One Month Out: Midterm Forecast

I deactivated my website briefly starting in July and am now starting back up again with the 2022 midterms looming a month out. The landscape has changed tremendously since my June projections of Republican gains of 32 House seats and four Senate seats. The Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court appears to have resulted in registration gains for Democrats, particularly among women, and in special House elections since then, Democrats have overperformed across the board. Using the special elections since the Dobbs decision as a baseline, I am adjusting my forecast to indicate that Republicans will net six House seats and that neither party will make a net gain in the Senate. If correct, my projections would indicate Republicans flipping the House by a razor-thin 219-216 margin, and the Senate holding at 50-50.

At this time, I expect Democrats to flip the Senate seat in Pennsylvania, and I characterize Democrat John Fetterman’s race against Republican Mehmet Oz as “Leans Democratic.”

On the flip side, I think Nevada is going to be problematic for Democrats this cycle, and I expect Republican Adam Laxalt to upend incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto. I am characterizing Nevada as “Leans Republican.” I have long been noting signs of Democratic weakness in Nevada this year and have always considered this the likeliest Democratic loss this cycle. I see nothing to contradict my analysis at this point.

I don’t expect any other races to flip. I expect Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) to defeat Republican Herschel Walker, and I rate that race as Leans Democratic. And despite running by far the best campaign in the country, it is hard for me to see Democrat Tim Ryan overcoming Ohio’s red lean to beat Republican J.D. Vance. I rate Ohio as Leans Republican.

Democrat Cheri Beasley is doing about as well as can be expected against Republican Ted Budd in North Carolina, and while I don’t rule out an upset, the Tar Heel State is clearly “Leans R.”

Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes is running a lousy campaign in Wisconsin and I recently moved that race to “Likely R,” with Republican Senator Ron Johnson poised to win a third term.

And in Florida, I don’t expect Republican Senator Marco Rubio to have much trouble defeating Democrat Val Demings. Florida is “Likely R.”

Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan appears to be well ahead of Republican Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, which I rate as “Likely D.”

In the only other state where Democrats worried about a threat, Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) looks to be in control, and Colorado is also “Likely D.”

All remaining Senate races this cycle are characterized as safe seats for the party currently holding them. The end result, if all projections hold, would be a 50-50 Senate for the second straight cycle, with Vice President Kamala Harris giving the tiebreaking vote to Democrats.

Millennials Aren’t the First Generation Hit By the Unexpected

Today I saw a tweet from a self-identified Millennial who lamented that her generation had spent their adolescence doing all the things they were supposed to do to prepare for a world that was not waiting for them when they graduated.

I had to restrain myself from responding unsympathetically. In fact, I didn’t respond at all. But I thought about responding, and what immediately came to mind was that the kids who turned 18 years old in 1861, 1929, 1941 and 1965 got thrown some unexpected curveballs too.

I grew up in Northwest Indiana, an industrialized collection of suburban communities near Chicago. “The Region,” as the locals call it, relied heavily for several generations upon the steel mills established in the early 20th century along the south shore of Lake Michigan. Up until the 1980s, it was commonplace for “Region” kids to get their high school diploma one day and get a job at one of the mills the next day. The mill jobs were plentiful and paid well, and the hard-won benefits secured by the United Steelworkers union made it possible to retire with a good pension by age 50. But by the 1980s, the domestic steel industry had gone into decline, and the kids who came up with me had to make other plans. Many of them have not done as well as their parents’ and grandparents’ generations, but they’ve adapted and done what they had to do. This is nothing new.

I guess that’s the thing that irritates me the most about today’s younger generations. They seem to think nobody else has ever faced the need to adapt to an unexpected situation. In the preceding paragraphs, I named five groups of people who also faced unexpected challenges when they came of age. I’ve left out many more. Millions upon millions of people throughout human history have made careful plans, played by the rules, did all they were supposed to do, and then saw all of their efforts go up in smoke. It’s not a new or unprecedented phenomenon.

What previous generations seemed to understand that the current younger generations seem not to get is that there are no guarantees in life, and when things don’t go the way you expected, you have to adapt. You can’t just complain and ask older people to bail you out (as we are seeing with the incessant push for forgiveness of all student loan debt).

