party would lose seats. On the other hand, the structure side of the argument suggests that there isn’t much left for Democrats to gain for 2018, especially in the Senate. The opposition could in fact even lose seats in that case. Now we’ve gotten our answer: it was both and it was made clear by the fact that the House and Senate races were two different universes.

President Trump wanted this election to be about ‘Kavanaugh and the caravan’ (Kavanaugh is his Conservative Supreme Court justice pick and the caravan refers to those who are walking thousands of miles up to the Mexico-US border to seek assylum​). This push is in line with previous fights he wanted to wage from removing Confederate statues to kneeling NFL players during an anthem. Then there are his classic taunts on the media and his endless tweeting about rigged processes and how various investigations such as the Mueller probe are ‘witch hunts’. Pundits have thought these are reckless and impulsive but I thought there was some method into this so-called ‘madness’. I always mentioned he knows exactly what he’s doing (Remember Senator Rubio saying the same time about Obama during a debate? See the video below but replace Obama with Trump).

Some Democrats and left-leaning pundits thought that last year’s statewide Virginia races show that such waging culture wars would backfire. There’s just one problem with that assessment: not every state is like Virginia and even then, the Republican candidate’s percentage margins held up pretty well in counties the party was expected to do well in.

To put it another way, this cycle answered the question of​ whether Trump’s effectiveness in waging a culture war is transferable to Republican candidates. The answer is yes. President Trump focused on the Senate in his series of campaigns in the final weeks of the midterms by going to states he won but with a Democrat. Donnelly was well behind throughout the evening. There was a point in the night that I thought that Republicans would come close to a filibuster-proof Senate majority (though mathematically that was ruled out with Manchin’s victory).

And it’s not just the Senate where Republicans did well in. Rural House districts show how well Trump has done Republican candidates a favour. Republican incumbents have increased their majorities in most districts subject to a special election throughout 2017 and 2018.

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Returning to the Senate, I have to admit that a failure of Democrats to recapture means the most consequential​ aspect of Trump’s legacy – reshaping the Federal Judiciary – will continue unimpeded. Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley will no longer have to depend on Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to provide the deciding votes on judicial nominees. Conservative justices will be able to thwart any ruling that is favourable to Democrats and progressives. And even if lower courts don’t, there’s a newly-emboldened Supreme Court with Brent Kavanaugh that would provide a reliably conservative ruling.

More broadly, I’ve always maintained that Trump could perpetually have a negative net approval rating in the US at large and be behind in the nationwide popular vote but because of the electoral system, he does not need to have them in his favour. He just needs to be popular in enough states and they don’t even need to have a tonne of voters (though having Florida as one of those states helps). That reality was not lost on Trump and the Republicans. An enlarged Republican Senate majority, built on the backs of Democrat incumbent losses in red states, signifies the culture war Trump wants to wage is well underway.

BUT, the cavalry has arrived for Democrats. Whereas Kavanaugh and the caravan powered cultural conservatives to oust red-state​ Senate Democrats, they have also empowered suburban women – voters and candidates alike – to help Democrats recapture the House. These new warriors are there to remind Trump that they have the authority to put a check on him. On top of that, barring any serious contests within the Democratic caucus, the likely next speaker is herself a woman.

Just as Trump’s base states have turned redder, white-collar suburbia has turned bluer. And it’s not just women who will enter the House but also minorities. This marks the first time that white men are a minority in the Democratic caucus. In an era where the #MeToo and #NeverAgain (referring to the resolve to stop gun violence) movements are on the rise, Democrats are on their way to use the House to wage their cultural war battles.

Throughout the twentieth century, suburbia has been a reliable source of Republican votes. To be sure, a lot of southern suburbs are still more likely to vote Republican than Democrat. But outside of evangelical and Mormon areas, Democrats have made significant inroads in suburbia to offset their losses in small town and rural America. The question is whether that would be enough in 2020.

Once again, Trump’s win in the Senate signifies his culture war wages on but Democratic wins in the House provide the party with new weapons and new foot soldiers in its upcoming battles.

Midterm Takeaway 1: The Forecasts Broadly Held Up BUT…

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This is first in a series of 2018 midterm takeaways I have.

