The Framers of the Constitution envisioned Congress as the keystone of our political architecture, but Americans today do not see it that way. For the last 100 years or so, people have tended to pay almost exclusive attention to the executive. In presidential election years, this means people have little interest in the race to control the branch of government the Founding Fathers tied most closely the people.
The Trump candidacy has exacerbated this bad civic habit. These days, we cannot have a conversation about anything other than Trump (which seems to be just the way the Republican nominee likes it), so there is even less talk of the House and Senate than usual. Still, there is a congressional election just weeks away, whether people have noticed it or not.
The Republicans control both chambers of Congress at the moment. What are the chances they retain their majorities? Inevitably, that question entangles us with Trump, who creates unique problems for electoral prognosticators.
Usually, presidential elections come down to a handful of big-picture questions. How long has the incumbent party been in office? How popular is the sitting president? How is the economy doing? Is there a war that is going badly? Political scientists can predict many elections by knowing the answers to these questions—not just forecasting the winner, but also how big the margin of victory will be. Then, based on where the presidential race seems likely to head, they can get at least a baseline estimate for what the congressional results will be.
Most of the time, the particular candidates for president, or the campaigns they have run, are not a decisive factor. It is not because they do not matter, but because the two sides usually nominate the same sort of people to run for president, and they run campaigns that rely on the best practices of political professionals. Thus, campaign effects tend to cancel each other out.
Trump is a striking exception to this general rule. Presidential forecasts that rely on the big picture would suggest a very close race, with many giving an edge to the Republican party—and for good reasons. Voters tend to want change after two terms of the same party in the White House, and the economy remains weak relative to historical trends. An average Republican nominee would have been favored by this set of circumstances. But Trump is far from average, and he looks likely to underperform these predictive models by 5 to 10 points.
This is obviously disappointing for conservatives, who a year ago had justifiably high hopes for retaking the White House. But it does not suggest a strong pro-Democratic sentiment in the country. The macro conditions present in previous Democratic waves—in 2008, 2006, and 1974—are simply absent. The people are set to cast a vote against Trump, not necessarily against all Republicans or for all Democrats.
Still, Trump is likely to have a negative effect on Republicans down the ballot. His rise to the top of the GOP heap, back in February, coincided with a sharp turnaround in President Obama’s job-approval numbers, giving the flagging Democrats a boost. Moreover, Republican congressional candidates have been forced to tap dance around questions about their nominee—neither denouncing nor embracing him, for the most part, lest they alienate one group of voters or another. This has given Democrats plenty of openings.
So the real question for the congressional results is how big the down-ballot Trump effect will be. It will no doubt cost the GOP in both chambers of Congress, as well as in state legislative seats. It was always going to be a tough year for the Republicans to defend their Senate majority, and Trump has made it that much harder. The House, where their margin is greater, looks somewhat safer.
Let’s start with the Senate. A few weeks ago, battle for control of the upper chamber appeared to be a genuine toss-up. The Republicans hold a 54-46 edge, and can afford to lose three seats (assuming a 50-50 tie will be broken by Vice President Tim Kaine). Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois is likely to lose to Democrat Tammy Duckworth, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin will probably be defeated by Democrat Russ Feingold. The GOP can afford to lose one more seat and still maintain control. The true toss-ups at that point appeared to be Indiana, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and New Hampshire—three seats controlled by Republicans and one by Democrats.
Since then, the party’s condition has worsened. Republicans Roy Blunt of Missouri and Richard Burr of North Carolina are looking shaky, while Democrat Catherine Cortez-Masto has built a small lead over Republican Joe Heck in the race to succeed Harry Reid in Nevada. In Indiana—where Republican Dan Coats is retiring—Democrat Evan Bayh appears to have a small but durable lead over Republican Todd Young. On the plus side, Rob Portman in Ohio still looks safe against Democrat Ted Strickland, and Marco Rubio has held a steady lead over Patrick Murphy in Florida.
