2018 Election viewer’s guide #3

(Sunday, November 4th, 8:44 am)

This election-eve viewers guide will help you understand the elections, predict from early returns how the results on election night might go, and perhaps get some ideas about what may happen when Congress reconvenes in January. (Unless noted otherwise, forecasts are from 538.com. Forecasts fluctuate regularly and will continue to fluctuate—probably only a small amount—until Election Day.) 

A note on polls: Political polls have come in for increased scorn in the past two years, largely because they continued to predict a Clinton win right up until election day. Polls are actually pretty good at reporting current opinions of various demographic groups. Where polls are weaker is in predicting turnout. Each demographic group is assigned a probability of voting and if one component of the electorate is off by a little bit, the polls can miss the actual election returns by a wide margin. All the election results discussed below will be affected by turnout—if any group (college students, college educated white women, Latinos, etc.) shows up in higher or lower numbers than expected, results will be different than forecast.

House races

Democrats have steadily improved their position in House races in the past few weeks, and a Democratic majority in the House is well within reach. “Solid” and “Likely” races yield a projected House lineup of 209 D-185 R, with 10 races leaning to the Democrats, 17 tossups, and 14 lean Republican. If the Democrats won all of the “Solid-Likely-Lean” races, they could lose all the tossup races and still control the House. (This is the first time this election season that the Democrats could control the House without winning any tossups.) 

The 22 races listed below will give viewers a very good early idea who will control the House. These are all currently Republican seats in states where the polls close by 8 pm. The Democrats have a chance of winning all of them. If the Democrats carry the solid-likely-lean races on this list and a handful of the tossups, it is very likely they will control the House. Fivethirtyeight.com gives the Democrats a 6/7 chance of controlling the House.

Polls closing at 6 pm  

  • Kentucky 

    • 6th: McGrath/Barr (Tossup)

Polls closing at 7 pm

  • Florida 

    • 15th Carlson/Spano (Tossup)

    • 26th M’sel-Powell/Curbelo (Tossup)  

    • 27th Shalala-Salazar (Likely D)

  • Virginia

    • 5th Cockburn/Rg’man (Tossup)

    • 7th Spang’bger/Brat (Tossup)  

    • 10th Wexton/Comstock (Likely D) 

Polls closing at 7:30

  • North Carolina  

    • 9th McReady/Harris (Tossup)

Polls closing at 8 pm

  • New Jersey 

    • 2nd Van Drew/Grossman (Solid D)  

    • 3rd Kim/McArthur (Tossup)  

    • 7th Malinowski/Lance (Likely D)   

    • 11th Sherrill/Weber (Likely D)

  • Illinois  

    • 6th Casten/Roskam (Tossup)          

    • 14th Underwood/Hultgren (Tossup)

  • Maine 

    • 2nd Goldin/Polquin (Lean D)

  • Michigan

    • 7th Driskell/Walberg (Tossup)   

    • 8th Slotkin/Bishop (Lean D)  

    • 11th Stevens/Epstein (Likely D)

  • Pennsylvania 

    • 1st Wallace-Fitzpatrick (Tossup)        

    • 5th Scanlon/Kim (Solid D)

    • 6th Houlahan/McCauley (Solid D)  

    • 7th Wild/Nothstein (Solid D)   

    • 17th Lamb/Rothfus (Solid D)

 Dem loss: The likeliest seat to change from Blue to Red is Minnesota 8th, where Pete Stauber has opened a substantial lead on Joe Radinovich.

High profile Republicans. Trump apologists Deven Nunes (CA), Jim Jordan (OH), Matt Gaetz (FL); and Mark Meadows (NC); as well as renowned nut Louis Gohmert (TX) hold solid leads. Indicted congressmen Duncan Hunter (CA) and Chris Collins (NY) have only been reduced to “likely.” Neo-Nazi and white nationalist sympathizer Steve King (IA) has a serious opponent and is getting some local pushback for his increasingly prominent expression of racist views, but this only reduces his status to “likely.” The two high profile incumbents who seem to be facing the stiffest challenges are Tea Party favorite David Brat (tossup) and the man derided as the “congressman from the Kremlin,” (Dana Rohrabacher), tossup.

Local: George Scott continues to close the gap with Scott Perry. Perry now has a 51.4-48.6 advantage, down from 53-47 a few weeks ago. Brent Ottaway is also closing a vast gap against John Joyce, but still is down in the polls by a margin of 65.9-34.1.

Senate

The count of holdover seats, solid, and likely gives the Democrats 45 seats and the Republicans 50. This means the Dems would have to win all the “Lean D” races: Indiana (Donnelly-Braun), Florida (Nelson-Scott), and Missouri (McCaskill-Hawley); both tossup races, Arizona (Sinema-McSally) and Nevada (Rosen-Heller); and one of the “Likely R” races: ND (Heitkamp-Cramer), MS (Espy/Hyde-Smith), Texas (O’Rourke-Cruz), and Tennessee (Bredeson-Blackburn). Fivethirtyeight.com says the GOP has a 5/6 chance of retaining control of the Senate.

Governor races

While the House and Senate races gain the most attention, the governor’s races might be the most important results—and the area where the Democrats’ position improves the most. The governors elected this year will control redistricting in their states after the 2020 census. In states that switch to Democratic control of both the statehouse and the legislature, there is a chance of rolling back at least some of the punitive GOP legislation enacted since 2010, including gerrymandering, voter suppression laws, restrictions on abortion, expansive school voucher programs, etc.

Currently, the Republicans control 33 statehouses and the Dems control 16. The current forecast from Real Clear Politics calls for the Dems to pick up eight governor’s positions (Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, and Wisconsin) while losing one (Arkansas). Five thirty eight concurs on Florida, Maine, Illinois, and Michigan (Likely D) and Wisconsin (Lean D), but rates Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia (another possible Dem pickup), Kansas (same), Iowa (same) and Nevada as tossups. Five thirty eight concludes the lineup of governors is likely to be 24 D-26 R, with 196 million people governed by Democrats and 133 million governed by Republicans. 

Trend-spotting

Watch for what the talking heads are discussing. It may give you hints what to expect over the next two years and how the early stages of the 2020 election may unfold.

  • What demographic groups drove the vote? (e.g., suburban college educated women, African American, Latino, angry white men). 

  • What issues affected the vote? Healthcare? Immigration? Trump?

  • If the Democrats win control of the House, what legislative issues are they likely to push to build their 2020 platform and force Republicans to make unpopular votes?

  • Was Trump a major issue? Was there a “Kavanagh effect?” If so, did it help D’s or R’s? A “caravan effect?” A “Democrat mob” effect? A “right-wing violence” effect?

  • Did the industrial Midwest that gave Trump his win (Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania) begin to change back to Democratic loyalty?

  • Trends within the two parties: Did the progressive or moderate wing of the Dems do better? How many “blue dog” (moderate to conservative) Democrats won? On the Republican side, did the Freedom Caucus (arch conservative) members hold their own while “moderate” seats changed hands? Are the parties moving toward the middle or toward the edges? 

  • Is there any reason to expect more bipartisanship in Congress? Or does it look like Congress will be more polarized?

  • How did women candidates do? First time women candidates? Minority candidates?

  • Did any of the candidates (Beto? Gillum? Abrams?) or campaign surrogates (Biden? Harris? Booker? Oprah? Steyer? Avenotti?) help or hurt him/herself during election season?

  • Are any Republicans more likely to be willing to speak out occasionally against the president in the next two years? Is Trump likely to face a primary opponent?

electionsLeon Reed