If I had to pick one set of winners from the 2018 midterms, I would have to give it to the professional prognosticators such as FiveThirtyEight, Cook Political Report, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball. A close second would be the punditry class who have suggested the events of the past year were pointing to what actually happened last night.

So what was the broad picture being painted? Quite simply, that Democrats would take the House but Republicans would hold the Senate. Moreover, the generic House ballot average has stayed within a seven- to nine-point range with the Real Clear Politics average pegging it at 7.3 coming into election day. Based on the actual votes coming in, once they are all counted, the prognosticators are now pegging the final generic ballot to be within that same range. It’s currently at 4.1 points but there are still postal votes to count from vote-rich states like California, New York, and Washington state.

In other words, the macro (i.e. national) picture was more or less spot on.

But the micro picture (i.e. state- and district-level polls) is a little bit tricky. For instance, the governor’s races, most notably in Florida have pointed to more Democratic gains. Andrew Gillum was leading, albeit slightly in most pre-election polls. They were also expecting him to provide coattails to incumbent Senator Bill Nelson, who was struggling earlier on. Now though, Republican Ron de Santis is expected to take up the gubernatorial mantle. Not only that, it seems like Nelson’s vote margin his senate race is slightly larger than Gillum’s in his gubernatorial race. Fred Hubble of Iowa was also a disappointment for Democrats since more polls were suggesting he would be in a good position to win. But it wasn’t meant to be.

In the Senate, Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly lost their respective races (polls suggested they were strong possibilities) but by a wider margin than suggested. Even some Senate Democrats had a few things to be heartened about from the actual results considering the polling. Beto O’Rourke may have lost his Texas Senate race, but it was a by a narrower margin than polls suggested.

The California House battlegrounds seemed mixed up. If you will read the polls, CA-10, CA-39, and CA-45 were trending Democratic whilst CA-25 and CA-48 were slightly Republican. However, the actual results initially suggested the reverse: CA-25 was called for Democrat Katie Hill, while in CA-48 Harry Rouda maintains a slight lead against Republican incumbent Dana Rohrabacher. Now we will see what happens as the remaining ballots come in and it may take a week or two to get a clearer picture though even if the postal ballots lean Democratic.

But it was not all bad news for state-level polling in battleground races. As disappointing as Stacey Abrams’ race to become the first African American governor of Georgia is, polls-wise, the results as they stand are expected. Plus the Abrams camp is still finding ballots that were not counted. So for the immediate time being, a run-off is still in play. We cannot also consider Phil Bredesen’s loss as bad news for prognosticators given that the final polls were pointing to a late but clear loss for Bredesen. In fact, Kyle Kondik of Crystal Ball was taken a loss as to why his race was rated by pundits as a ‘tossup’.

So that’s the first takeaway.

Fewer blue trifectas and a potential bad night for statewide Democratic women incumbents in 2018?

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A party has a trifecta if it controls the governor’s mansion and all branches of the legislature in a particular state. Having trifectas is helpful because, ​for one, it makes passing a party’s agenda a lot easier. More importantly, they will have a say in the redistricting process especially as 2018 is the last election for many state-level offices before the next Census is conducted.

Democrats are already at a disadvantage in terms of the number of states where they have control of governorships and state legislatures. They only have eight trifectas. Republicans, by contrast, have​ 26. To make matters potentially worse, recent polls and race ratings suggest that the already-decimated Democratic hold of trifectas may further shrink as gubernatorial races in up to three blue states are showing a competitive race.

1) Oregon – The Cook Political Report has downgraded the rating incumbent Democratic Governor Kate Brown’s race from ‘Lean Democratic’ to ‘Tossup’ citing the win of a strong candidate in the Republican gubernatorial primary. This was on top of an earlier downgrade they did from ‘Likely Democratic’. Republicans have also pointed to her failure to address the state’s various problems such as foster care, failing schools, the pension crisis, and increasing taxes. In relation to this, Brown’s job approval numbers have taken a nose dive, and two general election polls have shown her lead within the margin of error.

2) Rhode Island – Recent polls have shown that the incumbent governor, Gina Raimondo is only marginally ahead of her Republican challenger. Independents, the biggest voting bloc in Rhode Island and a lack of enthusiasm for either major party candidates are said to be keeping the race fairly close.

