Monthly Archives: October 2018

2018 Mid-term Election — Rocky Mountains

By tmess2 | Published October 30, 2018

While it’s not an exact East-West line, the Rocky Mountain region has seen a lot of change in recent years.  While not the same in every state, the southern part of the region has trended a little more toward the Democrats while the northern part has, maybe, gotten even redder.

In Montana, we have a weird combination of races.  For Senate, even with President Trump firing with both barrels due to Senator Tester shooting down Trump’s misguided cronyism at the Department of Veteran’s Affair, Senator Tester seems to have a somewhat comfortable lead in the Senate race.  On the other hand, WWE-wannabe Greg Gianforte seems to be holding on (by a less comfortable margin) in the U.S. House race.

In Wyoming, the Democrats really have very little chance at picking up any of the races.  A successful outcome would be holding the Republicans beneath 55% in any of the three main races. Continue Reading...

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2018 Mid-Term Election Preview — Great Plains

By tmess2 | Published October 29, 2018

Like the South (and the northern part of the Rocky Mountain region), this area of the country has been trending Republican, but there are some opportunities for Democratic gains.

Minnesota might be the weirdest state in the country this year.  Democrats are in good shape to hold both U.S. Senate seats that are on the ballot and will probably also win the race for Governor to keep that seat.  Four of the House seats in Minnesota could change hands — two currently held by the Democrats and two currently held by the Republicans.  A significant part of the Second and Third Districts contain the suburbs of the Twin Cities, and Democrats could pick up both seats over Republican incumbents.  The First and Eighth Districts are open seats as the Democratic incumbents tried to run for state office.  Both are mostly rural districts with the Eighth also featuring some declining industry making them good targets for Republican wins.  Thus, in nine days, Minnesota could be anything from 7-1 in favor of the Democrats to 5-3 in favor of the Republicans.

In Iowa, all of the districts except the Fourth District (Western Iowa) are designed to be swing districts.  In good years for the Republicans, those seats go Republican.  In good years for the Democrats, those seats go Democratic.  Right now Republicans have a 3-1 edge, but Democrats are favored to take both the First and Third.  Democrats also are favored to win the race for Governor. Continue Reading...

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2018 Mid-Term Election Preview — The Great Lakes

By tmess2 | Published October 27, 2018

The Great Lakes region has some opportunities for Democrats, but those opportunities are mostly in races for Governor due to the way that Republicans in the region drew congressional district lines after 2010.

Starting in Kentucky, there is no race for Governor or Senator.  Republicans currently have a five to one advantage in the congressional delegation.  Right now, Democrat Amy McGrath is a slight favorite to pick-up the Sixth District from the Republican incumbent.

In Ohio, it looks like the Democrats are in pretty good shape to hold its Senate seat.  The race for Governor appears to be too close to call.  Ohio is another state where gerrymandering has led to a very distorted congressional delegation.  Republicans currently hold twelve of sixteen seats.  The Democrats have a decent shot (but are still underdogs) in the rematch of the recent special election in the Twelfth District.   The Democrats have outside shots in five districts, but it is almost certain that, even while possibly losing the state-wide vote, Republicans will control the majority of the Ohio seats in the next Congress. Continue Reading...

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2018 Mid-Term Election Preview — The South

By tmess2 | Published October 26, 2018

The South is probably the region in which there are the fewest competitive races in the country.  The extreme gerrymandering in these states means that outside of Texas, competitive House races are practically non-existent.

Starting with Alabama, while the governor’s mansion and seven U.S. House seats are on the ballot, none of these races currently look close.  This should not be a surprise to anybody.  While Doug Jones was winning the U.S. Senate seat in a close race last year, he only carried one of the Alabama’s seven congressional districts.  With Republican incumbents running in the six districts that Roy Moore carried and none of them a known bigoted pervert, Democrats are not expected to win any of these seats.  Despite the corruption that led to the prior Republican governor resigning, and Kay Ivey taking over last year, the expectation is that Kay Ivey will hold the seat by a comfortable margin.

In Mississippi, the Republicans hold a 3-1 advantage in U.S. House seats now and there is no reason to expect that to change after the election.  There are two Senate races on the ballot.  In the regular election, Republican Roger Wicker should be re-elected.  The interest race is the special election.  Like some other states, Mississippi holds a “jungle primary” (really a general election with a potential run-off) in which all candidates  from all parties run against each other.  Barring a major surprise, this race is headed to a run-off.  And, while Mike Espy is likely to make the run-off, he is unlikely to get his preferred opponent.  There is always a chance that in a lower turnout run-off that Mike Espy might defy expectations and win this seat, but — if this seat becomes important in light of the other results on election day — the money that would pour into Mississippi would make that difficult. Continue Reading...

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2018 Mid-term Election Preview — Atlantic South

By tmess2 | Published October 24, 2018

There is an old joke about Pennsylvania that (at least politically) it is Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in the middle.  The same joke, in many ways, can be made about the five southern states that border the Atlantic Coast, particularly Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida.  All three states are divided between regions that very much resemble the Democratic areas in the Northeast and Pacific Coast, and regions that are very much still the rural South.  These divisions have made all three states very purplish at the state level and have made the drawing of district lines very crucial to the race for Congress.

Starting with Virginia, Tim Kaine has a solid lead against the Confederate Republican nominee Corey Stewart.   The real battle in Virginia will be for House seats.  Democrats currently hold four seats (out of eleven seats).  Democrats are currently looking at taking anywhere between one and four seats.  The key to Democratic growth in Virginia has been the D.C. suburbs and the Republican disrespect for any type of expertise.   These districts are a model of how Trump is driving moderate Republicans to the Democratic Party.

