What The Midterms Results Tell Us About Politics

The madness of the midterms is over, and the results are pretty much as expected, with Republicans building up their Senate majority but losing the House. In fact, of the races called so far, our model correctly predicted the overall results of 97.2% of them. We predicted a Senate result of 48 Democrats to 52 Republicans, very close to the probable final result of 47-53. The House model gave a similarly accurate prediction of 239-196, against the probable final result of 234-201. At first the night looked tough for Democrats, with mixed early results in Florida, a slight surprise in the defeat of Indiana Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly, and the defeat of Amy McGrath in Kentucky’s 6th congressional district. These early results seem to have played an outsized role in forming the narrative of the election, that of a good but still disappointing night for Democrats. But make no mistake, this was a blue wave. Democrats successfully competed in suburbs to win a solid majority in the House, won the popular vote by a wide margin (about 8 points), and did surprisingly well in the Senate given that this year’s map was very good for Republicans.

The next most significant takeaway is probably that incumbency matters much less than it has in the past. America voted along partisan lines to an unprecedented extent, with very little ticket-splitting. The highest profile casualties of this were Democratic Senators in the red states of Missouri, Indiana, and North Dakota. Even in Montana and West Virginia where the Democratic Senate incumbents won, they did so by surprisingly small margins, and in Florida, which isn’t even that red, Republican Rick Scott beat Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson. By the way, watch out for Rick Scott in 2024, a popular and seasoned Governor come Senator from a swing state, whose term is ending in a Presidential year, is definitely someone to be aware of when the rumours about who’s running for President start to circulate.

Next, voter engagement was off the charts, with a turnout of 49%, the highest midterm turnout since 1914! This isn’t even much lower than the 56% turnout for the Presidential race in 2016. Of course these numbers are still very low compared to most Western democracies, but if this trend holds it seems perfectly plausible that we see extraordinary turnout in 2020 when the fate of Trump’s Presidency will truly be in play, 70% turnout begins to seem perfectly possible.

Thirdly, healthcare is by far and away the most prominent issue in politics right now. Democrats built their campaign on protecting the healthcare system, and to some extent it drove their victory, as it seems to be an argument they are winning – in a recent poll, 44% of those sampled said they trusted Democrats more on healthcare, compared to just 34% for Republicans. The next most important issue was immigration, perhaps unsurprisingly given Trump making a migrant caravan in Mexico a prominent issue during the final days of the campaign. These were followed by the economy, then gun control. It’s likely that these are the issues that will shape the elections in 2020, as politicians can see the incredible extent to which they have engaged the public. An economic downturn could spell the end of the Trump Presidency, or continued growth could form the basis of his re-election campaign. And it seems beyond doubt that the Democratic nominee will make healthcare a major talking point, and bring it up as often as they can.

Thinking about 2020, 2018 taught us a lot about what the electoral map is going to look like in 2 years time. Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania all veered away from Republicans, while Democrats enjoyed little joy in the Sun Belt. The Sun Belt is a collection of Southern and South-Western states which lean Republican, but Democrats dream of turning blue by turning out large ethnic minorities. The Sun Belt usually means Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, and sometimes Georgia and Texas too for the more ambitious Democrats. The best path to victory for Democrats in 2020 is now clearly via the Upper Midwestern states, which gives extra weight to Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchars’ potential Presidential campaigns, as they both have proven ability to appeal to Midwestern voters. But don’t discount Beto O’Rourke. He may have lost, but in a way that’s good for him, he now has more time to build up his campaign infrastructure, visit the early primary states, and prepare for another battle. He lost by a surprisingly small margin of only 2.6 points, and managed to electrify and thrill the Democratic base in a way that no one has really done since Obama. Add that to extraordinary fundraising abilities, and you have a very very strong contender for the Presidency.