At the beginning of the year, things looked pretty grim for Republicans. Down by double digits in the generic ballot — polls that measure which party respondents would like to see control Congress — the Republicans’ House majority looked all but gone. The Senate wasn’t much more secure, as the GOP was reduced to a 51-49 margin after a special election loss in deep-red Alabama. President Trump’s job approval ratings were dismal. An election was coming in November.
Then the Republicans’ fortunes began to improve. CNN’s polling, for example, found the Democrats’ generic ballot advantage dwindling from an eye-popping 16 percentage points in February to 6 points in March down to just 3 last month. By the end of May, a Reuters poll actually had Republicans leading the Democrats for the first time this election cycle. Trump’s job approval, while still anemic, hit an 11-month high.
Democrats have rebounded since then. Their lead in the RealClearPolitics average of polls has climbed back up to 7.3 points. It sits at 7.7 points in the FiveThirtyEight polling average. But because Democratic voters tend to be concentrated in populous metropolitan areas — and yes, also gerrymandering — that margin might just barely be enough to win the House. It likely wouldn’t constitute some massive blue wave.
“I think the blue wave has receded somewhat,” said Pat Caddell, a longtime Democratic pollster and consultant who is now a Fox News contributor. “I still think that as long as this election remains unclear about how it’s focused, there is an instinct in off years for anybody who disapproves of anything about the incumbent to vote no” on the president’s party.
Historically, that has proved true. In 18 out of the last 20 midterm elections, the president’s party has lost seats. The exceptions were 1998, when congressional Republicans launched an unpopular attempt to impeach President Bill Clinton, and 2002, when President George W. Bush still boasted astronomical approval ratings following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
But how many seats are lost varies. Trump’s approval ratings are hovering between a lower range that would traditionally result in enough losses to cost Republicans control of the House and a higher one in which Democrats would be expected to come up just short. And that’s assuming tradition still applies with Trump, whose personal approval rating was just 37.5 percent — lower than it is on average right now — on the day he was elected president.
Combined with “right track” numbers some pollsters say are higher than tends to be seen in wave elections and a Democratic generic ballot lead that is lower, the current environment has Republicans feeling pretty good.
“Democrats can’t wish themselves into the majority,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Matt Gorman. “The fact is that record low unemployment, record high wage growth, and a historic summit with North Korea has put Republicans in a position to defy history and hold the House.”
“Democrats are using the ‘blue wave’ moniker as a rallying cry because they have no other message to run on,” said Sarah Dolan of America Rising PAC. “The economy is booming while tax cuts are putting money back in Americans’ pockets and running on the issue of impeachment won’t sway voters. In the Senate, the red state Democrats have resoundingly low favorables and the tightening generic ballot shows that Democrats haven’t shored up this cycle as much as they’d like to pretend.”
Indeed, Republicans have an opportunity to actually gain seats in the Senate with 10 Democrats running for reelection in states Trump won in 2016 — including several he carried by big margins and where he remains popular. Sen. Joe Manchin, for instance, is trying to hold onto a Senate seat in West Virginia, where Trump won by 42 points and still has an approval rating in excess of 60 percent.
A May Morning Consult poll showed the challenge. In six competitive Senate races — five in states Trump won, the sixth in a state he lost narrowly with an appointed incumbent — the sitting Democrat fails to register plurality support for “deserves reelection.” Only Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., has an approval rating above 50 percent and even in his case “deserves reelection” and “time for a new person” are evenly split at 43 percent apiece.
In every other contest, the poll found plurality support for electing a new person. That option led 46 percent to 31 percent for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.; 43 percent to 30 percent for Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind.; 30 percent to 25 percent for Al Franken replacement Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn.; 49 percent to 35 percent for Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D.; and an amazing 53 percent to 29 percent for Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who is also 7 points underwater in her job approval rating.
Karl Rove dismisses the idea of a blue wave even in the House. “Instead, 2018 will be a brutal district-by-district battle,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “Each outcome will be determined as much by the quality of candidates and their campaigns as by the national climate.”
The intensity gap
That doesn’t mean all is well for the GOP, however. Republican strategists conceded to the Washington Examiner that there is still an “intensity gap” that favors the Democrats. “Voters are motivated by three things: greed, anger and fear,” said Brian O. Walsh, president of the pro-Trump outside group America First Action and a former NRCC political director. Republicans aren’t greedy because they have just gotten a tax cut, they aren’t angry because they are in power in Washington and they aren’t afraid because they are not yet convinced those majorities are in jeopardy.
Republicans have underperformed in special elections dating to last year, even when they have won. And they have lost their share: a Senate seat in Alabama, where Trump won by 27.8 points; a Wisconsin state senate seat where Trump won by 17; a Pennsylvania congressional seat in a district Trump won by 20.
Pennsylvania is a problem because of court-imposed redistricting Democrats say reverses Republican gerrymandering and Republicans contend merely re-gerrymanders the state for the Democrats’ benefit. Either way, it is likely to lead to a net loss in Republican seats in a year where the party doesn’t have many to spare.
“With the majority of primary elections behind us, it’s clear that Democrats have nominated incredibly strong candidates who uniquely fit their districts and have built top-tier campaigns,” said Tyler Law, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “With a huge pickup in Pennsylvania, highly effective maneuvering of the California top-two system, and a historically unpopular House Republican agenda on healthcare and taxes, Democrats have all the momentum heading into the midterms. That said, we take nothing for granted given that Republicans will have a massive resource advantage with all of their dark money outside groups.”
