Since the shocking defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016, Democrats have gotten angry, mobilized, and built an infrastructure to fight back in 2018, but will it matter or will they repeat the mistakes of the past?
As the country readies itself for another election night, The Pleth will be providing up-to-the minute coverage of results and implications. However, before CNN fires up their holographic depiction of the House of Representatives, lets cover three storylines to hold you over until the votes start getting tallied.
The Blue Wave won’t happen, or at least not the way you thought.
For over a year Democrats have been using the hashtag Blue Wave or Blue Tsunami to describe what they believe will be the overwhelming Democratic victory, and rebuke of President Trump, in the 2018 midterm elections. The only problem is that they failed to consult the electoral map and reality. As a brief aside, there are two quotations that have always helped me understand the electoral competence of the Democratic Party. The first was from satirist Will Rogers who said, “I’m not a member of an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” The second was from a scene in the short-lived HBO show The Newsroom, in which the lead character, a news anchor played by Jeff Daniels, spits some hot truth during a Q&A session at a local college and says, “If liberals are so fucking smart, how come they lose all the goddamn time?” Both quotations have always served to properly ground my expectations about the Democratic Party. When presented with an electoral opportunity like say, the most unpopular president in history, Democrats start a narrative about a Blue Wave and set expectations so impossibly high that Republicans can claim victory by losing and simply keeping the score close. Now, back to reality.
The electoral reality facing the Democratic Party is that any gains made are going to be modest. Their best chance for even making a ripple is in the House of Representatives where they could pick up as many as 40 seats. However, it’s more likely they’ll pick up 28-32 seats, which would equate to a modest 7-13 seat majority advantage in the chamber. The underwhelming majority becomes even more problematic when taking into consideration the Democratic Party’s long history of being incapable of voting as a cohesive block due to the ideological diversity of their congresspersons. Even if they are able to overcome those struggles, they’ll run into a slight problem—the Senate. For all the talk of a wave, the majority of the Senate has always been out of reach. Democrats have several vulnerable incumbents such as Claire McCaskill and Heidi Heitkamp running for re-election in deep red states that supported Donald Trump just two years ago. Therefore, for all the talk of a Blue Wave, the most likely outcome will be a small Democratic majority in the House and a continued Republican majority in the Senate. That result will hardly seem like a wave, let alone tsunami, and allow for Republicans to puff their chests out about withstanding a Democratic onslaught and effectively spin the results of the election to look like a net positive for Republicans. Speaking of ways Democrats set themselves up to lose the post-election narrative…
That “superstar” Democratic candidate you keep hearing about is going to lose.
Even if you don’t live anywhere near Texas, I’m willing to bet that at some point over the last year you’ve seen a story or video in your social media feed about Democratic Texas Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke. O’Rourke is the charismatic congressman from El Paso, TX, who is taking on Republican incumbent Ted Cruz, who is despised even within his own political party. Despite Cruz being the type of person who needs to joke about being a serial killer in order to seem more relatable, O’Rourke has never led in any of the polls. But, what Beto has been able to do is capture the hearts of liberal progressives everywhere and, in the process, uncover yet another fatal Democratic electoral strategy—new stuff. Democrats love new stuff. New ideas, new slogans, new logos, but most of all, new candidates. Don’t believe me? Since 1980 the Democratic Party has nominated eight candidates for the presidency, but only one has previously sought the nomination in a prior election cycle and lost—Hillary Clinton. On the other hand, over the same period of time, Republicans have nominated seven candidates for the presidency and all but one—Donald Trump—had previously run for the office, but not secured the nomination. A desire to go with new faces isn’t surprising given the progressive nature of the Democratic Party, but the downside is that those candidates are often untested and not quite ready for the national spotlight.
Enter Beto. A young, ambitious, charismatic, liberal candidate from a state Democrats have convinced themselves is in play despite all electoral evidence to the contrary has captured the Democratic zeitgeist, but Democrats never stopped and asked themselves if that is a good idea. Beto has become one of the primary faces of the 2018 election cycle, but the fact he’s running a nearly unwinnable race means that the Democrats will take a very public defeat at the hands of one of the least popular politicians in the country. In an alternate universe, Democrats could have slow-played Beto and allowed him to viewed as a plucky upstart who gave Ted Cruz a run for his money. Instead, he’s going to be viewed as a loser and be symbolic of Democratic ineptitude.
Turnout matters, but don’t get sucked in by raw numbers.
Voter turnout in 2018 is expected to easily surpass the turnout of previous midterm elections, which means a lot of big numbers are going to get thrown around on Election Day about the counts of ballots cast, but try not to get bogged down in those details. Rather, focus on the electoral composition as it is a much better predictor for the way races will break. Generally speaking, if the electorate is over 35% people of color, expect Democrats to do well. Conversely, if the electorate is nearly 70% white, expect Republicans to do well. The reality is that the previous midterm election in 2014 is probably not a good point of comparison due to its low voter turnout. Instead, look at the statewide or congressional district composition from 2012 and 2016. Whichever party does a better job at recreating those circumstances will come out of the night more successful. Similarly, don’t get too obsessed over early voting numbers. Depending on the early voting laws in each state, they could systematically favor one side over the other. Compounding issues is that those early votes are often the first reported, which may give you an unrepresentative look of how the race will really play out.
tAfter a hardened and hyperbolic election cycle citizens appear more determined than every to participate in midterm elections, whether they like it or not.
As the nation goes to the polls, make sure to go to The Pleth for insightful election coverage.
And speaking of Raw Numbers, people forget that a huge voter turnout in places like California and New York will not change the composition of their states elected representation in DC.