“But Boomers left us this mess!” Yes, and the adults of the 1920s left their kids a Great Depression, and adults in the 1930s left their kids a world at war for the second time in 25 years. Millions of them did everything they were supposed to do, too, and they got smacked in the face by a world that wasn’t the one they had prepared for.

What seems to separate today’s young people from the ones back then is that their parents didn’t prepare them for the eventuality that things might not go according to plan. They weren’t raised to adapt, or to roll with the punches that life brings, in one form or another, to every generation and every person.

So it’s hard for me to be sympathetic to the complaints of younger people today. I oppose blanket student loan forgiveness, for example. I think it’s a bad idea, and a political loser as well, since most Americans don’t have student debt and will see forgiveness as a giveaway to a privileged minority. I do think we should revisit the law prohibiting bankruptcy relief for student loans, and also make provision for people who truly can’t pay. I would even support a reduction in interest rates on federally backed loans.

But I don’t like the idea that if you can’t buy all the things you want, or take all the vacations you’d like to take, you should just get to walk away from your obligations. I also don’t like the idea that people who don’t make the wisest choices (majoring in a field with poor job prospects, for example) should be absolved or saved from the consequences. And if you want loan relief, a number of forgiveness programs already exist. You might have to do something you don’t especially want to do–say, spend a few years teaching school in an impoverished area, for example–but people have always had to do things they don’t especially want to do in order to get the things they want in life. This, also, is nothing new.

I’m a Gen-Xer. We and previous generations were all taught something that succeeding generations seem not to have been told: Life isn’t fair. Sorry, but it just isn’t. If you’re a young person and you were sheltered from that reality by your parents, I’m sorry, but now, it’s time for you to learn that eternal truth and adapt. And maybe you’ll be able to tell your kids what your parents never told you.

The Politics of Wishful Thinking

Twelve years ago, when all the leading pundits were telling us how the Democrats were going to lose badly in the 2010 midterms, I was initially skeptical. In fact, I posted on a blog I was writing at the time that I thought a leading DC prognosticator was off-base and that Democrats were actually going to make gains that year.

I was much younger then and not as well-versed in the ebb and flow of U.S. politics as I should have been, and fortunately, I realized that my statement was foolish even before the elections took place. (I still underestimated the GOP House pickups by 10 seats that year, having predicted they would net 53 House seats; they netted 63. Until 2020, that was the only election in which I missed the final House margin by double digits.)

At the time, I was saying many of the things that naive Democrats on Twitter are saying on a daily basis today–that these midterms were different, that the pundits were all wrong, that voters would see through the Republican rhetoric, etc. It was wishful thinking then, and it’s wishful thinking now.

In fact, predicting that the sitting president’s party will lose seats in a midterm election is the safest bet in U.S. politics. There have been 39 midterm elections since the Civil War ended, and in 36 of those midterms, the sitting president’s party has suffered a net loss of seats in Congress. In short, in 92.3% of midterm elections held since 1865, the president’s party has lost seats.

The three exceptions are notable because they didn’t just happen randomly. Since 1865, the president’s party has only gained seats in midterm elections when the president has been extraordinarily popular. In 1934, Franklin Roosevelt was flying high after unemployment fell from 25% at the start of his term to 14% by the midterms. In 1998, Bill Clinton was polling around 65% approval ratings as Republicans prepared to impeach him for what most of the public considered an unimpeachable offense. And in 2002, George W. Bush was over 65% approval in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

That’s it. Those are the only three midterms in the last 157 years in which the president’s party gained seats. And those only happened when the president was extremely popular.

Now let’s fast forward to today. Joe Biden is hovering around 40% approval ratings despite a level of job creation in his first 14 months that has put several generations of prior presidents to shame. High inflation and gas prices have turned the public sour on the new president and his party.

Even if Biden were over 50% approval right now, his party would still be expected to lose seats. But with a president hovering around 40%, the likelihood of very big losses is high. Since World War II, when midterms took place with the president’s approval ratings slumping, the president’s party has averaged U.S. House losses of nearly 44 seats. In the Senate, when the president has been underwater, his party has lost an average of just under 6 seats.

