Posted on 10/11/2018 9:28:58 AM PDT by The Pack Knight
There are a lot of great political stories out there right now, so it’s easy to miss that the biggest one might be happening below the federal level.
Nationally, what appears to be the blue Democratic tidal wave is arguably really a pink wave, with women voters, donors, and candidates driving much of the movement in favor of Democrats. We are seeing eye-popping gender gaps, with the Republican edge among men dwarfed by the Democratic advantage among women. In the mid-September NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll, men narrowly favored Republicans in preference for control of the House, 47 to 44 percent, but women preferred a Democratic majority by a wide margin: 58 to 33 percent. The Pew Research Center poll showed very similar results on their generic-ballot test, with men going Republican by 3 points, 48 to 45 percent,and women for Democrats by 23 points, 58 to 35 percent.
The Pew Research Center released on Wednesday its final tally of primary votes cast this year. Republican turnout was up 27 percent over 2014, when 1.2 million more Republicans than Democrats cast ballots in primaries. But Democratic turnout ended up 91 percent higher this year than 2014, with 2.9 million more Democrats than Republicans voting this time around. This is an important metric in gauging how much interest and enthusiasm in each party and has been a useful thing to look at in the past.
At the same time, polling shows the intensity and enthusiasm among Republican voters began to increase during September, partially closing the gap with Democrats on that measure. Some of this was natural and expected—Republican voters ‘coming home’—but a piece of it was undoubtedly a combination of the attention on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation fight. A third element is that many Republican voters are now finally perceiving that there is no red wave and that their congressional majorities really are in danger.
This is all part of a broad theme that this year, the House, governor, and state legislature fights are taking place on one battlefield, while the U.S. Senate is being fought over on another. The House looks very likely to flip into Democratic hands, most likely a net gain for Democrats of between 25 and 45 seats, more than the 23 needed to tip the majority. But the Senate fight is mostly being fought in higher-elevation states that are mostly, if not entirely out of reach for a Democratic wave.
I expect net gains for Democrats in governorships of between six and a dozen, and a pickup for Democrats of between 400 and 650 state legislative seats, more than the average midterm loss of 375 seats for the party in the White House. These state elections are the most under-reported story in politics, with control of chambers likely tipping from Republicans to Democrats. Three-quarters of the governorships and four-fifths of the state legislative seats are up in these midterm cycles. Remember that with the inability or unwillingness of Washington to deal with so many problems, the resulting vacuum has given states considerably more power on many fronts. Then consider the massive gains on the state level for Republicans during the eight years of the Obama presidency, and how much of that ground could slip away.
Republicans now hold 33 governorships to just 16 for Democrats (plus one independent in Alaska). The GOP has 26 governorships up this year, Democrats only have nine. Republicans have 12 open governorships, Democrats only four. Republicans have 11 governorships that The Cook Political Report rates as Toss-Up or worse for the GOP, Democrats have one. The governorship of Illinois looks gone for Republicans, Michigan looks like it is slipping away from the GOP, while Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin look headed in a similar direction.
Republicans control both the state Senate and House chambers in 25 states, Democrats hold both bodies in just seven states, 17 are split (plus Nebraska is both unicameral and non-partisan). The Republican dominance on the state level, much of it gained in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections, has resulted in very conservative policy changes on issues ranging from abortion, to Medicaid expansion (or contraction), to voting access. Given that the U.S. Senate and House are likely to be closely divided no matter what happens in November and President Trump will still wield a veto pen, it is in the state capitols that major policy changes could occur in 2019 and 2020, not in Washington.
To say that Republicans are facing a challenging year in the states is an understatement; one prominent Republican pollster this week privately referred to the state legislative election scene as a “killing field” for Republicans. According to Tim Storey of the National Conference of State Legislatures, a dozen state legislative chambers are toss-ups, eight currently controlled by the GOP, three at least theoretically controlled by Democrats. The Republican-controlled House and Senate chambers are toss-ups in Arizona and New Hampshire, as are their Senates in Colorado, Maine, and Wisconsin, as well as the Alaskan House.
