Trumpism Is Not An Effective Electoral Strategy

Doug Jones is a solidly left wing Democrat who makes little effort to appeal to conservatives. Nevertheless, in 2017 he was able to win a Senate seat in Alabama, one of the reddest states in the nation.

In 2018, Democrats won the House popular vote by almost 9 points, and held on to Senate seats in Montana and West Virginia.

In 2019, Democrats took full control of the Virginia State Legislature after many years out of power.

In 2020, Donald Trump became the first President to lose re-election since George H.W. Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton in 1992.

In 2021, Democrats took control of the Senate.

On reflection, even Trump’s victory in 2016 was somewhat unimpressive. It’s very rare for any party to control the White House for more than 8 years at a time, and even so Trump lost the popular vote to one of the least popular major party nominees in history, and only just won the tipping point state and hence the Electoral College. In the end, the Trump era has been an electoral disaster for the GOP, going from full control of Federal Government in January 2017, to Democrats having full control just 4 years later. Now the Republican Party is facing an internal conflict over whether or not to retain Trumpism, and its decision could determine its electoral performance for the coming decade.

Fundamentally, the electoral Achilles ’ heel of Trumpism is that it caters exclusively to the base, passionate Republicans who are very positive about Trump. All of Trump’s actions, decisions, and rhetoric are aimed at this one group. But this group simply isn’t big enough. Trump’s approval rating currently sits at just 39%, fairly typical of his rating throughout his Presidency. But 39% is not enough to win an election, and in these same polls an average of 56% of voters say they disapprove of Trump’s Presidency. Trumpism demonstrates little ability to cater to moderates and persuadable voters, because it doesn’t consist of policies or arguments, it consists of emotion. Ultimately, Trumpism is the politics of resentment for those perceived to have better opportunities in life than yourself. In this politics of emotion, it seems to frequently become necessary to believe conspiracy theories to rationalise emotions such as hatred of top Democrats or distress regarding election results. But the vast majority of the public don’t support these theories, so unless you already feel what you need to feel to buy into Trumpism, there really isn’t much out there to convince you to vote Republican right now.

Nothing represents this better than the failure of the GOP to publish a new manifesto in 2020, the first time a major party has missed a manifesto in decades. Instead, Trump chose to reuse his 2016 manifesto, which contains various outdated policies and ideas and is of course absent of any policies regarding Covid-19. Then again, having no policies regarding Covid-19 is reflective of a President who has sought to avoid engaging with the issue, instead focusing on attacking his critics online and hosting rallies, once again playing on emotion rather than policy. Entertainingly, this document which the GOP came to embrace in 2020 also contains various direct criticisms of “The President”, referring to Obama in 2016 but now reading as though Trump were attacking himself: “The President has been regulating to death a free market economy that he does not like and does not understand. He defies the laws of the United States by refusing to enforce those with which he does not agree”. The laziness of copy and pasting the manifesto verbatim is symbolic of Trumpism’s lack of interest in the actual process of governing a nation.

Furthermore, we see that Trump himself performs worse than other GOP nominees, and that the greater distance Republicans have from the White House, the better they do. In 2020, Trump lost the popular vote by 4.5 points, but the GOP only lost the House popular vote by 3. Based on the State Legislative seats which went up for election in 2020, we estimate that if every seat had gone up for election, Republicans would actually have won the State Legislative popular vote by 1 point. In the House and Senate, the Republicans who performed best as compared to Trump were consistently those who most frequently vote against him in Congress. This has a major impact in elections, with all 4 Democratic Senate gains made against Republican incumbents who voted with Trump 80-95% of the time despite being from competitive states.

On the other hand, it’s not entirely clear what strategy Republicans could employ other than Trumpism. Both the moderate and calm McCain in 2008 and the traditional conservative Romney in 2012 suffered clear defeats. The last time the Republicans won the Presidential popular vote was in 2004, but George W Bush went on to become a deeply unpopular President with a stained legacy, so his strategy is hardly one Republicans wish to replicate. Before that, Republicans have George H.W. Bush’s victory in 1988 to look to, except that he was defeated convincingly by Clinton just 4 years later. Therefore the GOP has to look a full 40 years into the past to Ronald Reagan and his “Reaganonomics” to find any proven electoral strategy for conservatives. The GOP’s identity crisis is certainly severe, but lacking any policies or recent examples of successful strategies, it seems overwhelmingly likely that the Republican party will end up stuck with some degree of Trumpism, and all the electoral challenges it entails.

