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.

Kavanaugh And Legitimacy

Predictions as of 10/7/2018, as predicted, fresh polls showing Republicans consolidating their leads in Texas and Tennessee have brought Democratic chances to win the Senate to a new low:

The Supreme Court has perhaps always been a party political body. It’s inevitable, really, given that Justices are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. But the Court has always attempted to maintain an impression of impartiality, and even in the modern day Chief Justice John Roberts has made it extremely clear that he wants the court to hold on to this non-partisan appearance.

However, in the bitter struggle to appoint Kavanaugh to the Court, all air of non-partisanship has dissipated. The confirmation process was transparently a partisan fight, leading voters to become only more entrenched in their opinions as Democratic approval of Kavanaugh dropped heavily through the process, whilst Republican approval of the nominee went up. Kavanaugh himself was openly partisan in the hearings with Ford, and in the final Senate vote 97 of the 98 Senators who voted did so along party lines. Despite a fleeting and slightly strange news cycle about a possibility that Trump was going to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, which was probably a diversion tactic carried out by the President to draw attention away from the confirmation hearings, the eyes of the public were for weeks focused on Ford, Kavanaugh, and the Senators who would decide his fate.

So what happens if the Supreme Court comes to be viewed by the public as a strictly partisan body? Perhaps we can assume that its approval ratings will shift to match those of Trump or the GOP. Certainly during the Obama and Trump administrations, when a liberal Justice was seated Democrats came to approve of the Court much more highly, while Republicans became much more likely to disapprove of the Court, and vice-versa for a conservative Justice. It seems reasonable to predict that the confirmation battle over Kavanaugh will only reinforce this trend, and that we can expect to see approval of the Court amongst Democrats drop dramatically this year.

But what does this mean? Well, the Supreme Court has no army. Its power stems from its legitimacy, and its legitimacy stems from public opinion, which is traditionally quite favourable for the Court. When the Court ordered Nixon to release the tapes that ultimately spelled his doom, it had no power to force him to do so. The tapes were released because Nixon anticipated that the political fallout of refusing a Supreme Court order would be greater than that of simply releasing the tapes, even though he knew that releasing the tapes was very likely to result in the end of his Presidency. But this Supreme Court order was unanimously agreed upon by the Justices, in a time when the majority of Americans had a lot of faith in the Court. In the latest court and the hyper-partisan national environment, it’s hard to imagine all 9 Justices agreeing on anything at all, let alone an action against a prominent political figure. Perhaps if that decision in 1974 had been reached by a 5-4 majority in a Supreme Court viewed as a party political body, with approval ratings of around 40%, Nixon would have felt that the consequences of refusing the order were minimal. Afterall, in order to avoid removal from office all he needed was the support of most of the Republican Senators.

Moving away from the theoretical and back to the reality of the moment, will Democrats see the Supreme Court as legitimate now that Kavanaugh has been confirmed? Frankly, it seems extremely unlikely. Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh were both confirmed to the Court despite allegations of sexual assault made against them, and are both deeply conservative. The Court rules on a wide variety of issues, but perhaps the most likely to trigger a full blown legitimacy crisis are those pertaining particularly to women. The Court is likely to be make conservative rulings on issues surrounding sexual assault, gender equality, and abortion, perhaps even seeking to overturn Roe v Wade, and all of these rulings will probably be made by a 5-4 majority, where 2 members of the majority have been accused of sexual assault. Democrats will surely never respect these rulings or see them as legitimate, and by extension will perceive the Court as simply another arm of a polarised and partisan federal government. Maybe if the Democrats were to gain control of the Senate and Presidency simultaneously in the future they would even consider stacking the Court, adding perhaps another 2 liberal justices to form a 6-5 liberal majority, justifying this move by reminding voters that the GOP blocked Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland for 293 days and of course by calling upon memories of the Kavanaugh confirmation battle. If this were to happen, or the Democrats were to gain control of the Court by any other means, it seems overwhelmingly likely that Republican faith in the institution would become very low indeed.

