It is common cause that the 2018 Midterm elections are a referendum on the President Donald J. Trump. That is the way he wants it. That is the way the Democratic Party, (DP), want it even though they are not running as such. That is not necessarily how the Republican Party, (RP), that was, want it, but they have no say anymore as the GOP is now the party of Trump. Trump has already signaled that any Republican candidate that wins owes it all to him and whoever loses has only themselves to blame after all he has done for them.
It is also common cause, to put kindly, that the change of direction in American values and policy that Trump has initiated makes this the most important midterm elections in living memory. Up for grabs is the House of Representatives, the Senate, Governorships and State Legislators and with it the future direction of the country and America’s role in the world.
So where, with two weeks to go, do matters stand?
TRUMP AND THE ELECTION
As far as matters stand with The Donald things are fine. He has cocooned himself in his almost daily Nuremberg style rallies packed to the rafters with his cult following. It is reassuring to him and it is the same formula that saw him win in 2016. He craves the attention as an addict does for his fix. He unashamedly punts himself as the savior and commands the adoring mob to come and vote for him - “Don’t let me down”. His policy is based on fear, prejudice and divisiveness. It changes according to the “threat” du jour. Top of the pops is the immigrant caravan from central America that is dramatically projected as an existential threat to the country. He will put the country on a war footing if the sad motley crew reach the Southern border and call out the military. He blames the Democrats for the desperate lunge by a few thousand Central Americans fleeing from violence. This lead even Fox News’s Chris Wallace to label the claim “preposterous”.
He smears the Democrats as a “mob” to the cheers, boos and chants of “lock her up” of his own mob. All this while he lauds violence towards reporters specifically praising the Congressman from Montana, Greg Gianforte who was found guilty of beating up a newsman. “Never wrestle him, (Gianforte)” he screams. As the volume crescendos he eggs them further, “Any guy that can do a body slam like that. He is my guy”. This leads him to share with the frenetic masses, “I didn’t think at the time it, (his violence), would hurt him with the Montana voters. I thought it might help him. And it did”. He summed this all up by saying, “Democrats produce mobs. Republicans produce jobs”.
The election of Judge Kavanaugh is another rallying point. As he claims this election is about Kavanaugh, caravans, law and order and common sense. There is always the smear of the day and currently it is Elizabeth Warren for daring to prove him wrong that she had no native Indian blood. He offered her a million dollars if she could show that ancestry, which she did with a DNA test. He just scoffed at his promise and sniggered Pocohantas again.
Trump will argue that he is winning. The polls are “fake news” as they were last time. In addition while his efforts are not helping the RP catch up on fund raising his own 2020 Re - election Campaign Fund is raking in the dollars. (A big plus is that he can divert that boodle to pay his escalating legal bills). He can counter further that the packed jamborees have not diminished one jot since 2016. Most important is while he has lost suburban Republicans and Independents, who put him over the top in the Presidentials, he still retains the base at about forty percent of the electorate. That, in case the Democrats don’t know it, makes him impeachment proof.
But even he has to know that his populist demagoguery formula failed spectacularly in the tens of special elections since 2016. Fox News have stopped their non stop coverage of the hate fests as their ratings go through the floor. He is being told day after day that he is on the way to loosing the House at least and that can trigger off a whole number of uncomfortable investigations which he has been protected from to date. However the POTUS is not a man who thinks more than one day ahead. He will handle that problem if and when it comes a long.
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
In spite of the gerrymandering of districts up the yin-yang, this is the area where the RP faces its biggest onslaught. It is this arena that the mess that the helter skelter legislation is being brought home. Health care is the number one item on the agenda. Trump vowed to stamp out Obamacare in its entirety, including axing patients who had preconditions. He and the RP candidates are lamely claiming that they want all to be covered.The DP response is then tell your Attorney Generals to stop petitioning the courts to allow insurance companies to exclude those who need coverage most. In addition the avowed objective to slash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security is not going down that well. The argument that this, rather than his tax give away to the rich, is producing the monumental deficit, is not believed.
The Republicans and Trump were going to run on the tax bill. However that has been dropped like a sack of potatoes. The argument that the lion share went to the rich and corporations is obvious. This tack backfired as the Dems pointed out that this unbalanced give away to the “haves” is what has produced the giant deficit. The switch to Kavanaugh and immigration which is seen as splitting up families maybe a winner in the boondocks but women in the suburbs are not buying it.
