Looking at that page, Ryan has a huge lead in funding over both, although that’s not overly surprising being that he’s House Majority Leader.
Now that you mention Bryce, I remember the CNN piece on him, which was basically free advertising for his campaign, and I expect is why he has such a big lead in contributions at this point. Given that, I’d think he’s the Dem frontrunner right now, but it’s very early yet.
I agree with this. Jones was a special case and (R) vs (D) is getting very tribal.
Nothing about the last couple years makes you the least bit timid in predicting electoral outcomes?
Nope.
The polls were basically correct. Trump won within the margin of error. His win was boosted at the end by Comey’s announcement of reopening the investigation into Clinton’s email, together with the sleaze factor of her tangential affiliation with Anthony Weiner, and that was just the little bump Trump needed to get over the finish line. Comey made a bad mistake. Trump can say all he likes that it was an “historic win,” but it wasn’t.
There were lots of factors going on in the 2016 election that made it hard to predict – most notably, the Russian interference. That’s an unknown factor for 2018 as well, but I believe a lot of Dems will fight it and be on the lookout for it to the greatest extent possible. If there are significant discrepancies between exit polls and election outcomes, those will be scrutinized. Many counties will make sure there are paper backups to their electronically-tallied results.
I know how high anti-Trump sentiment is across the country. I have friends in super red states and it’s always interesting to hear what’s going on in those places. Trump’s support is softer than many realize, softer than Republicans would have the public believe.
It’s evidenced by 31 House Republicans (so far) stampeding to the doors to retire or pursue other interests.
It’s evidenced by independents turning away and moderate Republicans seeking alternatives to Trump-supported candidates.
It’s evidenced by the extremely high numbers of people running as Democrats, even for seats where Republicans have often run unopposed.
Republicans will continue their internal civil war with Trumpite Republican candidates running against Romney-style Republicans in primary races. A poor use of their resources, but good for Dems. And Dems will have a lot of fun crafting campaign ads with Roy Moore, Joe Arpaio and Trump himself, as well as the tax scam of which Republicans are so proud. The public is already onto that one.
Unintentionally, Mueller’s investigation will continue to throw shade on Republicans throughout 2018. The more that is known, the more people will want a counterweight in the Congress, or will turn away from Trumpism altogether.
Republicans have tossed their lot in with their super pig. They will have to wallow with him in 2018, and hopefully far beyond.
The 2018 election is not going to be a re-run of 2016, though I do see a lot of people trying to approach it that way.
Of course, if I’m wrong, I know you’ll be here to make sure to pour salt in my wounds on November 7, 2018. 
What tax scam? The one where states try to cheat the IRS?
People quickly forget Trump won 30 of 50 states.
If you look at the map in the Senate, Democrats have to defend something like ten seats in states that Trump won. So I believe the Republicans will retain control of the Senate and pick up 2-3 seats along the way.
The House is such as a wild card, its hard to call, but I think the Republicans will remain a small majority.
It depends on how you define vulnerable. You cite the 538 piece - you did read in there that a large shift in the generic ballot away from the President’s party is much more likely than a shift in the other direction and their choice of a graphic that included showing how many seats were vulnerable if the generic ballot got to D+18 was not just pulled out of the air. It is improbable but not outside a range of consideration. If so then over 100 (103 according to 538) GOP held seats would be vulnerable. Very unlikely even then to take them all but not something that can be completely dismissed.
People also quickly forget what Trump’s current approval/disapproval rating is compared to where it was on election day.
One thing that jumps out to me from that cite is how much we are in uncharted territory here. There just has not been a modern president with this poor of approval/disapproval ratings coming into this point before midterms. Obama was the closest and his net approval was still both in positive territory and 18 points over Trump’s. The GOP House wave that time was 64 seats. (But GOP structural advantages for the House must be noted.)
NYT has a graphic that drills in the numbers a bit. Trump has lost support within key groups that the GOP needs to come out and vote if they are to stave off losses. Oh still above 50% there but significantly softened. Down 8% among Evangelicals, down 7% all Christians, down 7% military households, down 6% age 65+, down 5% Republican women, down 4% both Republicans overall and in Tea Party supporters, and even down 3% among those who voted Trump 2016.
The generic House Ballot disadvantage for the majority party is also in historically uncharted territory.