Finally, an unpopular Supreme Court could call into question the legitimacy of the federal government as a whole. Trump’s approval stands at around 41%, Congress’s approval is a mere 18%, and hasn’t been above 50% since the beginning of the century. The majority of Americans disapprove of the President, and a vast majority disapprove of Congress, so if a majority were to disapprove of the Supreme Court, Americans would disapprove of all 3 branches of the federal government. This paints a dark picture of national politics, but perhaps it would be unsurprising. The 2016 Presidential election signalled an historic turning point. We are in a time when no quarter is asked nor given. When “bipartisanship” is little more than a buzzword used by the occasional maverick congressional candidate during election season. When every norm in politics is cast aside in favour of pursuing the most politically expedient course of action. The war for hearts and minds has reached a new level of brutality, and shows no signs of calming down.

How The GOP Just Won The Supreme Court And The Senate

Predictions as of 10/6/2018, showing a sharp change after a week’s polling and Supreme Court drama:

Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed to the Supreme Court of The United States by a Senate vote of 50-48. Everyone voted along party lines, with the exception of Joe Manchin, a Democrat from deep red West Virginia, voting yes. Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska simply marked herself as “present”, and Republican Steve Daines did not vote as he was at his daughter’s wedding. With this vote, the GOP has secured a conservative majority in the Supreme Court that will probably last for a decade or more. The Republican party now controls all three branches of the federal government. Simultaneously, their chances of maintaining control of the Senate in 2018 have leapt up dramatically, with polls showing them closing in on the Democrats nationally, and pulling ahead in key Senate races. How?

Put simply, Trump and Republican Senators managed to cast the Kavanaugh battle as a tipping point in a larger political war surrounding #MeToo. Until recently, the #MeToo campaign was something of a silver bullet, drawing vigorous support from Democrats and not too much ire from Republicans. But the battle for Kavanaugh’s confirmation has changed everything. Kavanaugh gave a fiery, passionate and emotional testimony declaring total innocence. Trump claimed that men are assumed to be guilty when accused with sexual assault, claiming “It’s a very scary time for young men in America”, and is one of many on the right implying that Ford is flat out lying in an attempt to bring Kavanaugh down. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham notably said during the hearings that as a single white male from South Carolina he is told he “should just shut up” when discussing issues relating to gender and sexual violence. And there has been a general Republican narrative that the GOP believes Dr Ford and considers her to be a credible witness, but also think that she is mistaken when she says she is 100% certain that her assailant was Kavanaugh.

In doing this, the Republican party has mobilised its base against #MeToo. Trump and Kavanaugh are carefully speaking to a fear of liberal culture, especially feminism, which is widespread amongst the Republican base, and was a crucial part of Trump’s victory in 2016. Lindsey Graham is seeking to relate to this base, as a Southern man who feels his voice is not being heard on these cultural issues. And the overall GOP narrative manages to absolve Kavanaugh of wrongdoing without directly insulting the sympathetic and generally respected Ford. This strategy was never going to convert Democrats or even win over undecided Independents, but it has turned the issue into a strictly partisan battle, and that is all the GOP needs. The tipping point districts in the House are almost all more Republican than the nation as a whole. The three most likely tipping point races in the Senate are Texas, North Dakota, and Tennessee, all of which are deep red states where Trump has positive approval ratings. Democrats need to win over at least some typically Republican voters in order to win the midterms, and individual Democratic candidates running for seats in Republican leaning regions are willing to make compromises on major issues such as gun control and Nancy Pelosi’s potential rise to Speaker of the House. But with Kavanaugh, the GOP convinced its supporters to take up a political stance on which Democratic candidates simply cannot compromise, and the result is political checkmate.

Take one-term Democratic incumbent Heidi Heitkamp running for re-election in North Dakota. In 2012, she won by only 2936 votes in a high turnout race. North Dakota is 17 points more Republican than the nation as a whole, and Trump’s net approval ratings there are about 5-10 points positive. Heitkamp’s choice to oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination has resulted in a huge swing against her in the polls, which have gone from dead even to giving her opponent Kevin Cramer a double-digits lead. This swing is devastating to both her campaign and the national Democratic struggle for the Senate.