Democrats currently have a margin of five seats in the House and are dead even with Republicans in the Senate. If Democrats this year only lose their post-Civil War average of seats, Republicans could be expected to gain 34-35 House seats and 3-4 Senate seats. (Senate losses are only calculated since 1914, because U.S. Senators were appointed by state legislatures prior to that year.) This would mean Republicans would easily take control of both houses of Congress in 2023–even if they don’t win at the levels that could be expected with a president well under 50% approval.

But wait, says the Twitterverse–this year is going to be different!

How, exactly? As we have seen, the only circumstances under which the president’s party has netted seats in Congress since the Civil War have been when the president’s popularity is stratospheric. Those conditions do not exist this year.

And none of those three presidents became stratospherically popular in a vacuum–there were special circumstances in all three cases that led to their high popularity: the start of a recovery from the worst economic depression in the country’s history; the overreach of Republicans against a popular president because of his personal peccadilloes; and the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history. None of those conditions exist this year, either.

Now, there are those who say that the Republican Party’s complicity in the January 6, 2021 insurrection created special circumstances, but at this point, who is even talking about the insurrection except Democrats? Right now, the public is obsessed with inflation and gas prices, not an episode that most people decried and then promptly forgot.

Another point that is getting too much credence is the fact that Democrats appear to have done better in redistricting than expected. But redistricting successes do not protect an incumbent president’s party against the normal midterm losses they suffer 12 times out of every 13 midterms, on average.

In short, there is no reason to expect that Democrats will gain seats in the November midterms, or even suffer small losses. All signs point to very large Republican gains in November, and anybody who says otherwise should not be taken seriously. They’re substituting wishful thinking for a pattern that has prevailed for more than a century and a half and is all but certain to hold true this November as well.

Virginia and New Jersey Results Demonstrate Things Are Worse Than Imagined For Democrats

The stunning loss by former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe to Republican Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, and the near-miss by Democratic governor Phil Murphy in New Jersey, demonstrate that the position of the Democratic Party is even worse than I imagined.

I expected McAuliffe to win and Murphy to win easily. In the end, McAuliffe lost narrowly and Murphy barely squeaked out a win over an obscure but talented Republican, Jack Ciattarelli.

Neither of these results change my long-held view on the 2022 midterms, which I have consistently said Republicans will win. But it does appear now that Democrats’ prospects are even worse than I initially expected.

At this time, I expect that any or all of the Democratic-held Senate seats in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire could flip to the Republicans. I have been saying this for a year and the results yesterday only solidify my views on this point. On the flip side, Democrats only have decent chances to win in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and will be lucky to flip either.

I can’t make any guesses about the number of House flips at this time because a number of states are still redistricting. The only thing I feel confident in saying right now is that I am close to 100% certain that Kevin McCarthy will be Speaker of the House in 2023.

I also fully expect Democrats to lose a number of governorships in 2022, and I think they are very vulnerable in Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Additionally, I would keep an eye on Colorado, Connecticut and Minnesota. The only state where I expect Democrats will be favored to flip a governorship is Maryland.

The picture looks bleak for Democrats at the moment, in part because of their inability to do much in the way of governing in Washington, D.C. due to internal squabbles between the party’s progressive and establishment wings. But here’s the bottom line: the president’s party almost always loses seats during midterm elections, with only three exceptions since 1865. The three exceptions all occurred when the sitting president was extremely popular: Franklin Roosevelt in 1934; Bill Clinton in 1998; and George W. Bush in 2002. It seems safe to say that Joe Biden will not be at or above 65% approval ratings a year from now, and history clearly indicates that his party will lose seats. The only question is whether it will be a trickle or a bloodbath, and right now, a bloodbath looks more likely.

COVID-19 Deaths Will Not Hurt GOP Electoral Chances

One of my occasional criticisms of Democrats who are active on Twitter is that they don’t know how to count. This is, of course, a figurative criticism, not a literal one. The point of my observation is that they often don’t grasp some of the basic nuances of electoral and legislative arithmetic.