Conditions can always change, but as matters currently stand, the Republicans face a very stiff challenge to retain control of the Senate. If the Democrats take Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin while holding Nevada, then the GOP must hold Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. The current Real Clear Politics averages have Republicans leading in all these states, but none by more than 3 points, and their levels of support are still stuck in the mid-40s.
In some of these races, even a small Trump effect could prove devastating. Trump is set to lose New Hampshire and Pennsylvania by large margins, putting enormous pressure on Kelly Ayotte and Pat Toomey, respectively. They are going to need substantial crossover support from people who may otherwise be favorably disposed to the Republican party but are voting for Hillary Clinton. Some voters will no doubt split their tickets, but will enough do so?
So the Republicans retain a clear path to retaining the Senate but now have no room for error.
The odds of Republicans holding their House majority appear to be much better. They start with a larger majority—247-188—meaning they can lose a net 29 seats and still retain control. That is a solid cushion.
And it does not appear at this point that Democrats have put enough seats in play. The Cook Political Report lists 201 seats as being solidly in control for Republicans, while 46 are competitive. The Democrats, on the other hand, are playing defense of one sort or another in 11 seats.
At first blush, this might seem like a dangerously large number of seats for Republicans to defend, but consider where things stood in the last two wave elections that swept the majority party out of the House. In 2010 the Democrats had a majority of 256 seats heading into that election, about what the GOP has now. By mid-October, the Cook Political Report identified a whopping 105 Democratic seats as being in play, while the Republicans were vulnerable in only 15. In mid-October of 2006, when the GOP was defending a 232-seat majority, the Cook Political Report found 66 Republican seats in play, compared with 19 Democratic seats. By this point in 2006 and 2010, the general consensus among experts was that the House was going to flip sides, while most now agree the GOP will probably retain control of the lower chamber.
The dynamic in the House appears to be opposite that of the Senate. In the upper chamber, the GOP will have to run the table to retain control, while the Democrats will have to run the table to take control of the lower chamber.
The Republicans’ relatively strong position in the House has a lot to do with the surprise of the Trump nomination. A year ago, nobody thought Trump would be the nominee, and nobody thought for a second that the Democrats had a snowball’s chance of taking the House. So very few vulnerable Republican incumbents elected to retire. By the same token, Democratic recruitment was far from stellar this cycle, so the Democrats are left fighting entrenched GOP incumbents with underwhelming challengers.
The effect of gerrymandering cannot be overlooked, either. The GOP surge in 2010 enabled the party to draw most of the House district lines throughout the country, giving the lower chamber a decidedly Republican tilt. Compounding this is the fact that Democratic voters tend to be concentrated in large cities, making it harder to distribute them across congressional districts. Moreover, the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act have been interpreted as a mandate to draw minority-majority districts, further complicating Democratic efforts to spread their loyal nonwhite voters across districts to maximize gains. In 2012, though Mitt Romney won just 47 percent of the vote, he won a larger share than Barack Obama in 224 House districts.
Still, there are warning signs for House Republicans. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pulled in an impressive $21 million in September—suggesting donors are waking up to the possibility that the House could be in play. In addition, the GOP standing in the “generic ballot” is less than spectacular. This is the poll question that asks voters whether they plan to vote for a Republican or Democrat for Congress. It is not a very precise question, but it is the easiest way to gauge sentiment among the electorate. The Republicans are behind in the generic ballot by about 4 points. This is not a terrible place to be—at this point in 2006 they were down by 15-20 points. Still, this suggests the House majority cannot be taken for granted.
The size of the Trump effect is the great imponderable in this analysis. Who is to say how many voters will either not show up on November 8 or will decide to punish the entire Republican party? That they have not yet made that decision does not mean they will not.
As bad as they are right now, matters may still get worse for the congressional GOP. Trump has done enormous damage to the Republican party, and he may not be finished yet.
Jay Cost is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
