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Will Trump’s x-rated developments lead to a down-ballot surge as Democrats look to control the House and Senate? That is the question election-year experts are trying to answer for the new, 115th Congress. Sabato’s outlook. “Both houses are doable for Democrats, but the Senate is obviously much easier for them, and even that isn’t a slam-dunk,” said Larry Sabato, an election analyst at the University of Virginia. “In both cases, the prerequisite is a large Clinton victory margin.” If Clinton wins, taking the Senate requires a net gain of four seats: five Republican-held seats (New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Missouri, and Indiana) and one Democratic-held seat (Nevada). The House will be much tougher to flip. Democrats need a net gain of 30 seats, and the deck is stacked against them given the Republicans’ geographical advantages, Sabato noted. Another viewpoint comes from Charlie Cook, a long-time election expert and founder of the Cook Political Report. “The traditional view of coattails (a terribly simplistic yard stick) is that the further behind the top of the ticket gets, the worse it is for candidates of that party down the ballot. That may happen in ordinary elections, but this race is anything but ordinary,” Cook wrote in his column for National Journal. “It has become a referendum on Donald Trump and not a vote of confidence for Hillary Clinton. While plenty of voters strongly support her, her winning margin is apt to come from voters who may see her as qualified but do not like or trust her. They will give her their vote with real misgivings.” Regarding Senate races, Cook wrote that recent events “certainly do not make it any more likely that Republicans can retain their majority, but it isn’t clear how much more likely it is that they’ll lose it. Most Senate incumbents and non-incumbents have identities distinct from Donald Trump.” Misgivings about Clinton, Cook continued, mean that her support will not necessarily carry down-ballot. The “don’t give Hillary Clinton a blank check” argument “remains potentially convincing to a lot of reluctant Clinton voters. It’s probably 60-40 that the Senate will flip, but I’m keeping my money in my wallet until the fog lifts a bit,” Cook concluded. Regarding House races, Cook details that the 30-seat net gain that Democrats need “is still a very big number, and until we have enough individual House-race polling and national generic congressional ballot-test polling, we shouldn’t draw too many conclusions about whether they’re drawing closer to that magic number.” Gains of 25 seats or more, Cook said, “usually happen only in midterm elections, the exceptions being in 1980 when Ronald Reagan beat President Carter by 10 points and Republicans gained 34 seats, in 1964 when President Johnson beat Barry Goldwater and Democrats gained 37 seats, and in 1948, when President Truman edged out Tom Dewey and Democrats gained 75 seats. Current congressional district boundaries reduce the number of competitive districts, and in many cases are drawn in a way to make it much harder for Democrats to win than in past decades. Even so, it would be reasonable to conclude that Democrats’ chances of taking the House have risen from 10 to 20 percent.” on, which could shorten, rather than lengthen, the duration of the economic expansion.
Comments: The above are words of wisdom from the experts, not all of whom have been driven out of Washington, or talking about this bizarre world of politics. And bizarre is an understatement.
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NOTE: This column is copyrighted material; therefore reproduction or retransmission is prohibited under U.S. copyright laws. | |
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