Political mismanagement, extraordinarily bad luck, and a good economy could keep Democrats from maximizing their opportunities in the Trump era, and perhaps even from taking control of the House.
Those factors just combined to shift three key races, according to the Cook Political Report, buoying Republican hopes for survival this November.
The winning number for Democrats is 23, and at this point, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., can realistically hope to pick up as many as 40 or as few as 20 seats. That makes a blue wave inevitable, but not necessarily catastrophic, for the GOP.
President Trump is still unpopular, but the economy has made him less extraordinarily unpopular than before. Consumer confidence has helped lift his approval rating to 42 percent, its highest point of the year. A healthy economy fuels a more positive image of the president and generates a better generic ballot for the GOP. Down by 13 points in January according to the RealClearPolitics average, Republicans have clawed their way back to being to within five points of Democrats.
Markets have surged with word from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that the trade war with China was “on hold.” And if the White House keeps that peace, a strong economy favors their congressional colleagues.
With the economy humming in the background, overconfidence could cause Democrats to blunder away their enthusiasm gap. The party is so hopped up about 2018 that also they risk turning the ideological dial too far in the progressive direction. That’s what happened in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District primary with the victory by Kara Eastman over former Rep. Brad Ashford. Eastman ran hard to the Left and won the Democrat primary on a Medicare-for-all platform, and her bold progressive outlook could prove a liability in her deep-red district. Eastman may be too liberal to beat incumbent Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and so the Cook Political Report just downgraded the race from “toss up” to “leans Republican.”
Even if Democrats moderate their message, they might still fall prey to plain-old bad luck. The party risks disaster in California, of all places due to that that state’s “top-two system,” by which the top two vote-getters in the primary advance, regardless of party. As David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report notes, there are two different districts where this might result in two Republicans facing one another, as occurred in the 31st Congressional District in 2012. Pointing to the top-two system, the Cook Political Report rated California’s 39th and 49th congressional district from “leans Democrat” to “toss up.”
Anything can happen in the months to come, of course, and these are just three seats. Waves could grow into tsunamis or peter-out into manageable ripples. All political forecasts are suspect this far out, but there are at least reasons for Republicans not to abandon hope.
