What to look for as mid-terms near
Six weeks out, and this year’s vital midterm congressional elections finally are coming into focus.
We’ve known for some time that these contests were important; at stake is not only control of the two chambers on Capitol Hill but also the character and trajectory of the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidential term. But now we have some clarity about what this election is about, what the terms of engagement are and what the fulcrums of power are in the 470 separate races scattered about the country.
These elections increasingly are taking on a national profile, because the question of party control in the Senate and the House suddenly seems so important — and so much in doubt. Throw away all the predictions. The commentators cannot have any comprehensive vision of all the moving parts; if the conventional wisdom was so wrong in the one high-profile contest of 2016, dismissing Trump as a phenomenon but not a factor, then most assessments of these myriad races cannot be trusted.
But as they grow nearer, some factors stand out as critical:
— The profile of the parties. Both of the major political parties are in transition. And how they appear on Nov. 6 will be a critical factor.
The Democrats are struggling to decide whether they ought to stride to the left (like congressional insurgents Ayanna Pressley, a Boston city councilwoman who defeated Rep. Michael Capuano, a 20-year veteran of the House, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a political newcomer, who upset Rep. Joseph Crowley of Queens and the Bronx) or hug the center (like Rep. Conor Lamb, who won a Pittsburgharea congressional district that went for Trump less than two years earlier).
Meanwhile, the GOP is struggling to decide whether to stick with Trump, whose political style does not play well to suburban Republicans, or break with him, perhaps by criticizing his behavior but praising his policies, especially on the economy.
— The blue-collar vote. This was perhaps the most important, and least understood, swing vote in the presidential election that swept Trump into office and swept away many of the assumptions that animated American politics.
Trump appealed to — and largely continues to appeal to — blue-collar voters. Though labor families are a shrinking part of the American electorate, their voting behavior remains an intriguing phenomenon; Trump’s performance among these voters, since the New Deal a reliable part of the Democratic coalition, matched that of Ronald Reagan in his 1984 re-election campaign. He also outperformed Reagan among white union members.
Related and just as important: Trump far outperformed former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, the 2012 Republican nominee, among white women without college degrees.
This fall’s congressional contests will test the fondest hope of those on the left — that Trump’s blue-collar supporters will awake from their reverie and realize that the president’s policies, especially on trade and taxes, hurt the very blue-collar Americans who are his most ardent supporters — or that his comportment — all that talk about multiple extra-marital affairs followed by tawdry payoffs to former paramours — will alienate the religious conservatives who supported him in 2016.
— The economy, stupid. Those three words got Bill Clinton elected in 1992 and have been the guiding philosophy of American elections for two generations. It is also the root hope of the Republicans and the White House. But what if it no longer applies?
“While economic distress may harm the party in power, economic strength might not help it as much as in the past,” Michael J. Boskin, who was chairman of George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, has argued. “As voters become wealthier, more have the luxury of focusing on other issues.”
If that is so, the Republicans’ best card may not have much potency. The latest Gallup Poll shows that only 12 percent of those surveyed believe the economy is the biggest issue facing the country.
That low number may be a matter of pride and satisfaction for Republicans, but if Boskin is right, it should be a matter of worry as well. If voters focus on other issues, they are turning their gaze from the GOP’s greatest strength.