For example: it doesn’t make sense to send money to a Democratic candidate challenging GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, because Democrats are so badly outnumbered in her northwest Georgia district that no amount of campaign contributions will flip it from blue to red. As such, any money spent there is wasted. It’s gone and can’t be spent in districts where Democrats actually have a chance to win.

The latest example of Twitter Democrats not being able to count is the ongoing stream of tweets expressing that COVID-19 will kill enough unvaccinated Republicans to impact the coming midterm elections.

There are a few things wrong with this line of thinking, not the least of which is the ghoulish glee at the prospect of mass deaths among vaccine holdouts helping Democrats to defeat Republicans in an election. I don’t like these stubborn, petulant and childish vaccine-deniers any more than anyone else, and as far as I’m concerned, if they get sick or die, it’s their own fault. However, actively applauding the prospect of their deaths because of the perceived electoral boost it would supposedly provide to Democrats is pretty sick and not a good look. You might keep that in mind.

Beyond that, there’s the fact that the numbers just don’t add up. One Twitter poster I follow recently re-posted a graphic from a New York Times article indicating that on average, the death rate from COVID is three times higher in heavily Trump-voting counties than it is in heavily Biden-voting counties. The person who re-posted the graphic expressed the thought that perhaps Democrats might win the midterm elections after all.

So let’s dig into the numbers a bit. The graphic indicated a widening gap between the deaths-per-100,000 residents in Trump counties and Biden counties that really began to grow in August and September of this year. As of September 23, approximately 1.25 people per 100,000 residents in Trump counties were dying per day, as compared to approximately 0.4 people per 100,000 residents in Biden counties.

After the 2021-22 redistricting cycle, the average number of residents per Congressional district, taking the current Census population of 331.4 million residents and dividing it by 435, will be about 762,000 residents in each district. There will be some variance, but that’s the average.

If 1.25 people per 100,000 are dying in Trump counties per day, and 0.4 people per 100,000 in Biden counties, and we extrapolate that to the average Congressional district, that means, roughly, 7.6 people in Trump counties and 3 people in Biden counties per day per district. With 411 days left between Sept. 23, 2001 and the Nov. 8, 2022 midterms, the average Congressional district could see (roughly) 3,124 people in red areas and 1,233 people in blue areas die of COVID prior to the vote.

Not all of these people are voters. If we assume that COVID deaths are largely among adults (which so far has been the case), only about half of them (at best) would be voters in a midterm election. That would mean Republicans in an average Congressional district might lose about 1,600 votes (at most) to COVID deaths, and Democrats would lose about 600 votes (at most) between now and the midterms. (But that’s only if we have midterm turnout close to the unusually high midterm voting rate in 2018. The numbers would be lower in an average midterm.)

In short, in an average Congressional district, Democrats might expect to gain, at most, a net of 1,000 votes due to COVID deaths. In the 2018 midterms, a Democratic net of 1,000 votes per district would have flipped exactly two U.S. House districts from red to blue: the 7th Congressional District of Georgia, which the Republicans held by 433 votes, and the 23rd Congressional District of Texas, which the Republicans held by 926 votes. Two districts. That’s it.

As to Senate races, a net gain of 1,000 votes per Congressional district in 2018 would have kept Democratic Senator Bill Nelson in office in Florida. Nelson lost by a little over 10,000 votes, and a net gain of 27,000 votes (1,000 in each of Florida’s 27 U.S. House districts) would have saved him from defeat.

In short, deaths among unvaccinated Republicans are not likely to make any substantial difference in the upcoming midterm elections, particularly in the House, where the average midterm loss for the president’s party since 1934 has been a little over 29 seats. In the Senate, the average loss for the president’s party during that timespan has been a little over four seats. Assuming average losses for the Democrats in 2022, minus the additional couple of House seats and perhaps a single Senate seat that might be affected by COVID deaths, Democrats would still lose both chambers handily. Republicans could expect, under these circumstances, to emerge from the 2022 midterms with a 240-195 majority in the House and a 53-47 edge in the Senate.

Bottom line: If you’re expecting COVID deaths among unvaccinated Republicans to crush their electoral prospects, you’re going to be in for a big surprise in November 2022.