In early February, we sketched out a potential path to a Democratic House majority. We called it the “Drive for 25,” in reference to the Democrats’ branding of their unsuccessful attempt to win the House in 2012. Three and a half months later, we thought we’d revisit this possible Democratic path to the majority and see how much has (or hasn’t) changed.
Republican primary voters avoided a self-inflicted wound in West Virginia when disgraced coal baron Don Blankenship (R) finished third in the GOP Senate primary.
Coming off his second term as state attorney general, Mike DeWine (R) has been a clear frontrunner to be the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee for the past several years. DeWine, a former U.S. senator (1995-2007) who has held posts at all levels of government, started the primary season with three major challengers: Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R), Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor (R), and U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci (R, OH-16). The attorney general has faced criticism in the past from conservative activists for various perceived apostasies, such as backing a deal over judicial confirmations during the Bush administration and being insufficiently pro-gun for some during his tenure in the Senate. But DeWine’s time as attorney general has allowed him to repair some of these relationships, particularly with pro-gun forces.
Rep.-elect Debbie Lesko (R, AZ-8)’s victory in a special election Tuesday night fit into the pattern we’ve seen in other special elections this cycle. In a clearly Republican-leaning seat, Lesko won but ran significantly behind Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential performance. Trump won the district by 21 percentage points, whereas Lesko only won by about five points, based on unofficial results. Given the district’s strong Republican lineage, we thought any result in the single digits would be bad for Republicans. Lesko should be fine in the fall as an incumbent — and we’re moving her district to Safe Republican — but we now have had eight federal special elections this cycle in Trump-won, Republican-held seats (including the Alabama Senate election), and while Republicans have retained six of them, only one of those was an easy hold (UT-3).
One might have done better in predicting the 2016 presidential election, or at least in anticipating the very close eventual outcome, by basing a projection of the national popular vote on the findings of several political science models released prior to the election. These models, which were compiled by James Campbell of the University at Buffalo, SUNY and printed in both PS: Political Science and Politics and here at the Crystal Ball, generally pointed to a close election. These models mostly made their predictions several months in advance of the election and were based on the incumbent’s approval rating, the economy, and other “fundamental” factors.
The political world was rocked Wednesday morning by House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R, WI-1) decision to not seek reelection to his southeastern Wisconsin House seat. That said, Ryan’s departure really should not have come as that much of a surprise. Rumors had been swirling for months that Ryan was not long for the House, and we flagged this strong possibility for Crystal Ball readers more than a month ago when we first listed Ryan’s district on our list of competitive House seats, moving it from Safe Republican to Likely Republican.
— The partisan structure of the races for governorships and Senate seats are now exact mirror opposites.
— Sen. Angus King (I-ME) and Gov. Tom Wolf (D-PA) get ratings upgrades.
— Rep. Elizabeth Esty’s (D, CT-5) retirement gives Republicans an upset opportunity and is another example of how #MeToo is contributing to a high number of open House seats this cycle.
In the roughly two and a half months since we last assessed an already-long list of House open seats this cycle -- and even in the week since my colleague Geoffrey Skelley took a deep look at the pace of House retirements historically -- the number of open House seats has continued to increase.
Republicans are very much in danger of losing a district that supported President Trump by 20 points less than a year and a half ago.
A few weeks ago, we plotted a potential seat-by-seat Democratic path to a narrow House majority. That included a Democratic target of netting three additional seats from Pennsylvania, and the state’s new House map drawn by the Democratic-majority state Supreme Court should make it easier to meet or even exceed that benchmark.
The victory by Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) in a special election in December did provide Democrats a potential path to a Senate majority, albeit a narrow one. The Democrats need to defend all 26 of the 34 seats they currently hold,[1] and then flip two of the eight Republican-held seats. Those would most likely be Arizona, an open seat, and Nevada, where Sen. Dean Heller (R) is seeking a second term.
Charting out the Democrats’ path to 218 seats, district by district
— So far there are 46 House seats where an incumbent won’t be running for reelection in November. That is already above the postwar average, and more open seats are likely.
— The current list of retirees includes 31 Republicans and 15 Democrats. Wave years sometimes but not always feature such a disparity between parties.
Democrats should end the year with more governorships than they hold now. One reasonable way to measure Democrats’ success is whether they get into the 20s — they have 16 governorships now, so that would mean a gain of four or more.
As of Wednesday night, it appeared as though Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) was poised to announce his resignation from the Senate on Thursday morning. Franken has faced several credible accusations of groping women and making unwanted sexual advances, and on Wednesday, the dam finally broke and a slew of his Democratic Senate colleagues began asking for his resignation.
In the aftermath of the 2014 midterm election, when the party that didn’t hold the White House (the Republicans) gained ground in the House for the 36th time in 39 midterms since the Civil War, I wrote the following in the Center for Politics’ postmortem on the election, The Surge: Practically speaking, though, House Democrats might have to root for the other party in the 2016 presidential race. Why? Because given what we know about midterm elections almost always going against the president’s party in the House, perhaps the next best chance for the Democrats to win the House will be in 2018 — if a Republican is in the White House.
It’s amazing to write, and there’s time for our outlook to change, but here goes: A Democrat is now a narrow favorite to win a Senate special election in Alabama. We’re changing our rating of the Dec. 12 special election from Likely Republican all the way to Leans Democratic.
Tuesday represented the best non-presidential election night Democrats have had since 2006. They swept the statewide ticket in Virginia for the second election in a row, and they picked up the New Jersey governorship. They also won a crucial, majority-making state Senate election in Washington state, so they won complete control of state government in two states (New Jersey and Washington).
In an off-year long on election commentary but short on actual elections, the two main events on a Spartan political calendar are now upon us: New Jersey and Virginia will elect new governors next week, and the stakes are high, particularly for Democrats.