What Biden’s Win Means For The Political Landscape

After months of voting, counting, and waiting, the General Election is finally over, and it’s bad news for Republicans. In the end, Biden won the popular vote by a fairly convincing 4.5 point margin. This is substantially less than what most opinion polls were predicting, but was still just enough to bring Biden to a victory. Not only did Democrats win back the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, they also picked up Ariziona and Georgia from the Sun Belt, both of which are extremely promising states for the party moving forward. However, in a sense Biden’s margin of victory was quite narrow, as he won the tipping point state of Wisconsin by just 0.6 points, meaning that Trump’s Electoral College advantage was approximately 4 points. Republicans also seem to be solidifying their control of Florida and North Carolina, quashing Democrats’ hopes in these populous and fast growing states.

In the Senate, we expected many of the key races to be close. In the end, many of these toss-ups ended up going to Republicans, continuing the trend we see in these results of Democrats underperforming their polls. The GOP held on in North Carolina and Iowa, and unseated Doug Jones in Alabama, demonstrating once again that incumbency is worth much less than party identity in the current political paradigm, making it extremely difficult for Democrats to hang on in red states and vice versa. Indeed, the vast majority of Senate seats once again simply went to the same party that won the Presidential race in that state. Democrats benefited from this trend by picking up seats in Colorado and Arizona, as well as 2 impressive wins in Georgia, giving Democrats the majority in the Senate they so desperately needed. The sole exception to the rule was Republican Susan Collins in Maine, whose moderate reputation allowed her to clinch a narrow victory in a blue state.

The House was a major source of disappointment for Democrats. While polling indicated the party may enjoy slight gains, instead their majority has been shrunk severely. Those Democrats who remain are a fairly cohesive coalition so should still be somewhat effective, however House votes won’t be the sure thing they once were. Overall across Presidential and Congressional races, we called 98% correctly. Our incorrect calls were all cases of underestimating Republicans, primarily based off inaccurate opinion polling.

Overall, this is a huge win for Democrats. With control of Congress and the White House, they will be able to pass Covid relief bills, implement executive orders, and appoint cabinet secretaries and justices as they please. However, their slim majorities in Congress will likely prevent them from implementing anything radical, as even a couple of Blue Dog Democrats voting against a bill would be enough to block it entirely. Furthermore, they are likely to lose those majorities in the 2022 midterms, meaning they will need to use these 2 years very effectively before Congress becomes split and deadlocked once again.

This election also serves as a vindication of the establishment wing of the Democratic party, demonstrating that mainstream left wing politicians are in fact capable of beating Republicans. This could put the brakes on the Progressive wing of the party, who had previously been arguing that only a radical populist Democrat could excite voters enough to win. It seems likely that in 2024, the Democrats will nominate Biden or Harris for the Presidency, with AOC or any other successor to Bernie Sanders sidelined. Conversely, the GOP may be forced to rethink its strategy. A President failing to win re-election is unusual, as is losing a Senate majority within just 4 years. Whether Republicans stick with Trumpism or fall back to the traditional conservatism of figures such as Mitt Romney will be enormously impactful, and doubtless a major political conflict over the next 4 years.

Finally, Republican structural advantages were cemented and expanded this election, most notably in Trump’s 4 point advantage in the Electoral College, increased from 3 points in 2016. It is entirely possible to envision a scenario where in 2024 or 2028 the Republican nominee wins the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by 5-10 million ballots. Additionally, the GOP did surprisingly well in State Legislative races, giving them extensive control of the redistricting process coming up in 2021. Meanwhile in many of the states that Democrats do control, they allow the redistricting to be carried out by independent commissions. Ultimately this is likely to mean that Republicans continue to have significant structural advantages in elections for the House and State Legislatures for the next 10 years counterbalancing Democrats’ larger coalition.

Democrats Are Likely To Win Full Control Of Congress

With the 2020 General Election just a few days away, Democrats command convincing 9 point leads in both the generic ballot and Presidential opinion polling. Although Republicans have structural advantages in the House, Senate, and Electoral College, the size of the Democratic lead results in a grim outlook for the GOP this cycle.

Our probabilistic forecasts for the House, Senate, and Presidential races are complete and have been tracking the changing national environment over time. Since the first Presidential debate and Trump’s subsequent coronavirus diagnosis, the President lost the small gains he achieved following the Republican National Convention. This article explores our current forecasts for the House and the Senate. Although these might not be the most high profile contests this year, they are absolutely pivotal in determining whether the winner of the Presidential race will be able to govern effectively, or will simply be a placeholder keeping the next President’s seat warm for four years.

The House of Representatives

Following their blue wave in 2018, Democrats go into this year’s House elections with 232 representatives, a comfortable majority. To regain control, Republicans need to make extensive gains in an environment even more favourable to Democrats than the 8.5 point lead they enjoyed in 2018. Additionally, Democrats now have the advantage of incumbency in almost every swing seat, having won them off Republican incumbents 2 years ago. As a result, our model gives Democrats a 98% chance of maintaining control of the House, and actually expects them to expand their majority, winning 240 seats on average.