In North Carolina, Republicans in the state legislature have stated that the current map was drawn as it is (a 10-3 Republican advantage) because it was impossible to draw a map that would have allowed the Republicans to reliably win eleven seats.  While the local federal court struck down the current map less than two months ago, there was not enough time to redraw the lines for this year (and the Supreme Court would probably have intervened if the judges had tried).  Fighting against this stacked deck, the Democrats have a decent shot at one seat due to Republican divisions in that district (the incumbent lost in the Republican primary).  There are two other districts were, with good results, the Democrats might be able to pick up the seat.  Like Virginia, North Carolina is another state where the hostility of the Republican Party to basic science is driving college educated votes associated with is research corridor into the Democratic Party. Continue Reading...

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2018 Midterm Election Preview-Mid-Atlantic

By tmess2 | Published October 23, 2018

If the Democrats win a majority in the House of Representatives, the Mid-Atlantic region (especially New Jersey and Pennsylvania) will play a significant role.  Just two years ago, the Republicans had thirteen of the eighteen House seats in Pennsylvania and has six of the twelve House seats in New Jersey.   After picking up one House seat in New Jersey in 2016 and one House seat in Pennsylvania in a special election earlier this year, Democrats are posed for major gains in this year’s election.  The other states are a little less likely to see major changes.

Starting up north in New York, New York has a race for Governor, a race for Senator, and 27 House races.  Democrats should easily win the state-wide races and keep their current seats.  Picking up Republican seats, however, will not be easy.  It looks like the Democrats should gain at least one seats, but there is a real chance at gaining as much as five seats.  The most interesting race will be New York’s Twenty-seventh District where Republican crook Chris Collins is standing for re-election.  Collins is on the ballot mostly because New York law did not allow the Republicans to replace him.  The race may come down to how many Republicans vote for the Reform Party candidate.

New Jersey is where things can flip dramatically.  In barely two years, the Congressional delegation could go from evenly divided to 11 Democrats and 1 Republican.  Senator Menendez is in potential trouble given his recent scandals.  He has an opponent who has just as many issues but also a very big wallet. Continue Reading...

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2018 Midterm Election Preview — New England

By tmess2 | Published October 21, 2018

Sixteen days left to take our country back from the heirs of the anti-federalists and give voice to the silent majority that the President loves to ridicule and marginalize — women, the children and grandchildren of immigrants, the Native Americans whose ancestors were here before any of ours, those who have worked hard to get a college or professional degree so that their children will have better lives than they did,  the LGBT community, those who believe in science, those working hard at a minimum wage job trying to make ends meet, the list goes on and on under a president who only values those with money to burn and believes that there is no solemn commitment that we have made as a country that we can’t break merely because it is inconvenient to his agenda.

Over the next week or so, I will have a series of posts breaking down the election by region.  Writing from the dead center of fly-over country, I am likely to miss (a lot of) the interesting local races and local color while trying to identify what seem to be the key races.  So I am hopeful that we will get some comments pointing out what has slipped under the national radar.

We start with New England  — home to the Patriots, the Red Sox, and a tradition of moderate Yankee Republicanism that is on the verge of needing Last Rites (represented primarily at the national level by the Cowardly Lioness of the Senate — Susan Collins — stumbling desperately in the last two years of her career between the conflicting tasks of keeping a majority of Maine Republicans primary voters happy and keeping the majority of Maine general election voters happy). Continue Reading...

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Three Weeks to Go

By tmess2 | Published October 14, 2018

Three weeks out is a good time to take stock of how things are looking in this year’s election.  Voter registration has closed in about half the states and will close in a good chunk of the remaining states in the next seven to ten days.  (Some of these states do permit “same day voting” where you can register in person when you vote, but most do not.)  Meanwhile, early voting has started in about one-third of the states.   (One-third of the states do not technically have “no excuse” early voting.)

The 2016 elections should serve as a reminder of the limitations of polling.   By definition, undecided voters have not decided and they can break in any proportion.  While national polling tends to be more accurate than district-level polling (and more common), elections are decided on a district-level basis.  And, all polling uses turnout assumptions that may or may not reflect who actually votes in an election.  The one advantage that Democrats have over the poll numbers is that groups that tend to vote Democratic tend to have low turnout, especially in the mid-terms.  Thus, if we can get a high turnout from these segments of the population, we should exceed the current poll numbers.

With that caveat, this year’s election appears to be a creature of the calendar.  Because 2014 and 2016 were good years for the Republicans, it looks like Democrats are poised to make significant gains in the U.S. House and in state legislative races.   It is clear that Trumpism is redefining the Republican party putting many suburban voters who used to lean Republican up for grabs.  That has created a decent number of “Romney-Clinton” districts and even more districts that Romney won solidly that Trump barely won.   A classic example of the districts that will decide who controls the House is one of the districts from the area where I grew up, the 7th district of Texas.  For the past fifty years. dating back to the first President Bush, this district has been a Republican district.  Forty years ago, the minority population in this district was non-existent.  It is now minority-majority, but just barely.  It also includes several very highly educated parts of Houston including the area around Rice University.    It also includes some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Houston.  Will the Democrats win this district this year?  Maybe.  But the fact that Republicans are having to defend this district is a problem for the Republican Party in the near future. Continue Reading...

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