FROM TUESDAY TO TRUMP 2020.
On Tuesday, the Democrats won the House of Representatives, the Republicans won the Senate and President Donald Trump won re-election to the White House in 2020. The results of the midterm elections could hardly be more favourable to Trump.
Before the midterms, rumour had it that Trump saw a big upside should his party lose the House. In a press conference the day after the election, a gratified Trump confirmed the rumour, explaining that passing legislation on contentious issues like immigration or health care was tough with the House under control of fractious Republicans — even when House Republicans finally agreed among themselves, getting legislation through the Senate, which requires 60 votes, was impossible without support from Democrats. But with the highly disciplined if ideologically divided Democrats in charge of the House (unlike Republicans, they rarely buck their leadership when voting), Trump will be able to negotiate legislation with them, knowing that Senate Democrats and a good number of Senate Republicans would be sure to be on board with anything he agreed to.
“Now we have a much easier path because the Democrats will come to us with a plan for infrastructure, a plan for health care, a plan for whatever they’re looking at,” Trump explained. “And we’ll negotiate. From a deal-making standpoint, we are all much better off the way it turned out.”
A Trump administration that got things done with bilateral support in Congress would win over many independents in the 2020 election. Alternatively, if the Democrats decided not to give Trump any victories by attempting to impeach him, harassing him with investigations and refusing to compromise on any legislation, the Democrats would be blamed for the gridlock that resulted, and risk the same backlash that occurred when Republicans decided to impeach President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Trump accomplished more than shedding a House that was a drag on his re-election prospects — no longer can he be blamed for failing to pass legislation while Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. He also pulled off the unusual feat of gaining Senate seats during his first midterm — possibly as many as four once the results are finalized — something no president has done since JFK in 1962.
Those additional seats give him the manoeuvring room needed to continue his radical revamp of the American judiciary: with 91 nominees confirmed to date, it is on track to be the most profound in history. When Trump had a bare one-vote majority in the Senate, he couldn’t afford to lose Republican moderates, limiting his options in appointees. Now that he has a solid Senate majority he will have a free hand to fill vacancies in the Supreme Court and lower courts with constitutionalists who will further the economy by dismembering many regulatory agencies that have usurped legislative powers. Simultaneously, he will be justifying the loyalty of his evangelical base on social issues.
Trump’s other midterm success came in rallying voters to elect Republicans to govern Florida and Ohio, two swing states that Republicans invariably need to win the presidency. Governors play outsized roles in determining turnout by mobilizing volunteers, activists and donors, and by controlling the electoral machinery to determine voter ID rules and voter rolls. To prevent voter fraud, Ohio purged two million inactive voters since 2011, a decision upheld by the United States Supreme Court this June over the objections of Democrats who decry the practice as “voter suppression.”
In the midterm elections, moderate Democrats tended to do well against Republicans in battleground jurisdictions while far-left progressive Democrats tended to fare poorly. Yet the Democrats are unlikely to field a moderate against Trump in the 2020 presidential election — the Democratic base is increasingly progressive and the Democrats expected to run for office are overwhelmingly drawn from the party’s progressive wing.
In contrast, the Republican establishment once at war with Trump — including stalwarts such as former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Lindsey Graham — have all come around to understanding that Trump, for all his bluster, is a mainstream conservative pursuing pretty much the same goals as most mainstream Republicans. The prospect of a matchup between a Trump perceived as moderate and a Democrat perceived as far left, as much as any other factor, should assure a Trump victory in 2020.
GETTING THINGS DONE WITH BILATERAL SUPPORT IN CONGRESS WOULD WIN OVER INDEPENDENTS.