The Senate

In a chamber where California gets the same number of representatives as Wyoming, Democrats are always going to struggle. The Republican structural advantage in the Senate is immense, such that even in 2018 Republicans were able to expand their majority, and now occupy 53 out of the 100 seats. However, in 2018 Democrats had very high exposure in the Senate, with the vast majority of the seats up for election that year occupied by Democrats. This gave the GOP plenty of chances to pick off some of the less secure Democrats in red states they’d won courtesy of excellent years for Democrats in 2006 and 2012. In 2020, the tables are turned as the GOP seeks to hold onto the gains it made in 2014. Now Republicans have high exposure, and could suffer significant losses in this very blue national environment.

12 Democratic and 23 Republican seats are up for election this year, including many Republican held seats in moderately red states. To win control Democrats need to make a net gain of 3 or 4, depending on whether Kamala Harris or Mike Pence is elected to the Vice Presidency, which breaks ties in the Senate. The GOP stands to make a fairly easy gain unseating Doug Jones in Alabama. Following his victory in one of the reddest states in the country as a result of facing an exceptionally unpopular opponent in Roy Moore, Jones has been voting consistently with the Democratic mainstream. It appears he decided that even if he voted as a conservative Democrat in a similar manner to Joe Manchin in deep red West Virginia, Jones would still lose his re-election campaign, so has simply been voting with his party. The only other Republican target is Michigan, where Democrat Gary Peters is facing a small threat to his re-election campaign, but will probably pull through given that Peters and Biden are both consistently leading polls in the state.

Given Biden’s lead in national polling, it’s reasonable to assume that Democrats therefore need to make approximately 4 gains to win control of the Senate. Colorado is an obvious target, Biden is leading there by 14 points and incumbent Cory Gardener has made little effort to appeal to moderates in the state, and trails in polls by a significant margin. If Democrats can’t win this one, they can’t win.

Arizona presents a second strong target for Democrats. This swing state is currently leaning towards Biden, and the Republican incumbent Martha McSally is only an appointed incumbent, not an elected one, and is therefore not expected to command a significant incumbent advantage. Interestingly, in 2018 McSally lost Republican Jeff Flake’s old Senate seat to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, so if McSally loses again this year she will have been responsible for the GOP losing both Arizona Senate seats in the space of 2 years!

Beyond these 2 targets, Democrats have to work harder to make gains. Maine is a slightly blue state, but incumbent Republican Susan Collins has a moderate reputation, putting her in a much stronger political position than Gardener or McSally. However, since voting in favour of confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, voters in Maine are increasingly questioning her moderate reputation. She trails slightly in polling, but this is a race that could easily go either way.

Iowa and North Carolina are each somewhat red states with Republican incumbents, so the fact that Democratic challengers have small leads in each of these states is a reflection on the national political situation being very favourable toward Democrats. Additionally, Democrats are only slightly behind in Montana, Kansas, Arkansas, South Carolina, and both races in Georgia. All of these are red states with Republican incumbents, the fact that Democrats are even in contention here must be alarming for the GOP.

All in all, Democrats have 2 easy opportunities to make gains, and 9 highly competitive races which could go either way. If Democrats win even just a couple of those, they win the Senate. That’s why our model gives Democrats an 81% chance of taking control of the upper chamber. An important note is that the margin could also be extremely important here. If Democrats have only 50 Senators, they would be reliant on conservative Democrat Joe Manchin, whose vote could not be counted on for any liberal policies. If Democrats have 52 seats things are very different, and if Biden were President he could probably pass mainstream Democratic reform through Congress easily. With 55 seats or more, Democrats could run rampant passing whatever progressive policies they so choose, so truly every single competitive race could have an immense impact on politics going forward.

Whilst this piece has focused on the more likely scenario of Democratic victory, it’s worth emphasising the fact that the 2% and 19% chances of Republicans winning the House and Senate respectively are real and should not be ignored. But to hold on even in just the upper chamber, the GOP has a lot of ground to make up. Aside from Susan Collins, Republicans in key races show very limited interest in using moderate rhetoric and policy positions to persuade Independent voters, leading Independents to overwhelmingly back Democrats. While passionate conservative messaging does encourage Republican turnout, it also fires up Democratic turnout, such that Republicans find themselves having to play defence deep within their own territory. If the GOP does indeed suffer a severe defeat this year, they may have to re-examine this strategy.