California is a good example of the mixed signals this election cycle has sent. Democrats feared their overcrowded primary fields, riven by ideological divisions between factions loyal to 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton and her progressive challenger Bernie Sanders, would deprive them the opportunity to contest some Clinton-won districts in the state currently represented by GOP congressmen. Because California had adopted a top-two “jungle primary” system regardless of party affiliation, the concern was that Democratic votes would be so split in some of these districts that none of their candidates would make it to the general election ballot.
Instead Democrats advanced in all these districts. “First, we didn’t get locked out of anything,” said Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist. “This gives Democrats an opportunity to play to November. … Second, if you look at some the Republican incumbents, yeah they finished way ahead of their Democratic opponents, but they ended up in the high 40s. The reality is, they’re going to have to do better than that to win in November.”
On the other hand, in most of the contested districts the combined Republican vote total exceeded that of all the Democrats on the ballot. One exception was the district represented by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., who advanced to November with plurality support. In his race, all the Democrats combined managed to win 50.6 percent of the vote. Another is in the seat being vacated by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., where the Democrats took 50.9 percent.
“In both states where [the top-two system is] used — California and Washington state — the total primary vote for all Republicans versus the total primary vote for all Democrats has almost always been within a couple points of the November result,” John Fund wrote for Fox News. Then again, maybe this year the resistance and the blue wave materialize in November rather than June.
America First’s Walsh believes Republicans face a “math problem” in the House and a “money problem” in the Senate. Redistricting and retirements mean that at least seven of the GOP’s 23-seat majority are already gone. Democrats will have Republicans playing defense in at least 40 districts.
“We lose half of them, we lose,” Walsh continued. “If you look since 2009, we’ve gutted the Blue Dogs. There’s almost none of them left. … The House has basically sorted itself where most of the R-plus districts are represented by Republicans and the D-plus districts are represented by Democrats. We don’t have that much legitimate offense.”
Walsh said that when he was at the NRCC during the Tea Party wave, Republicans identified 125 potential pickup opportunities. This year, he thinks the party may have five. “They’re going to have to make a hard run on us and we’re going to have to make a hard run on them,” he added. “It’s all going to come down to how people feel in like 20 districts.”
On the Senate side, Walsh sees a “big, beautiful red map” that is there for Trump and the Republicans’ taking. “The biggest concern there is money,” he said. Can Republicans spread enough of it around to ensure their best challengers and candidates for at-risk seats all have the funding they need to compete — especially with so many expensive media markets involved?
“We know we’ve got a legitimate shot at the Missouri Senate race,” Walsh said, “but in the last filing period Claire McCaskill filed $11.5 million in the bank, [likely Republican nominee] Josh Hawley filed $2.1 million in the bank. Before we can even get to the battle of the titans, we’ve got to close that gap . … We’ve got great opportunities in the Senate, we’ve just to make sure we can financially afford them.”
The Trump-Pelosi question
Republicans also have a conflict in their messaging. Trump is an asset in the Senate races that will decide the majority but a liability in some of the at-risk congressional districts. That means different approaches to the president not only for each race, but arguably each legislative chamber.
Trump and congressional Republicans are also split on the winning formula. The latter would like to focus almost exclusively on the tax cut. Trump mentions taxes but also wants to talk tough on immigration, trade, MS-13 and national security, emphasizing his full agenda.
Caddell contended the tax cut is still “too controversial” and recommended “weaponizing the economy, impeachment, raising taxes and [the Democrats’] defense of many things that I think are indefensible. Otherwise, the natural structural tendency is to favor the Democrats.” He also suggested Republicans could sharpen their critique of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., by picking their own successor to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., before the election.
Pelosi has emerged as a powerful GOP counterweight to the Democrats’ use of Trump to motivate voters. Republicans credit anti-Pelosi ads with helping save a seat in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District last year. But some GOP operatives fear their base doesn’t take the threat of a second Pelosi speakership seriously enough to turn them out.
“The Democrats can’t have it two ways,” Caddell said. “They can’t say ‘I’m not for her, but I’ll see what happens. Uh-uh.” Pelosi’s grip on the caucus could be loosened if Democrats win a small majority, amplifying the influence of a small number of defectors, or a particularly large majority where the amount of new blood makes things unpredictable — and she is certainly at risk if her party doesn’t capture the majority at all.
Democrats are going to force a similar choice on Republicans regarding Trump. In Virginia, where as many as three GOP-held House seats may be at risk, that will be magnified by the candidacy of Republican Senate nominee Corey Stewart, who is arguably more prone to controversy than the president. This isn’t good for vulnerable incumbents such as Rep. Barbara Comstock, who already faces criticism for being insufficiently pro-Trump — an argument her primary challenger made on his way to winning 40 percent of the vote.
“Everybody bet against the guy in 2016,” Walsh said of Trump. “Just because you don’t like his style, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. People are over-analyzing and under-appreciating the relationship that he has with the people who cast ballots for him. … He’s not traditional, he’s not conventional, he’s never going to be, the American people elected him for that reason, so stop trying to put the guy in a box.”
Even as the primaries rage across the country, it is still very early in the midterm election campaign and strategists on both sides of the aisle agree that things could change. There is almost as much time between now and November as elapsed when Republicans slowly crept back into contention.
It is still too early to know definitively whether November will bring a blue wave or just a trickle.