3) Connecticut – Incumbent governor Dan Malloy remains unpopular. The Cook Political Report also rates this race as a ‘Tossup’.

On paper, the governor’s race is supposed to provide the best opportunities for Democrats given that they are not gerrymandered (unlike the House) and that Republicans are defending far more positions (unlike the Senate). However, Democrats are in the fight for their political lives in up to three reliably blue states. To be sure, Democrats have opportunities to pick up governor’s mansions in Michigan, Illinois, New Mexico, (just) possibly Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Kansas, and Florida. But make no mistake: their woes on the number of trifectas they hold are only about to grow.

Based on the information I have shared, I also have another observation: Democratic women officeholders are vulnerable. Democrats have thought that women are the key and hence a lot of women have won their respective primaries. More than 190 women are standing​ for positions in the House, most of whom happen to be Democrats. However, two of the three most endangered Democratic governor’s mansions in the country happen to be held by women. It’s something worth thinking about especially that these women are in trouble in states whose demographic make-up should be friendly to them and the party they belong to. This is on top of two vulnerable Democratic women incumbents in the US Senate (Claire McCaskill and Heidi Heitkamp of Missouri​ and North Dakota, respectively). So, for all the hype about women candidates helping Democrats in House districts, it may be a different story for incumbent women Democratic candidates in statewide races.

Caution Around Generic Ballot: How are the Individual Races?

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The latest ABC News/Washing Post poll shows that Democrats have a double-digit advantage in the generic ballot. This comes on the heels of a CNN/SRSS poll which shows a similar trend. On paper, one should think that Democrats are in a good position. As at Sunday morning in the US, the Fivethirtyeight classic model gives Democrats a four-in-five chance of retaking the House.

However, some key questions that still remain. Those numbers I pointed to are just generic numbers. It does not tell us how individual candidates are doing in the states they are standing in. I made a similar cautionary note more than seven months ago when trying to draw conclusions about Trump’s approval numbers. Bottom line: the national numbers don’t matter if such favourable Democratic numbers are coming from individual places expected to vote for Democrats anyway. So Trump can have terrible approval numbers nationally but can deliver a filibuster-proof majority for his Senate candidates given how many Senate seats, are in States that have a Republican DNA.

That same argument can be said about the House. Dave Wasserman and Nate Cohn have expressed scepticism about whether Fivethirtyeight’s generic ballot is any good news for Democrats, especially after the Kavanaugh hearings. Cohn has been processing a series of NY Times/Sienna polls in supposedly competitive districts. So far in October, he has returned numbers relatively favourable to Republicans. Wasserman for his part thinks that Republicans are holding up given that 47 out of 69 identified competitive House districts are Trump-won districts. In other words, there is limited indication that the strong showings by Democrats in the generic ballot have translated to prospects in swing races. It may be possible that the improved numbers may be due to strong swings in house districts expected to vote for Democrats (i.e. solid or not-so swing districts).

In relation to that, another significant issue that I have with using the generic ballot is that it assumes each Congressional district moves in the same direction, even at different paces. Some commentators are​ suggesting that that may not be the case this time. Ron Brownstein who looks at demographics and the nature of each race suggests that the 2018 campaign will feature more fissures where places that support Democrats will become more Democratic and places that heavily supported Republicans last time will likely swing more Republican. In fact,​ the latest New York Times-Siena poll shows that Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District, a district Trump carried but held by a Democrat, has the Republican candidate is up by 15 points.

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I just heard an argument from Michael Warren of the Weekly Standard which suggests the strategy is for Republicans to try to even win by just margins in enough districts to retain the House. That is a plausible strategy given that Trump has at times shown he can discipline himself in the closing days of the campaign. It also plays well to what I have argued given that Trump or Republicans can be down the ditch nationally but still pull it off if they just win the ‘marginal’ districts. This is also consistent with a New York Times report which shows Republican groups cutting funding to some campaigns to focus on just enough seats to hopefully help them retain the House. After all, a win with a five-, five hundred-, or a five hundred thousand-vote majority is a win and the winning candidate gets full powers. That is where the generic ballot can’t save Democrats. And we haven’t talked about the issue of gerrymandering yet, which, according to the Brennan Centre, would force Demcorats to lead the generic House ballot by 11 points to even get a shot at winning the lower chamber. That point was clearly manifested after looking at the results of the Virginia House of Delegates race.