Why The 2019 Elections Matter

Today’s elections may not be for the Presidency or Congress, but they will still have a profound effect on the lives of millions. In addition to a wealth of local elections there are also competitive gubernatorial races in Kentucky and Mississippi, and every seat in the Virginia state legislature is up for grabs. Even if you don’t live in any of these states, here’s why it’s still worth keeping an eye on today’s races:

Redistricting

The next round of redistricting is coming up in 2021 following the 2020 census. This provides an opportunity for state governments to redraw the boundaries for both their own seats and congressional districts. Following Obama’s election in 2008, Republicans came back with a vengeance in 2010, winning control of a large number of governorships and state legislatures. In the following round of redistricting, many state governments completely controlled by Republicans chose to take this opportunity to draw maps designed to elect more Republicans. Some states entirely controlled by Democrats did the same, but the overwhelming GOP victory in 2010 meant Republicans were able to obtain advantageous electoral maps across the country, leading to them winning a majority in the House of Representatives in 2012 despite losing the popular vote.

In the hyper-polarized modern political climate, it is unlikely either party will have mercy if they control the majority of state legislatures after 2020. That means every state level election for the next two years has significant effects on the following ten years of elections. In Kentucky and Mississippi, Republicans are fighting to hold on to governorships such that they can maintain total control of state government. This is crucial as governors can veto redistricting proposals in their state, so a Democratic governor could prevent Kentucky from maintaining 5 out of 6 congressional seats as easy Republican wins. In Mississippi, the current maps pack so many of the state’s Democratic voters into one district that in 2018 Republicans didn’t even field a candidate there, while Republicans win each of the remaining seats by very comfortable margins.

In Virginia, Democrats need only marginal gains in each chamber of the General Assembly to take full control of state government. Here Democrats will be most eager to redraw the boundaries for state level elections after failing to take back the House in 2017 despite winning the popular vote by a large margin. With eleven congressional districts, a state government fully controlled by Democrats could also significantly influence the state’s future congressional delegations, should they decide to be ruthless.

Looking Ahead

These elections will also serve as perhaps the first high quality data points since the midterms towards predicting the results of the 2020 elections. Presidential election polls at this point in the race still tend to have approximately twenty point margins of error, but these are actual elections with real votes. Which demographics are sufficiently enthusiastic to turn out and how those groups vote inform our understanding of the current national environment, and will help political parties analyse which groups they need to target.

Clearly, if Democrats can win a gubernatorial race in just one of Kentucky, which on average leans 24 points towards Republicans, and Mississippi which leans 15, it is a very good sign for them, proving they can compete in even the most deeply conservative states. However despite much media attention, it seems unlikely that either of these governorships will actually go blue. Kentucky’s Republican governor Matt Bevin is deeply unpopular, but the state is simply too conservative for him to be anything but the frontrunner. Nevertheless, that one could be close. In Mississippi, it is much more feasible that the Democratic nominee Jim Hood could win the popular vote, but in Mississippi things are not so simple. In order to win the race, Hood also needs to win in the majority of the districts that make up the state House of Representatives. But these seats were gerrymandered by Republicans in 2011, so there’s next to no chance he succeeds. If Hood does win the popular vote but not the majority of districts, the large Republican majority in the state House gets to pick the winner, which would inevitably be the Republican candidate Tate Reeves. As a result, the real thing to watch for in these races is not the winner, but rather the margins by which the popular vote is won or lost.

The results in Virginia are crucial in their own right, giving strong indications toward how this swing state might vote in 2020, as well as whether its even more important neighbor North Carolina’s fifteen electoral votes might be in play for Democrats. This will also serve as a test of how hard a series of significant scandals have hurt Democrats in Virginia, where recently two out of three top Democrats were found to have worn blackface and the third was accused of sexual assault.

All this said, tomorrow morning there are going to be a lot of takes on how 2019 informs us about 2020 and Trump’s popularity. Take these with several generous pinches of salt. Between now and the presidential election we have a whole year, a general election campaign, the selection of the Democrat’s nominee, a final vote on impeachment, and most likely a senate trial of the President. Tonight’s results are probably not going to be all that reflective of 2020, they simply serve as a starting point for our analysis of the coming elections.

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.

Final Midterm Forecasts

The election is now almost here, and the final RedvBlue forecast is interesting but overall fairly clear and decisive. The top line is that Democrats have about a 10% chance of winning control of both chambers of Congress. The Republicans have a similar chance of full control, and in the remaining 80% of cases, the Democrats will win the House, but the Republicans will hold onto the Senate.

Warning: The approximately 10% chance that Democrats win the Senate and the 10% chance that Republicans win the House are very real. This means that if the election ran a hundred times, we would expect these things to happen about 10 times each. This election is not a dead certainty, and elections are nothing if not surprising, so be prepared!

