Posted on 12/20/2016 1:33:48 PM PST by Kaslin
So the Democrats are largely down in the dumps after yesterday’s Electoral College results. Not only did Trump get certified as the next POTUS, but Hillary Clinton actually lost ground in the total EC vote spread. But on the bright side, the worst is over, right? The bandage has been ripped off and the healing can begin. I mean… it can’t actually get any worse than this, can it?
Perhaps our liberal friends shouldn’t pick this week to quit sniffing glue because it’s just possible that it might. The battle for the midterms will be gearing up in earnest as soon as we sober up from the New Years parties and the writing on the wall looks pretty ugly. It may seem unthinkable, but there is a possible path in front of us which could see the Dems winding up with so few seats in the Senate that they couldn’t even muster a filibuster. (Assuming we don’t nuke it next month.) Stuart Rothenberg at the Washington Post describes just such a doomsday scenario for the regional party currently lurking in a handful of coastal cities.
The GOP’s strong 2016 election showing raises a crucial question: Do Republicans have any chance of netting eight Senate seats – and a filibuster-proof majority – in 2018?
The upcoming Senate class is unusually unbalanced. Only eight Republican Senate seats are up for election in 2018, compared to 25 Democratic seats (including two independents who caucus with the Democrats). Ten of those Democratic seats are in states carried by Donald Trump.
By any measure, Democrats are on the defensive in the next fight for Senate control. A three-seat Democratic midterm gain, which would give the party a majority, looks virtually impossible given the seats up this cycle.
What Stuart is talking about here is the same theory which Ed Morrissey explored back at the beginning of the month. It’s far from a certainty, but unless there’s a major change in liberal electoral fortunes, the Democrats will be slugging it out in some decidedly unfriendly territory in as many as a dozen races.
Bear in mind that Democrats usually do better in presidential cycles than midterms, thanks to the dynamics of turnout, and one starts to sense the disaster Sabato sees looming. There is little chance of Democrats losing the deep-blue coastal states or Minnesota, especially with Amy Klobuchar defending her seat. After that, though, Democrats have a large number of seats that look at serious risk, including Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin again, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and probably Florida. All of these states have Republican legislatures and went for Trump in this election. Picking up those eight bring Republicans up to 60, and that’s without considering what might happen in Virginia, West Virginia, and Maine — where Trump did stronger than expected and which is represented by an independent (Angus King) who caucuses with Democrats.
Here’s the map we’re dealing with:
Even some of the seats Ed marks off as “safe” for the Democrats aren’t quite as safe as they once were. For one thing, the Dems’ map relies on Wisconsin and Michigan staying in their columns. Yes, Donald Trump’s margins of victory in those states was small, but a win is a win and it was a statewide race. Plus, Democratic turnout in the midterms is, as Ed noted, always lower to begin with. So could this actually happen?
As Rothenberg reminds us, it’s rare when the party of the sitting president picks up eight or more seats in a midterm, but it has happened. (Granted, not since 1934, but it’s been done.) And while 2016 was something of a unicorn in terms of electoral history, with Trump still in office, will whatever magic drove him through that blue wall still be brewing away? Plus, of the last three times that the Senate swung eight or more seats in a midterm – 1986, 1994 and 2014 – two of the three went in the GOP’s favor. That likely ties in more with the fact that Republicans do better in the midterms than the influence of which party held the White House.
In the end I think it all comes down to Trump. If he can deliver on any decent number of his promises and work with the GOP leadership to get some conservative reforms in place, his voters may just turn up again, even in the blue wall states. Of course, that also depends on how strongly he chooses to get out there and campaign for the Republican challengers and push them from the bully pulpit. Will he be willing to do that? He wasn’t exactly treated kindly by a lot of the power players in the party these past two years and he made his disdain for the establishment quite clear. But President Trump may prove to be a very different beast than candidate Trump (something we’re already seeing in his cabinet picks) so you never know. I certainly wouldn’t write off the possibility of 60 or even 62 seats given how that map looks.
Oh, and before I forget… Merry Christmas, Democrats! May your holiday be filled with love, joy and acceptance. And a lot of booze. And don’t throw out that tube of airplane glue just yet…
“all the blue folks will be underwater. /s”
I don’t know why you added the sarc tag - that makes it sound as if it were a bad thing...
8^)
The problem is that the base of the Democratic party is urban, minority (in some cases), public employee unions,
faculty and students in the liberal arts and soft program in colleges and universities. The Kennedy or even Humphrey Democrats and Meany labor union leaders have long since passed away and don’t matter much anymore to the Rat base.
The BEST part of winning - no doubt!
Why is that archer aiming at the outside circle?
(ducks!)
Really? She is going to primary Flake for sure?! :)
We’ve already begun praying for this to happen! And for 400 EV in 2016.
Way too early for this speculation; trust but verify!
She a screaming liberal! I would be shocked if she does. No one here in Missouri would believe her if she did.
Either it was a major calving of the coastline of the Bay of Whales, or a disastrous plunge into a crevasse. Those dogs really knew what they were doing thought. Those dogs! They knew.
The GOP needs to remember the 2006 mid-term elections.
The Democrats regained Congress by running to the right of Republicans on fiscal policy. Sure it was ridiculous but many voters bought it.
soros and at least’one more known guy in the states, the guy who is for litigating everything trump does. theyve got plenty of millionaires they can tap.
its not gonna be over.
Yes that is what I have heard.
That would infuriate the GOP base, and it also helped at the time that Bush was quite unpopular (even among conservatives) and they had full control for quite a while. That would be more of a 2020 or 2022 situation.
I meant infuriate the Democrat base. They don’t want a centrist path at all.
Sure, Bob Casey, Jr. is a blooming idiot who campaigns only to carefully selected audiences. But Trump's narrow victory notwithstanding, there are a lot of elderly voters in this Commonwealth who still think they are voting for Father Casey.
You'll need a first class candidate who is competent and not afraid to go for the jugular about Jr. not being his father and being just another rubber stamp for the radical left. Does anyone in the PA GOP have enough statewide recognition to fit that bill?
Nice dream. The reality is that Rust State Dems are moving to TX, NC, GA, FL because that is where the jobs are. Nobody is asking these RB Dems to think about why there are no jobs in Detroit, Flint, Chicago, etc.
The result is they are turning Red States Purple. That is the reality. So far Heritage, CATO, AFP, AFF, and RNC are doing nothing to change this...nothing to educate the immigrants to the Red States.
Former red suburbs in Ga and NC went Blue in 2016. Half of that was Rust Belt voters new to those red suburbs. Of course, half of the voters in those suburbs are Sam Nunn Democrats...establishment opportunists who thought Hillary would win and they needed to kiss up to her to keep the federal aid flowing to their bureaucratic gummint jobs.
2018 is mid-range and important.
2020 controls the long range game.
Trump will control the Census.
Republican State legislatures will control redistricting.
Count babies in the womb in the 2020 Census. To make the point in the debate over this, one Congress person should propose a baby in the womb should count as 3/5 of a person.
The entire Census questions should be re-thought. Modernize it. But at the same time, reduce personal questions to make libertarians happy.
Trump came damned close to winning Minnesota
That's what I thought too. I think if he can turn the Duluth area, a blue collar port city, he can win the state.
The camera is to the right of the archer so it appears that he is off center. But if the camera were directly behind the arrow you would see he is aiming at the center.
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