Advice to Democrats on SCOTUS and Judiciary: Win the Senate Back

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Journalist Jeff Greenfield has written an article that reminds everyone about President Trump’s most important legacy to date: reshaping the judiciary to become more conservative leaning for decades. Now we can debate about whether that is Trump’s legacy alone because the Senate, led by Mitch McConnell ultimately has a say on whether these nominations move forward. Some will observe that a lot of procedures meant to produce a fair vetting of nominations such as the ‘blue slip rule’ and filibuster have been done away with (to be sure former Democratic leader Harry Reid was responsible for some of this).

And now that Republican Senators have a ‘take it or leave it’ approach to Dr Ford’s allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brent Kavanaugh, their motive could not be clearer. After all, a lifetime appointment is at stake, and it could reshape the court for a generation on issues from abortion to voting rights. Personally, amidst the backlash pushing through with the nomination could create, Republicans feel that they can take that because Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court could make it easy for voter suppression tactics to survive, if such related rulings even get passed the already conservative federal judiciary where one out of every seven judges is a Trump nominee. In other words, the long run calculation is that if there is outrage by women from a Kavanaugh confirmation, there’s nothing the women can do about it because their friends in statehouses will be able to suppress votes all they want.

Which now leads us to what we think the next best solution for Democrats ought to be. Unfortunately given everything that has transpired, Democrats only have ​one alternative: win back the Senate. This is supposed to be a blue wave year given President Trump’s national approval level consistently under water.

There is just one major problem. There are 25 Democrats (including two who caucus with them) up for reelection in 2018, ​but the challenge does not necessarily come from the fact that more than half the caucus is up for reelection per se. Instead, it’s the fact that more than a third of this class of Senators come from states Trump won in 2016. Polls have suggested tight races, and at one point, I even suggested that a filibuster-proof majority is in play given the close correspondence between Senate and Presidential votes in recent years.

But make no mistake, whilst winning the House may be a symbolic victory for Democrats, them winning the Senate will send the real shivers down the spines of Republicans.

If Democrats lose on the Kavanaugh battle, my advice is for them to play the ‘long game’. This is a significant setback but only a setback; there is still a lot of minutes left to play. They should use this to galvanise their base. Republicans have historically been more energised if the Supreme Court or even the judiciary more broadly is cited as an issue. That’s one of the reasons observers cited for why wavering Republicans voted for Trump anyway in 2016. And it looks like Trump is delivering. Republicans have polished the art of winning over voters with the judiciary as an issue for almost half a century. If ever Democrats are showing a sign they’ve learned, they’re barely getting started. I don’t see as much passion in the blue team as they ought to.

Democrats need to mount a smart and tough campaign to do the unthinkable, which is to win back the Senate. There are less than seven weeks left to make their case especially as the other side has been making theirs for more than four decades.​ Democrats may not be able to stop Kavanaugh but if they win the Senate, they may be able to protect the legacies of the justices that matter more afterwards: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Probably there’s no Democratic Pick-up After all?

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All right probably we won’t experience a ‘red wave’. For sure, Democrats have a clear upper hand in the generic ballot, but that’s not what elects representatives to the House. With less than 50 days before the midterms, we start looking at more specific district- or statewide ballots. Some of these district- or state-level polls have started coming out.

In the House, Democrats need 23 Democratic seats. The problem? There are only 25 Clinton-won districts held by Republicans. So far, they have shown mixed news for Democratic prospects. But there are some that warrant our attention because of their demographic makeup. If I were in DNC and DCCC headquarters, I would start ringing the alarm bell.

The first of these districts is California 39. It is a district that includes not only parts of Orange County but also Los Angeles. Clinton won the district fairly comfortably and since 2004, only one Republican presidential candidate won the district: Willard Romney in 2012. It is an open seat as incumbent Ed Royce decided not to stand for another term. But, the A+ rated Monmouth poll has Republican House candidate up by four points among all potential voters and if one applies a ‘Democratic’ surge, the Republican candidate’s lead even widens to six. Even President Trump’s approval rating is 47%, tied with his disapproval rating which is nonetheless better than nationwide. This is a hispanic-heavy and university-educated district and yet, the Republican candidate has left a good impression. This is a real problem for Democrats hoping to retake the House since up to a third of the Clinton-won seats are in California seats alone. To be sure, the Democratic candidate has his issues fielding strong candidates is precisely key to winning such tough races.