The Senate

Republicans Ted Cruz and Marsha Blackburn of Texas and Tennessee respectively seem to have successfully fended off fierce challenges from Democrats, and are looking confidently ahead in the polls. The bad news for Republicans is that the Democratic incumbents in deep red states seem to have largely consolidated their positions. West Virginia and Montana look remarkably safe for Democrats, and though the model’s predictions in Missouri and Indiana are nowhere close to certain, the GOP seems significantly behind in both. Only North Dakota has proven vulnerable to Republican efforts to make gains, but this may very well be enough. The highly competitive races remaining in the Senate are Nevada, Arizona, and North Dakota, and Democrats need all 3 to win a majority. Nevada and Arizona are now almost perfect 50:50 toss-ups, it’s really anybody’s guess who’ll win those. But the two states are relatively similar, so it’s reasonable to imagine that they’ll both choose the same party. Meanwhile Democrats need Heidi Heitkamp to pull off a small miracle in North Dakota in order to secure the seat, which has been looking increasingly vulnerable as the election has progressed.

Due to tiny Democratic leads in Nevada and Arizona, going on a seat by seat basis the model predicts that the composition of the Senate will become 50-50, with Vice President Mike Pence giving Republicans the casting vote. But due to the high exposure of several red state Democrats, and very low exposure of the GOP, the average prediction given by the model is that Republicans will come out of the midterms with 52 Senate seats, against only 48 Democrats. The most likely scenario in which this happens would be that Republicans win in North Dakota, Nevada and Arizona.

The House

By contrast, the Republicans would need a small miracle to win in the House. Democrats need 23 gains to take control, and New York, California, and New Jersey put together provide almost enough competitive races to allow for that on their own. Democrats are looking great in the New York seats, and in California they’re assisted by there not even being a Republican on the ballot for the Senate race, potentially causing some Republican voters to not bother turning out. However, Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey is looking unusually weak this year, having been caught up in a significant scandal, this might weaken Democratic chances across the state. But then there are simply so many other good options for the party to pick up the seats they need. Democrats are looking much stronger across the Midwest than they did in 2016, and Pennsylvania and Minnesota are both heavily laden with competitive districts. On a seat by seat basis, the model predicts the House will go 231-204 in favour of Democrats, representing a net gain of 36 seats. In the House it’s Republicans who are heavily exposed, so the average net gain predicted by the model is 44 seats, leading to a 239-196 House composition, a strong Democratic majority.

Predictions In Full

Here is a full list of our final calls. Although some of these races are toss-ups, this is who we think would win in each race if we had to choose.

Senate – Democratic Wins (Includes Independents who caucus with Democrats)

Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Minnesota Special, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin.

Senate – Republican Wins

Mississippi, Mississippi Special, Nebraska, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wyoming.

House – Democratic Wins

Alabama – 7
Alaska – none
Arizona – 1-3, 7, 9
Arkansas – none
California – 2, 3, 5-7, 9-20, 24-41, 43-49, 51-53
Colorado – 1, 2, 6, 7
Connecticut – 1-5
Delaware – at large
Florida – 5, 7, 9, 10, 13-15, 20-24, 26, 27
Georgia – 2, 4, 5, 13
Hawaii – 1, 2
Idaho – none
Illinois – 1-11, 14, 17
Indiana – 1, 7
Iowa – 1-3
Kansas – 2, 3
Kentucky – 3
Louisiana – 2
Maine – 1, 2
Maryland – 2-8
Massachusetts – 1-9
Michigan – 5, 8, 9, 11-14
Minnesota – 1-5, 7
Mississippi – 2
Missouri – 1, 5
Montana – none
Nebraska – none
Nevada – 1, 3, 4
New Hampshire – 1, 2
New Jersey – 1-3, 5-12
New Mexico – 1, 3
New York – 3-10, 12-20, 22, 25, 26
North Carolina – 1, 4, 9, 12
North Dakota – none
Ohio – 3, 9, 11, 13
Oklahoma – none
Oregon – 1, 3-5
Pennsylvania – 2-8, 17, 18
Rhode Island – 1, 2
South Carolina – 6
South Dakota – none
Tennessee – 5, 9
Texas – 7, 9, 15, 16, 18, 20, 28-30, 33-35
Utah – 4
Vermont – at large
Virginia – 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11
Washington – 1, 2, 6-10
West Virginia – none
Wisconsin – 2-4
Wyoming – none

