Posted on 11/06/2018 11:35:27 AM PST by Kaslin
On Tuesday, Democrats and Republicans will compete for the 42nd time in a nonpresidential-year contest -- a rivalry that goes back to 1854. That's the oldest such partisan competition in the world.
And despite the complaints of today's Democrats that the Constitution is biased against them, Democrats have won Senate majorities 16 times -- versus 10 times for Republicans -- since senators started being elected by popular vote in 1914.
Similarly, in the 164 years of midterm Republican-Democratic House contests, Democrats have won control of the House 24 times, compared with 17 for Republicans. In other words, over the long run of history, both parties have adapted to changes in opinion and issue focus in multiple realignments.
But over that time, each has retained its basic character. The Republican Party has been centered around a core of people thought to be typical Americans but who are never a majority -- e.g., Northern Protestants in the 19th century, married white Christians now.
The Democratic Party has been a coalition of disparate groups not thought to be typically American but who together have often formed an American majority -- e.g., white Southerners and Irish immigrants in the 19th century, blacks and gentry liberals today.
Donald Trump's candidacy in 2016 jumbled the partisan lies a bit. His stands on immigration and trade differed from both parties' nominees over the past 60 years, and his brash demeanor and disdain of polite norms cost him the support of some upscale Republican voters and won over similar numbers of downscale Democrats. But the number of switchers was not large by historical standards.
Opinion today seems to stand much where it did two years ago. Trump got 46 percent of the popular vote then; his job approval today is 44 percent. Good economic numbers have made little difference to an electorate with no memory of the Great Depression but with seething grievances stoked by culture war politics.
Republicans seem poised to gain seats in the Senate, and Democrats are likely to win enough House seats to gain a majority there. But that's more a matter of the political lineup than of changed opinion.
Newton's third law of motion says that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The enthusiasm of downscale voters that switched 100 mostly Midwestern electoral votes to Trump in 2016 has been mirrored by the enthusiasm that impelled dozens of Trump detractors to run for Congress and thousands of contributors, big and small, to send them record amounts of money.
The result is that Democrats, after long decrying money in politics, have become the party of big money. (Note how they'd like to repeal the Republican-imposed limits on deductibility of state and local taxes, which benefits only those with incomes over $350,000.) They're outspending Republicans in almost every seriously contested race. Shrewd spending (and record Republican retirements) has made them competitive in districts that have long been safely Republican.
Today, The Cook Political Report lists 100 Republican-held House seats as competitive. That's almost half the 241 seats Republicans won in 2016. With Republican enthusiasm increasing to Democratic levels since the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, it seems both sides will have robust turnout. Democrats probably won't reach the usual wave-year mark of winning half the seats they've targeted, but they only need a net gain of 23 for a majority.
Still, prognosticators Charlie Cook, Nate Silver and Larry Sabato and the betting markets believe there's an outside chance they won't win a majority. That's evidence of the continuing strength of the partisan lines that have mostly prevailed since 1994 and were altered only marginally in 2016.
The likely Republican Senate gains are more a function of which states' senators are up for re-election than any change in opinion. Democrats are defending 26 seats, including 10 in Trump states; Republicans are defending only nine -- and just one in a Hillary Clinton state.
Democrats are running two attractive senatorial candidates in Trump states - former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, a genuine moderate, and Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas, the liberal skateboarder whose rapturous journalistic profiles somehow fail to mention that his father-in-law is a billionaire real estate developer. But both seem unable to overcome the partisan tide.
Republicans are in good position to pick up Senate seats in South Dakota, Missouri and Indiana, and they also may do so in Montana and Florida. They have two vulnerable seats; they're leading narrowly in Nevada polls and trailing narrowly in Arizona.
There will be a tendency to project Tuesday's results into the future. But these midterm elections look more like an attempt, by both parties, to relitigate 2016.
People in the inner cities need to be dragged to the polls on a good day. When it rains, they are even less inclined to bother. People in the suburbs can drive and stay dry so weather less of a factor. That was what I was trying to say.
Reply to: << The “Repubs” referring to the Republican Party did not want Donald Trump to be elected.>>
Oh I know, they are electing another Sen flack mccain in Utah today to be a thorn in TRUMPs side!!!
Sad, isn’t it?
a flack flake too!
Just came back from the polls.
Town of less than 1,000 peeps.
It’s pouring rain and mixed w/ snow; dark and dank. Polling place was full, had to wait for a desk to open up; from what I could see, most of the voters were elderly.
Hardscrabble Vermonters.
we’ll see...we haven’t lost a thing yet who knows...we may just pull out some or all the surprises again...the country needs it! If we don’t...keep doing it...there will be no country to do it for and that won’t take long to happen!
I used to put a lot of faith in this guy, I also used to read the NYTs. Both are now meaningless to me and as election prognosticators. At least while Trump is active Barone, Sabato, Luntz, etc. are pretty much teets on bulls.
In other words, someone will win and someone will lose...
Be not afraid - words that Pope John Paul II told the Polish people in 1981 when he made his second visit to his native land.
With prayer, we can move mountains. Read the story about a brave priest named Fr. JERZY POPIELUSKO, who in 1981 was named the chaplain to the Solidarity Union at the Warsaw-Huta Steel Mill. I always think it is amazing that God often raises up heroic individuals at just the right time. Fr. Jerzy was such a man. His humbleness, yet resolute anti-Communist sermons to the thousands of people who came to his monthly masses in Warsaw were a major factor in the downfall of the Communist regime in Poland in the summer of 1989. His sermons were recorded and broadcast over Radio Free Europe.
Fr. Jerzy was martyred/murdered by the communist police in October 1984. He was 37 years old. About one million [!!!] people came to his funeral. Five months after the fall of Communism in Poland, the Berlin wall was torn down and the entire eastern block of communist countries overthrew their leaders and installed democracies.
Every western patriot should know the story of Fr. Jerzy Popielusko.
We need to pray and BELIEVE that God will assist us.
Today, the vagina costume wearing resistor sisters go to the polls to get Clintoon her revenge for her 2016 ass whoopin’. LOL.
I’m a little..just a little..concerned about what happens after Trumps 2nd term.
Otherwise, in words of the God father of soul..I feel good...
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I’m hoping for some one like Pompeo (sic) as a follow-on to Trump. As SOS he’s building up a lot of cred as a world class leader. I’m thinking at this point that Trump will support him as next POTUS.
“I’m a little..just a little..concerned about what happens after Trumps 2nd term.”
That’s a rightful concern. Make sure you take control of your local offices - county, schoolboard and village. Elect a pro-2nd amendment, constitutional sheriff. So if a rat president tries to attack your community, you can defend your family and community with a 2,000 man auxiliary deputy battalion that has the legal and armed muscle to repel them.
Red Dawn vs Blue Wave
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