What most here are not forgetting is that the most popular activity during a midterm election is usually not voting. That’s what two thirds of voters usually do. It’s a yuuge turnout drop off from a presidential election year. Typically about one out of three voters who voted in the last presidential election don’t bother to vote during midterms. Usually that’s advantage GOP as their support often comes from more reliable voters; that one out of three no show for midterms only voter is more commonly a D leaner.
The question beyond the issues of the generic ballot numbers and the extent of the GOP structural advantages (inclusive of but not restricted to gerrymandering) is what happens if that dynamic really does flip. What happens if all the D leaners who voted in 2016 show (and maybe even some who sat on their asses that time) while many more of the usually reliable for midterm elections GOP leaners sit one out? How much that does or does not happen potentially swamps all other numbers and that is hard to model in a time such as this.
I can’t predict how many seats will flip, but I’ll predict voter turnout.
GOP - 40 million
Democrat - 50 million
That will flip a lot of races on the federal and state level.
Keep in mind the 2010 election which was a wave election was 39 million democrat voters, 45 million GOP voters. So a 6 million vote margin. I predict a 10+ million vote margin for the democrats in 2018. However in 2010, there wasn’t gerrymandering to contend with. So even if democrats win huge margins in the popular vote, due to gerrymanding they may not win as many seats.
I base that on special election turnout. If anything my numbers may be conservative.
The Republicans know they’re fucked if the election is a normal one. My hunch is that they’re going to try to find ways to cheat the system, possibly in the form of outside interference. The way that Republicans have gone completely partisan on the Mueller investigation is perhaps telling of how they intend to treat Russia’s meddling in 2016, but it also could foreshadow how they treat future meddling at the end of this year. If this were a cage match, Vladimir Putin would that mischievous ringside ‘manager’ that distracts the referee while the bad guy in the ring pulls out the brass knuckles from his trunks and delivers the finishing blow.
Well given that the generic ballot is running D+11ish your call, which comes to D+11ish, is not a strange call to make. And turnout up 7% from the 2010 midterms? Seems reasonable. And not out of line with the increased turnout in the VA governor race compared to the last two. With more increased turnout on the D than the R side, hence the win. (The Alabama turnout OTOH which completely blew away expectations, clearly with most of that being on the D side, may be more of a special case.)
But there wasn’t gerrymandering to contend with in 2010? Wesley say whah?
Meanwhile here’s another earlier 538 factoid from May considering special elections as you have:
Could moving from there to 18 happen? If so how many of those 103 vulnerable GOP held seats would flip?
It’s pretty striking to compare the polls on Trump to those on Gerald Ford. Who knew that Ford had such better numbers in his first year, as bad as they were?
Much gerrymandering was done after 2010. The GOP won a lot of state houses, and gerrymandered districts because of it due to the 2010 census.
I think the GOP won 680 state house seats in 2010, as well as about 70 federal seats. But even if the democratic majority is bigger in 2018 due to gerrymandering the dems will probably not win as many seats.
Alabama was a special case. Compared to turnout in 2016, the GOP turnout was down about 51%, but only down 9% for the dems.
Compared to a presidential year I think dem turnout will be down 10-20%, but GOP turnout will be down 30-40%.
For an extremely conservative and pessimistic analysis:
Assume that every incumbent wins, because 90% of the time, they do.
Assume that every open contested seat is won by the party that won that district in the presidential election of 2016.
This gives a Democratic pickup of +15 (I think)…which isn’t enough to take the House.
So in your opinion there will be no change in voting patterns from the 2016 election, that Trumps historically low approval will have no effect, and that all of the special and statehouse elections in 2017 that showed Republicans struggling to keep what should be safe seats are just anomalies?
I have very little faith in the electorate. Think of all those polls where everyone says Congress is terrible, except my representative is OK—then extrapolate that sentiment.
15 seems like a very conservative and pessimistic prediction and one that is fine to use as a floor. And yup that floor is less than the 24 pick up they need.
What’s the ceiling? And what is most likely?
The discussion regarding the upcoming special election for PA 18 is pertinent here. As **RTFirefly **noted there:
This is a district that Trump won by 20 and Romney had won by 17. If that election ends up being close, let alone if the Democrat, Lamb, wins, then whatever the ceiling is may be closer to where it ends up than is the floor.
There was a special election for the Wisconsin state legislature, with interesting results: Trump won the district by 17 points, but today the Democratic candidate won it easily.
Bodes well.
I’ll buy your first assumption. The second one, not so much.