Joe Manchin of West Virginia, which is 19 points more Republican than the nation as a whole, took the opposite path. He is the only Democrat in the Senate to vote to support Kavanaugh’s confirmation, and is holding on to a steady lead in the polls. A week ago Trump held a rally in West Virginia, which he used to campaign for Kavanaugh’s nomination. It is crystal clear that Trump has made the confirmation battle a key issue in the midterms, and by doing so has struck a heavy blow to the campaigns of every red state Democrat who voted against Kavanaugh’s confirmation. This includes many of the key Senate races: North Dakota, Indiana, Missouri and Montana. It also poses difficult questions for the Democratic candidates in Texas and Tennessee. It seems reasonable to guess that Trump will be visiting at least some of these states and doing everything in his power to keep voters in them thinking about Kavanaugh, and how their Democratic Senators voted against his confirmation.

Perhaps the confirmation battle will fade from memory as the unrelenting news cycle ploughs on to greater controversies. Or perhaps Kavanaugh’s confirmation with enthuse the Democratic base to turn out to vote in unusually high numbers for a midterm election. Whether one of these nor neither becomes a reality, we can expect a stream of Senate polls over the next week in red states that look at least concerning for Democrats, and our model is sure to react to those, pushing Republican chances of controlling the Senate even higher. Even if Democrats can shore up their defences in Missouri, Montana, Indiana, and Florida, as well as securing pickups in Nevada and Arizona, it’s all for nothing if they can’t win any of Texas, Tennessee, and North Dakota. And right now, all three of those are looking good for the GOP.

Introducing RedvBlue’s Senate Model

Predictions as of 9/29/2018:

On November the 8th 2016, 129 million Americans went to the polls in one of the most bitterly fought and important elections of the 21st century. Over the course of the following night, Donald Trump’s huge upset victory was gradually unveiled to tens of millions of people watching with baited breath. The result defied almost all predictions, and left the GOP utterly dominant in the political landscape. There were 33 Republican governors, and the GOP held reasonable majorities in both chambers of Congress. As if this weren’t enough, there was an open seat on the Supreme Court, which Trump promptly filled with conservative Neil Gorsuch. With the recent retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, Trump and the Senate Republicans are rushing to replace Kennedy with Brett Kavanaugh, whose confirmation would create a conservative majority in the Supreme Court which could last over a decade, securing control of all three branches of government for the GOP.

There’s just one fly in the ointment for the Republicans. The 2018 midterms are just a week and a month away, and various indicators are looking good for the Democrats. Trump’s approval ratings are barely beating 40%, and the Democrats are at an 8-9 point advantage in national polling. Republican structural advantages, such as gerrymandering of house districts, help to mitigate some of this Democratic lead, but there is still a strong possibility that Democrats will be able to wrest control of at least one chamber of Congress. These elections will determine whether or not Trump’s GOP will have 2 years of total control of the federal government. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

RedvBlue’s Senate model attempts to accurately predict the outcome of 2018’s highly competitive battle for the upper chamber of Congress. The model is probabilistic, meaning that it runs hundreds of thousands of simulations of the election, counting the results of each, to eventually arrive at a set of results including the probabilities of various outcomes. The model takes into account the following factors:

Polls of individual races, the nation as a whole, and presidential approval. Polls are adjusted according to sample size and the pollster who published them, then weighted against one another, with higher quality polls being attributed more weight than lesser polls and polls with a smaller sample size.
Similarity between races. This is a particularly important factor in races with minimal polling. Races are compared against one another according to the nature of the state in which they are taking place, and the candidates running in them. For each race, predictions for similar races are used to infer additional information to assist with accurate simulation.
Typical expectations for each race. These are the factors one would look to if there were no polling at all. Most prominent amongst these is the incumbent Senator, their party, and their previous margins of victory. Other factors assisting in weighting the expectations include the partisan lean of the states in which each race is taking place, demographic factors, the population of the state, congressional approval ratings, and fundraising.
The time until election day. As the election draws closer, uncertainty will decrease, and the model will weigh polling increasingly heavily.

Currently, the model is showing Republicans slightly ahead in the race for the Senate, despite a seemingly large Democratic lead in the popular vote. This is due to 2018’s Senate map. Of the 35 seats up for election, 26 are already held by Democrats. This gives them few opportunities to make the 2 gains they need to win the Senate. Furthermore, many of these 26 seats are in red states which overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2016. Races in North Dakota, Indiana, Montana, Missouri and West Virginia all present very real opportunities for Republicans to make gains of their own, which the Democrats can ill afford given their limited options. But if we learned only one thing from 2016, it is that in American politics, just about anything can and will happen.