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The next warning sign is Florida 27. Despite the statewide vote going for Trump in 2016, this Miami district swung towards the Democrats from 2012 when Obama carried the state. But, POLITICO reports that the Democratic candidate’ campaign in the district has been in ‘sleep mode’. Polls have it anywhere from a Republican candidate lead of seven to the Democrat only leading by four.

The polls paint a similar story in neighbouring Florida 26, another Clinton-won district (by more than 16 points!) where incumbent Republican Carlos Curbelo has consistently been ahead. The Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal ball have now rated Florida 26 as a ‘Lean Republican’ seat.

Democrats have also hoped to make inroads in Texas, a state which a Democrat has yet to win a US Senate race in at more than two decades. However, the polls in Texas 7 and Texas 23 are not delivering for Democrats where they are trailing their Republican opponents by three and eight points, respectively per New York Times-Siena poll.

Ron Brownstein and Nate Cohn have highlighted some challenges for Democrats that emerged from the latest polling data: their under-performance with demographics that are supposed to be friendly to them. Specifically, Democrats only have at best a narrow edge with Hispanics and university-educated whites in certain Clinton-won districts. It is becoming clear that any act done by the Trump administration perceived as outrageous is not enough for Democrats to win over Latino votes, a group that has historically shown anemic turnout during midterms. It may seem surprising given that Latin America is a region known for high election turnout. However, an article in the Economist suggests that Latin American turnout is based on satisfaction, not protest. In other words, Democrats have not made latinos satisfied enough to pull the lever for the candidate with a ‘D’ beside his or her name.

As for the university-educated voter in Orange County and suburban Texas, let’s remember that a good swath of them are fiscally conservative (i.e. wants low taxes) and are a bit conservative when it comes to issues of law-and-order and some cultural issues (i.e. worried about immigrants). The Republicans have done a good job of reminding independents that they are still trusted on these issues.

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This is just a small selection of Clinton-won Republican seats where Democrats are running into trouble. If Democrats ultimately lose these five, they have 20 left and that’s clearly not enough. And we have not even visited the Trump-won Democratic seats yet. Two of them, Minnesota 1 and 8 are vulnerable to a Republican takeover. And Tina Smith is not even a shoo-in for the Minnesota Senate seat she was appointed to temporarily occupy.
Perhaps Trump might even get his so-called ‘red wave’ in the Land of a thousand lakes.

With less than seven weeks of campaigning to go, Democrats will need to sort this out. As I said at the beginning, the generic ballot will become less relevant as more pollsters release data from the district level. Not all districts are created equal. Some university-educated and latino-heavy districts will need a bigger nudge. Amidst the macro environment *supposedly* friendly to Democrats, they should make no mistake: they still have their work cut out for them.

Scandinavian Politics: A Hairbringer of Minnesota’s Political Fortunes?

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Minnesota is known to be a centre of Scandinavian American culture. If you bump into an American with a suffix of -ssen or -sson, chances are he/she has roots in the Land of 10,000 lakes. There are many similarities such as the geography as Minnesota is as north a state as one can be at in the Lower 48.

But of late, there seems to be one similarity between Scandinavia and Minnesota that warrants attention: the similarity of their politics.  Scandinavia used to be a beehive of progressive politics with social democratic parties ruling for the majority of the time since the great depression. Minnesota, on the other hand, has been a state that Democrats had tended to do well in. In fact, it is the state with the longest streak of siding with the Democratic presidential candidate. In both areas, the centre-left parties used to do well with rural voters compared to other political entities.  As Minnesota’s neighbour Wisconsin has been known for deep public sector cuts, the former has enjoyed better wages and health care coverage than the latter.

Now though, right-wing populism tends to threaten both Scandinavia and Minnesota.