House – Republican Wins

Alabama – 1-6
Alaska – at large
Arizona – 4-6, 8
Arkansas – 1-4
California – 1, 4, 8, 21-23, 42, 50
Colorado – 3-5
Connecticut – none
Delaware – none
Florida – 1-4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 16-19, 25
Georgia – 1, 3, 6-12, 14
Hawaii – none
Idaho – at large
Illinois – 12, 13, 15, 16, 18
Indiana – 2-6, 8, 9
Iowa – 4
Kansas – 1, 4
Kentucky – 1, 2, 4-6
Louisiana – 1, 3-6
Maine – none
Maryland – 1
Massachusetts – none
Michigan – 1-4, 6, 7, 10
Minnesota – 6, 8
Mississippi – 1, 3, 4
Missouri – 2-4, 6-8
Montana – at large
Nebraska – 1-3
Nevada – 2
New Hampshire – none
New Jersey – 4
New Mexico – 2
New York – 1, 2, 11, 21, 23, 24, 27
North Carolina – 2, 3, 5-8, 10, 11, 13
North Dakota – at large
Ohio – 1, 2, 4-8, 10, 12, 14-16
Oklahoma – 1-5
Oregon – 2
Pennsylvania – 1, 9-16
Rhode Island – none
South Carolina – 1-5, 7
South Dakota – at large
Tennessee – 1-4, 6-8
Texas – 1-6, 8, 10-14, 17, 19, 21-27, 31, 32, 36
Utah – 1-3
Vermont – none
Virginia – 1, 2, 5, 6, 9
Washington – 3-5
West Virginia – 1-3
Wisconsin – 1, 5-8
Wyoming – at large

Top 6 2020 Presidential Frontrunners

Predictions as of 10/22/2018, as Republicans take a lead in Nevada and Arizona, they look almost sure to hold on to the Senate, while Democrats’ popular vote lead sees them well ahead in the House:

The 2020 Presidential campaign began on Wednesday November 9th 2016, when America woke up to discover Trump’s victory. The race may not officially begin until late 2019, but the battle has already begun, and is sure to intensify the day the midterms are done. Since 2016, the President has made it clear that he intends to run for re-election in 2020, and a rather large number of Democrats have been setting themselves up to challenge him, not to mention several #NeverTrump Republicans. But who actually has a chance of winning?

6. Vice President Joe Biden

On first glance, Joe Biden is a strong candidate for the Presidency. He has the name recognition to cut through a Democratic nomination process that could easily involve 20+ candidates. With 7 terms in the Senate and 2 terms in the Vice-Presidency, no one could ever question his experience. Combine this with his close relation to Obama, who is now seen as practically the father of modern Democratic politics, and he seems a strong contender to win the nomination. Having done so, he could run a campaign on his traditionally moderate politics. He’s always tried to position himself as a man of the people, and his trips to Wisconsin and Michigan clearly indicate some thought about a potential 2020 strategy. Add to this the fact that he was born in Pennsylvania, perhaps the most important swing state in the country at the moment, and he may seem like the perfect answer to Trump.

But Biden has run for the Presidency twice before, in 1988 and 2008, losing horribly both times. 1988 is particularly interesting, as Biden was considered a strong candidate from the very beginning, until he was destroyed by a long string of controversies: Accusations of plagiarizing speeches from the leader of the British Labour Party, as well as Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey; involvement in plagiarism whilst he was at law school; lying about graduating in the top half of his class (he came 76th/85); claiming he earned 3 degrees when in fact he only got 1; and claiming that he received a full scholarship, when in fact he only got a half-scholarship. Biden is also, to be blunt, very old, currently aged 75. This means that by the end of a two term Presidency starting in 2021, he would be 86 years old. On top of the obvious mental and physical health concerns associated with this, it’s worth noting that during the primaries for the midterms, Democrats have tended to prefer younger, female candidates, and anti-establishment candidates have also been doing a little better than expected. Joe Biden is very strong on paper, and has a perfectly good shot, but it seems as though his time has probably come and gone.

5. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

So how about a young(er), more liberal, female Democrat? Elected once to the House and thrice to the Senate, soon to become four times as she romps to victory in her New York re-election bid, Kirsten Gillibrand may well be the new face of the Democratic Party. With the weight of the mighty New York Democrats behind her, she is a fundraising titan, with $20 million raised towards defending her perfectly safe Senate seat this cycle alone. And though she may be a full blown liberal today, at the beginning of her political career she was a much more moderate Democrat, something she could plausibly call upon once she’s got the nomination in the bag and needs to appeal to the nation as a whole. On the other hand, her ties to the Clinton family and her being a female New York Democrat may well make it very easy for her to become linked in voters’ minds to Hillary Clinton, which would almost certainly not be a good thing for her campaign. Interestingly, unlike some on this list, she hasn’t yet visited Iowa or New Hampshire, the early primary states, which is considered a key step in building up for a Presidential campaign. Even unconventional candidates like Trump visit these states well before the primaries begin, so this might indicate that she isn’t yet sure about running in 2020, hence her place near the bottom of this list.

