Midterms likely to be split decision
Democrats will make big gains in the House while Republicans should add Senate seats, Paul Kane writes
The divide in American politics is so stark that analysts are beginning to predict something that seldom happens: One party could make big gains in the House while the other adds seats in the Senate.
Not since 1970 has a Midterm election provided such a split verdict, and only two other presidential elections, in 1996 and 1972, have demonstrated such division in congressional elections.
Now, particularly after the contentious Senate confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Democratic energy is up in the suburban districts that will determine the House majority, just as Republicans claim conservative voters have been jolted awake in rural states that will determine the Senate majority.
Democrats could gain more than the 23 seats needed to take the House majority, which would normally be considered a “wave election” for Democrats up and down the ballot. But Senate Republicans have gone from clinging to the narrowest of margins, a 51-to-49 majority, to believing they will gain seats, possibly three, the sort of result that would normally mean the national GOP had a very good night.
Charlie Cook, the independent analyst and founder of the Cook Political Report, called the Kavanaugh nomination process “a colour enhancement event”.
It positioned Democrats to perform even better in the metropolitan areas and Republicans to make gains in the exurban-rural regions. “It made the reds redder and the blues bluer,” Cook wrote.
Midterm elections are supposed to be a verdict on the party holding the presidency, and almost always the tide breaks against that party, particularly in House and Senate races, and especially with an unpopular president. President Donald Trump’s first Midterm election seemed to be heading that way, as Democrats won special elections in deeply conservative places such as Alabama and southwest Pennsylvania and had a strong showing in Virginia’s statewide elections last November.
The underpinning of a split verdict can be found in a new report from a study by Third Way, the left-leaning think-tank that analysed voter data in 13 Senate races that will determine the majority. Twelve of those states favoured Trump in 2016 and nine of those seats are held by Democrats. To win the majority, Democrats need to successfully defend all nine of their seats and take two of the four GOP seats, and the gravity of that hurdle comes through in Third Way’s crunching of data from Catalyst, a liberal group with access to voter files.
From West Virginia to Missouri to Florida and beyond, Republicans start with an edge in terms of the voters most likely to show up at the polls in a Midterm. Across all 13 states, 40 per cent of the Midterm voters are likely to be “base Republicans,” regular Midterm voters who essentially never split their ticket. Democrats could expect 27 per cent of their “base” voters to head to the polls, with the rest being potential ticket splitters.
In Texas, 49 per cent of probable voters are “base Republicans,” twice as many as the probable “base Democrats” that are expected to show up. That’s why Senator Ted Cruz, (R), has made almost no effort to appeal to centrist voters, believing that he can rely on conservative voters. In Tennessee, 60 per cent of likely voters are “base Republicans,” explaining why Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, (R), has taken a similar approach.
Former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen is running as a centrist Democrat and hopes to win a largerthan-usual share of Republican votes. Representative Beto O’Rourke, (D), has galvanised liberals in Texas and is trying to expand the pool of voters and bring in a larger-than-usual share of younger voters and minorities. If Bredesen prevails, centrist Democrats will claim that was the right approach, while liberal activists will claim the high ground if O’Rourke pulls off the upset.
If they both lose it probably means they never had much of a chance — and that a split verdict is likely in the Midterms.