In Norway, the anti-immigrant Fremskritsparti holds several key ministries, including Finance and Immigration and Integration. In Denmark, the equally anti-immigrant Danske Folkeparti is a key support party for the governing centre-right coalition. And in Sweden, the populist Sverigedemokraterna is expected to become the second largest party in next month’s elections making it extremely difficult for either of the other two more established blocs alone to form a government.

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Minnesota is no different.  In 2016, it was not expected to be a battleground state but on election night, the results were razor tight. It was not known for days whether Clinton definitively won the state. The once progressive state had voted more Republican than the national average for the first time since the 1950s. Trump almost beat Clinton as the margin she won by was just 1.5 points. Republicans also control both Houses of the state legislature.  In 2018, unlike the rest of the country, Democrats are on defence in not one, but two Congressional districts in the state.  Given that the number of Republican-held Congressional districts won by Clinton is barely equal to the number of House seats Democrats need to pick up to win the House, it is possible that those two Minnesota congressional districts could be the ones to prevent Democrats from doing that.  Not only that, Tina Smith, who replaced Senator Al Franken in the aftermath of sexual harassment allegations, is not guaranteed victory.  And Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota’s popular former Republican governor, had campaigned to win his old job back.  There are no special elections in that state that point towards a significant swing back to the Democrats. Donald Trump has been touting that a red wave is imminent. Whilst he may be ridiculed for suggesting that possibility, that might just happen in Minnesota.

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In other words, Minnesota is one of those key states that could potentially sit out a blue wave, if it would even materialise nationally, and instead join the right-wing populist fold. There’s no doubt the state is on the Trump campaign’s 2020 hitlist again.

So let’s sum up two of these possibilities and their implications. If the ruling Socialdemokraterna loses on 8 September, it will mark the first time since the Great Depression in which social democrat-based parties will not be in power in even just one Scandinavian country. Likewise, it will be remarkable that as the country as a whole is expected to swing blue (as what normally happens in midterms when a Republican is the President), Minnesota swings the opposite direction and Democrats possibly lose all of Minnesota’s statewide contests and its two vulnerable House districts.

It will be interesting to see how Scandinavia’s changing political fortunes, particularly its lurch towards right-wing populism could be mirrored in the state that plays host to the region’s heritage in the US.

Is Dean Heller (R-Nevada) Really Vulnerable?

~ hybridace101 ~ Leave a comment

Last week, I made a list of the factors working for and against who I think are the most vulnerable red state Democrats in the context of whether incumbency really means something in a supposedly wave election that supposedly should favour Democrats. I also wanted to explore of whether one would rather be an incumbent House Republican or an incumbent Senate Democrat in a state Trump won by large margins.

This week however, I wanted to try something a bit simple, and I mean keep the analysis in the Senate. I would want to ask the question of whether one would rather be a red state Democrat or Dean Heller, the only incumbent Republican Senator this election cycle standing in a state that Hillary Clinton won (Nevada). I would submit that in terms of structure, Heller may not be completely vulnerable.

CONS:
– represents a state that Clinton won
– midterms usually swing against the President’s Party
– large Latino population
– Trump’s net approval is -2 points in Heller’s state per Fivethirtyeight

PROS:
– incumbency
– Heller is well-funded by mega-donor billionaires; has Trump’s enthusiastic support
– Clinton won the state by just 2.4 points; vulnerable red-state Democrats are standing in states Trump won by double digits
– Trump’s net approval rating is only narrowly negative (-2)
– Latinos don’t turn out reliably, especially during non-presidential years

Nevada is actually an enigma. Despite the huge Latino population, Trump and other Republicans tend to be doing fairly well in the state. That should be remarkable given the news cycle which portrays antagonism towards Latinos. In addition, the most recent Axios poll shows that the Democratic candidate Jacky Rosen is up by only three points against Heller. This is close to Clinton’s margin over Trump two years ago and Trump’s latest net approval rating. This should give analysts some pause abut whether the wins we have seen elsewhere since Trump took office would actually turn into a wave given that polls suggest limited swings in the Silver state relative to the averages seen in special elections.

This could once again be a sign that whatever Trump is doing to bolster Republicans’ chances could be working, at least in the Senate. For now, one would rather be Dean Heller than Joe Donnelly given that the former is a Republican in a state that Clinton only won narrowly and the latter is a Democrat in a state that Trump won by a comfortable margin.