4. Senator Kamala Harris

Who’s an even more powerful and wealthy ally in a Democratic primary process than the New York Democrats? The California Democrats of course! Kamala Harris is one of a tiny group of candidates who could have a chance at outmatching Gillibrand on fundraising, and is another comparatively young female Senator. She’s even more liberal than Gillibrand, and although she is relatively new to the Senate, this could almost work in her favour, as younger Democrats seem keen to get rid of the old guard of the Party. As if this weren’t enough, she is the best candidate on this list for appealing to the Democrats’ African-American base, which is crucial during primaries. This could also be very useful during a general election. Although many Democrats believe that their path to victory in 2020 is to regain the Upper Midwest, specifically Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, this is hardly their only plausible route. By motivating African-American turnout, Harris could make a serious play for Florida and North Carolina, and perhaps even make Georgia and Arizona genuinely competitive. With the Trump campaign also needing to defend slim and faltering majorities in the Upper Midwest, this strategy could make for a very strong campaign indeed.

3. Senator Bernie Sanders

To all intents and purposes, Bernie Sanders is already running for President. His 2016 campaign never truly ended, and support for him is still strong within the party. He’s visited the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and even has a book out this year. The real question is not whether he will run, but whether he can win. We can clearly see from the 2016 primaries that he has a lot of support, he won 43% of delegates and only narrowly lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. That said, Clinton was not an especially popular candidate among Party members, hardly inspiring the levels of enthusiasm Obama or Sanders generated. So if Sanders couldn’t beat Clinton, could he beat any of the candidates on this list?

Furthermore, at 77 he’s even older than Biden, there has been some talk of a one term pledge, where he promises not to run for re-election, but not from Sanders himself, and it’s likely that such a pledge would harm him during the nomination process as Democrats will be keen to get a strong incumbent into office to secure a win in 2024. In a general election, he may struggle due to being perceived as a socialist, which is still a word with strong negative associations for many Americans, particularly those in high turnout demographics. Despite all this, he is almost definitely running, he has an established base of enthusiastic supporters, and extreme views are growing more popular and electable, as President Trump shows. Sanders is going to be a political heavyweight during the primaries, and his chances should not be underestimated.

2. Senator Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren is Hillary Clinton’s natural successor, and the one to watch in the Democratic primaries. She has her finger on the pulse of the party, is generally a very skilled politician, and has incredible fundraising abilities with the support of the Massachusetts Democrats, having raised $34 million for her totally uncompetitive re-election campaign this year. She was outspoken on opposing Kavanaugh, has been a fierce Trump critic since the beginning of the 2016 campaign, and was rumoured to be a possible VP pick for Clinton. She has strong support from the left and centre of the Party membership and from across the party establishment – she even received two electoral votes for the Vice Presidency in 2016 from faithless electors. She is running, and she is utterly formidable. A political juggernaut like her on the left wing of the Party may well instantly knock Gillibrand and Sanders out of the running after the first couple of primaries, and if she manages to win the Democratic nomination she would be a similarly fierce candidate against Trump. The only conceivable mark against her is her close association with the deeply unpopular Clinton, which will likely be quietly harming her campaign throughout the process.

1. President Donald Trump

This one is obvious. We know he’s running, we know he’s so popular amongst Republican members that he’s practically guaranteed the nomination, and as an incumbent in an age of two term Presidents we know he has a good shot at winning. His unpopularity is overblown, he’s managing about 42% approval ratings, only slightly worse than Obama’s were at this point in his Presidency. Although the 2018 midterms are looking to be messy for the GOP, holding level in the Senate and losing about 40 House seats, the 2010 midterms were much worse for Obama, with the Democrats losing 6 seats in the Senate and 63 in the House. This all suggests that Trump should be just fine in 2020.

On the other hand, Obama had a lot more room for error between his campaigns. In 2008, he was elected with a 7.2 point popular vote margin and 365 electoral votes, whereas Trump actually lost the popular vote by 2.1 points in 2016 and received only 304 electoral votes. Obama could comfortably afford to lose North Carolina, Indiana, and the 2nd congressional district in Nebraska in 2012 and see his popular vote margin shrink to 3.9 points, while still winning very well. Trump has no such luxuries in 2020. He needs to hold on to very narrow margins in Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, as well as protecting unreliable Republican majorities in North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa and Arizona. He can afford to lose one or two of these, but no more. In terms of opportunities to attack, Trump has New Hampshire, Nevada and perhaps Maine at large. With only 4, 6 and 2 electoral votes respectively, none of these are very exciting for him. However, Minnesota has a full 10 electoral votes, and although it hasn’t voted for a Republican Presidential nominee since 1972, Clinton only won it by 1.5 points in 2020, so Minnesota is very much on the table and could potentially turn the election on its head. Trump is by far and away the most likely candidate to win the Presidency in 2020, despite a variety of strong potential challengers setting themselves up to face him down, and the power of incumbency should not be underestimated.