The upshot is that according to the most reliable forecasters, “Five Thirty Eight”, the Democrats have an eighty - five percent chance of controlling the House. They need twenty - three gains to do so. The consensus is that they will win about forty. However their enthusiasm is so high as reflected by unprecedented early voting and cash raising directly from the electorate some have forecast up to sixty - five reversals for the Republicans.
THE SENATE.
The Senate is Trump’s best prospect of holding the thin red line in Congress. Currently the GOP have a majority of two seats. This election cycle where only a third of the States are having elections favors them massively. In addition ten Democratic Senators who up for reelection are running in States that Trump won in the General Election. The Democrats must hold all of those and have two gains in States that Trump faired in very well. The blue team themselves are in trouble in at least two States - North Dakota, (Trump majority 35%), and Missouri, (Trump majority 19%). Others too, such as Florida, (Trump majority 1%), and New Jersey, (Clinton majority 13%) are being hotly contested by the GOP. Democrats have pinned their hopes on gaining, Nevada, (Trump majority 2%), Arizona, (Trump majority 4%) and even Tennessee, (Trump majority 16%). Real optimists are putting Texas, (Trump majority 9%) at risk for the GOP.
The Senate can go either way. The DP’s best chance has to be a “blue wave” with a massive swing to the Democrats. However realistically with the unfavorable hand dealt to the DP, Trump should keep the brake on the Democrats becoming too powerful in Congress.
GOVERNOR’S AND STATE RACES
This is where matters really look ominous for Trump’s RP. Governor’s races are not subject to gerrymandering, as the whole State votes. However here the DP are not competing with one arm tied behind their backs as they are in the Senate. The Midwest and Pennsylvania is where Trump flipped the Electoral College. The Democrats are on track for sweeping the whole region - Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa and Pennsylvania. Bearing in mind is Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania's narrow victories that gave him the Presidency this has to be of major concern.
There are ten States that the DP are in line for ousting the Republican Governor incumbents - Illinois, New Mexico, Alaska, Michigan, Maine, Nevada, Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio and Georgia. Two States that Democrats are on the verge of flipping are Florida and Georgia, both of which have historic African American potential Democratic Governors. Georgia is beset with controversy as there appears to be a determined voter suppression effort by the incumbent GOP head of State who also happens to be the Republican candidate for Governor.
As Nate Silver of Five Thirty - Eight points out Governors of populous states have far more influence than those that are sparsely inhabited. Other than Texas all the major States seem plausibly in the grasp of the DP. Silver forecasts that the Republican Governors will control twenty - six and the DP twenty - four States after the midterms. However the DP governed States will have a population of one hundred and ninety - six million and the RP only a one hundred and thirty three million, affording them far more influence.
The Democrats are hopeful that their prospective gain in Governorships will extend down ballot and they may take over State legislatures as well.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Donald Trump has been underestimated by anyone and everyone. He believes in his own invincibility and is two fifths of the way there to convince the American electorate. He plays by his own rules and when he is declared a loser by the conventional criteria he scoffs, abuses and turns the obvious on its head - The Democrats are a mob he screams to his own screaming mob.
However he is first and foremost a salesman and his electorate are his customers. They can however have buyer’s remorse. He has sold them a Bill of Goods. He was going to open the coal mines “for beautiful clean coal” and get the coal miners back in the mines. He was going to rebuild the factories and bring jobs back to America. He was going to build a “beautiful” wall. He would make America white again. He has delivered on none of the aforementioned.
Rather, as he promised, to push America back into the industrial revolution era. He played power games with China and pushed up the cost go living. Then he upset the traditional conservative and suburban Republicans by trashing their values and their firm belief of America’s responsibility as the moral leader in the world. He further showed a lack of understanding of the American Constitution - its belief that all men were created equal with inalienable rights, its independent judiciary, its freedom of the press and its separation of powers. He cast aside personal responsibility and engaged in moral turpitude on a scale not ever envisaged by the mob in their hey day.
So maybe just maybe this is the beginning of the end. Maybe on November 9 America will begin to wake up from its nightmare. One can only but hope and pray. Remember of course that two weeks is an eternity in politics and Trump is full throttle ahead in turning the caravan in Latin America into Armageddon.
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