While technically, Democrats have a majority in the New York Senate, the chamber is effectively run by a GOP-controlled coalition, and it too is a toss-up. Democrats have just two chambers in such a position, the Nevada and Washington state Senates. In Connecticut, the battle over the tied Senate is a toss-up as well. But if the wave is big enough, according to Storey, the Florida Senate, both the House and Senate in Iowa, and the House chambers in Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania also come into play. Republicans also have toss-up chambers in Alaska, both the House and Senate in Arizona, the Colorado, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin Senates.
Clashes over school funding and other state spending issues even ruby-red Republican states like Kansas and Oklahoma have shaken up the politics in many states. Anything that is done by statute can be undone in the same way, we could see the policy direction in many states changing substantially, if not completely reversing direction.
This story was originally published on nationaljournal.com on October 5, 2018
What Cook calls a "vacuum" resulting from "the inability or unwillingness of Washington to deal with so many problems," I call "federalism," but most policy, and certainly most conservative victories, occur at the state level. It is absolutely critical to anyone who cares about liberty that we hold onto as many state governments as possible.
they’re backtracking to CYA...the national blue wave is now just going to be a blue wave in the states...
This guy made POLITICO’s list of “worst political predictions of 2016” with multiple entries.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/the-worst-political-predictions-of-2016-214555
They know it too, which is why they pulled the record of their abysmal predictions off the web: http://cookpolitical.com/story/10113
But the Wayback Machine did not forget: https://web.archive.org/web/20161113073336/www.cookpolitical.com/story/10113
I don’t see us losing that many seats. REally don’t.
Cook’s final 2016 election prediction:
Hillary Clinton: 278 electoral votes
Donald Trump: 214 electoral votes
Democrats will pick up five to seven Senate seats.
Just sayin’.
Charlie Cook & Larry Sabato & many other pollsters and pundits have nary a clue as to the reality of the American voters. Oh...they know what’s about to happen, but....they will try their utmost to make things look bad for Republicans. Of course Cook covers his butt, by yapping about the states, rather then the Federal government Elections.
Bottom line: The Republicans will win & hold both the House & the Senate. Cook chooses to remain mum on the Feds, so he won’t have egg all over his face on the evening of Election Day, Tuesday, November 6, 2018!!!
Not going to happen. The Democrats aren’t liked or trusted.
Really tired of supposed conservative worshiping this guy as some kind of “genius” instead of the Leftist political propaganda bot he actually his.
See his 2016 prediction? Did equally badly in 2014.
The blue wave will be laughed about for years as they seem to win one single extra House seat, and lose six Senate seats.
Another guy wrong more than he’s right.
It appears Cook is using gathered data that was pertinent prior to the Kavanaugh episode. The dynamic has changed, and voting fervor is massively increased on the GOP side.
The fact that he uses Pew as a source......
“Republicans have 11 governorships that The Cook Political Report rates as Toss-Up or worse for the GOP, Democrats have one”
“I expect net gains for Democrats in governorships of between six and a dozen”
Do the arithmetic. Based on the first assertion, the second is overly optimistic, to say the least. He may as well have said “between six and 100”. Six seems more plausible, and a dozen doesn’t seem at all plausible.
Well if l am going by what it looks like here in Michigan the Rats are a lock for Governor and Senator. Trump carried Michigan just barely but he did and the state is doing pretty well under GOP control but according to every poll the Rats have a lock , not even close.
Guy’s a joke. He will say whatever his fiscal masters tell him to say. He is a democratic mob slave.
People keep banking on Trump’s win as being the paradigm for all elections now. It isn’t.
There’s going to be shock amongst the kneejerk “Dems can’t win” group.
Sabato’s career should have been over after he made himself part of the George All “macaca” story.
Charlie Cook is a fraud. His 2014 and 2016 predictions were as useless as used tissue paper.
He is a hard core Lib .
The guy is a Dem joke .
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