Introducing RedvBlue’s House Model

With little more than three weeks until election day, the races for the Senate and the House are intensifying. And after much data collection and programming, the RedvBlue model for the House of Representatives is up and running. Broadly speaking, this works in a similar way to the Senate model, with a few minor additions and alterations such as an increased incumbency advantage that is more uniform for each district, unlike incumbency advantages for Senate seats, which vary significantly depending on the population of the state. The main new feature for the House model is the incorporation of trickle down effects. This is modelling the fact that voters tend to be more motivated to turnout to vote for higher level positions, such as Governor or Senator, than lower ones such as Representative in the House. Therefore if, for example, a Democratic candidate for the Senate in Texas is boosting Democratic enthusiasm in the state and getting left leaning voters to turnout on election day, it’s likely that those voters will also vote for their Democratic House candidate as they happen to be in the polling booth anyway, so Democrats across Texas get a boost.

Without further ado, here are our predictions for 10/14/2018:

Democrats chances in the House are looking very good. There’s certainly a reasonable chance that Republicans hold on to a majority in the House, and that shouldn’t be ignored, but the most likely scenario is that Democrats gain somewhere in the region of 40 seats overall, a fully-fledged blue wave, providing them with a solid majority in the lower chamber of Congress. What’s more, there’s a slim but significant probability that Democrats gain more like 50 or 60 seats overall, which would probably be a sufficiently resounding victory to consolidate the embattled House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s position at the forefront of the party, and would certainly be a worrying sign for Donald Trump. That said, in 2010, the Obama Administration’s first midterm, the Republicans achieved a net gain of 63 seats. Yet Obama went on to win re-election fairly smoothly despite approval ratings only a little higher than Trump’s, so a big blue wave should not be interpreted as too bad a sign for the Trump Administration. The truly remarkable thing for Democrats is that even in the worst case scenario for them that has a reasonable chance of occurring, they actually make a small net gain of around 10 seats. This is simply because Republicans made such huge gains in 2010 and 2014, and held on to almost all of them in 2012 and 2016, that almost all the remaining Democratic seats are in deep blue districts, so Republicans have very few opportunities to make gains, and need to defend some quite blue districts of their own.

By stark contrast, the Senate is looking fantastic for Republicans. Not only have they pulled ahead into comfortable leads in Texas and Tennessee, likely as polls come out showing these red states react to the Kavanaugh confirmation battle, but Nevada and Arizona appear to have turned into much closer races, each now being an almost perfect toss up. But how are these two forecasts so different?

Firstly, it’s worth reiterating just how good the Senate map is for Republicans is this year. Their only really vulnerable seats are in Nevada and Arizona, and they have a wide selection of red state Democratic incumbents to target. Add to that the fact that popular former Governor of Florida Rick Scott is bringing his considerable political weight to bear in the state’s Senate race, posing a serious problem to Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson, and Republican chances end up looking very good despite a left leaning national environment. This overall environment is what is giving Democrats such good odds in the House, where of course all 435 seats are up for election, as opposed to just 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate.

Secondly, the key races in the battles for the House and Senate are happening in very different parts of the country. The most important Senate races are in deep red states like North Dakota, Texas, and Tennessee. Hyper-partisanship means that it’s very difficult for a Democrat to win any of these in 2018. Meanwhile, the most important House races this year seem to largely be in the rural parts of California, New York, and New Jersey. These districts tend to be 5 or 6 percent more Republican leaning than the nation as a whole, but with a national environment leaning towards the Democrats by about 8 points, it’s perfectly plausible that these could change hands. It’s also worth noting the aforementioned trickle down effects in these states. All 3 have Senate races this year, with a Democratic nominee strongly favoured to win. In California, some Republican voters may stay home, as due to the “top two” primary system in California there isn’t even a Republican candidate for Senate on the ballot paper.

Finally, it’s worth remembering that Congress is really, really unpopular, with about a 17% approval rating. This means that incumbency is not actually very powerful this year. This works against Democrats in the Senate, as they are totally reliant upon strong Democratic incumbents in red states holding on for dear life. But in the House, it actually works in their favour. Almost none of their incumbents there are in any kind of danger as they are all in very blue districts, and the key races are being fought over seats currently held by Republicans. All things considered, 2018 is shaping up to be a rough year for incumbents, especially Republicans in the House, which is probably why a full 26 of them retired this year without seeking to run for higher office.

The big picture then, is that the most likely outcome is that of a split Congress, with Democrats controlling the House and Republicans the Senate. This would be very interesting indeed in the polarised politics of the modern day, as politicians may be forced to actually compromise with the other side of the aisle in order to get anything done.