Four Months to Go: The Latest on the Midterms, and (Modestly) Updated Power Rankings

The midterm elections are just under four months away, and the Toteboard doesn’t really need to remind anyone just how much is at stake this time around. Trump has systemically assaulted American democracy, instilled a fascistic climate of fear and hostility, and pretty much fucked up most of the world, aided and abetted by a co-conspiratorial republican party and a malevolent wink-and-nod SCOTUS.  It is critical – absolutely critical – that the voters construct at least some kind of guardrail, some kind of check on Trump’s bestial abuse of power.  The thought of another two and a half years of that maniac running wild is almost too horrifying to contemplate.

THE VIEW FROM THE HELICOPTER:

If history is any indication, there is every reason to think that this should be a good year for the democrats. The republicans are saddled with an unpopular lame-duck president who has fiddled through a shitty economy, started wars willy-nilly, and spent most of his spare time erecting narcissistic monuments, harassing both citizens and non-citizens, and pardoning cronies and assorted felons. His approval rating is sitting at about seventeen points underwater, almost exactly where it was at the time of the Toteboard’s first midterm preview back in early May. If these were even nominally sane times in the country, there wouldn’t even be a story here. The republicans would suffer an historic drubbing.

But unfortunately, these aren’t sane times. On the one hand, Trump has a solid base of deplorables who aren’t going anywhere. On the other hand, the democratic brand is still pretty toxic among a number of key constituents, due in no small part to self-inflicted wounds and unforced errors. What’s more, the party itself is consumed by some very legitimate internal debates about what exactly it represents, and it’s hard for a citizenry to get on board with a party that isn’t entirely on board with itself. Add to that the rampant and shameless gerrymandering, a permanently unfavorable senate map, and various strategies at vote suppression in blue communities, and the democrats still have their work cut out for them.

THE HOUSE OUTLOOK:

For reasons that are not entirely clear, the analysts are putting out some very mixed signals on the House elections. On the one hand, the republicans currently have very tenuous control of the chamber (but still can’t get anything done), and the current  generic ballot polls show the democrats consistently leading by a good six percentage points. One would think that should be enough to plow through all the gerrymanders and intimidation tactics, and both RacetotheWH (R2WH) and assorted betting markets do rate the democrats’ chances of taking the House at better than 2-1. At the moment, R2WH shows about 211 seats that are safe, likely, or leaning blue, compared to 203 seats that are looking red, with 21 seats that could either way, with most of the tossups likely to break for the democrats. These numbers have been more or less consistent since February.

However, the Cook Political Report (CPR) puts it at about 212-205 in favor of the republicans, with 18 tossups, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball (SCB) is in the same neighborhood, scoring it 213-206, with 16 tossups. So why the disconnect? Is it possible that the republicans could be poised to hold the chamber while being that far behind on the generic ballot and having that unpopular a lame-duck president? One possibility is that Cook and Sabato are taking a long view, anticipating that the current democratic mood will regress to the mean as we get closer to election day. But it’s also quite possible that Cook and Sabato are simply acting more conservatively about officially making individual rating changes, waiting until they are really convinced that current polls accurately reflect the situation on the ground rather than just ephemeral trends. This is certainly true with several senate ratings. R2WH rated Alaska as a tossup way back in March, but CPR and SCB only changed it from lean republican to tossup within the last couple of weeks. So, it will be interesting to monitor which way the predictions move in the coming months.

THE SENATE OUTLOOK:

While the specifics of most of the contests have come into focus, including some dramatic shake-ups, the overall narrative is largely unchanged. The republicans currently hold the Senate by a 53-47 margin, which means the democrats need to net four or more seats to take back the chamber. The math is easy. They need to hold every seat they currently have and flip four; or if they lose one of those they currently hold, they need to flip five. And so on. Executing the math, however, will be a bit harder. Yes, the republicans may have shot themselves in the foot in Texas, but the democrats may be doing the same in Michigan, and they’ve clearly shot themselves in the balls in Maine. And so, the conventional wisdom seems to see the democrats as competitive, but still underdogs. A series of recent NYT/Sienna polls showed the republicans slightly ahead in most of the battleground states, but that was admittedly after they had noodled with the numbers to try to compensate for previous errors. What’s more, a cluster of Quantus and Fox/Beacon polls released a day later showed things tilting more toward the democrats, but those are not the most highly rated pollsters. In any event, polling is still pretty light in some key races, so an awful lot of what we’re hearing now is conjecture. At this very second, R2WH, which is generally the most bullish of the analysts toward the democrats, gives them a 50.3% chance of getting the seats they need. Seriously! For things to look that close four months away from an absolutely critical election is totally crazy-making.

THE POWER RANKINGS:

These include indications of which races were originally classified as Necessary Hold, Necessary Flip, Possible Upset, and Possible Miracle. By way of reminder, the democrats need to win seven or more of the following thirteen to take the senate.

1. Georgia (necessary hold). The national press has suddenly taken notice of 39-year-old incumbent Jon Ossoff, bandying about words like “Kennedy-esque” and wondering if there’s a presidential run in his near-future. In truth, Ossoff is anything but charismatic, but he’s a hard-working, straight-talking, nuts-and-bolts public servant, who doesn’t come off as overtly partisan though he did apprentice under Georgia legend John Lewis and is on the right side of pretty much every issue. He has also been quietly amassing campaign funds, building diverse coalitions, and registering good numbers with independent voters. His opponent, Mike Collins, is a scandal-ridden congressional back-bencher who managed to wriggle up out of a weak republican field. But Georgia is still one of the most inelastic states in the country (and easily the most inelastic of all the battleground states), and an oddball gubernatorial race pitting a sleazy billionaire dickhead (who survived a shitshow of a primary) against an ineffective erstwhile Atlanta mayor could ripple into the senate contest in unpredictable ways. Expect a lot of outside money and sketchy advertising to flow in over the next four months. The Toteboard is glad it doesn’t watch a lot of television. CPR and SCB still rate this one leaning democratic, while RWH still has it likely blue. Previous power ranking: 1.

2. North Carolina (necessary flip). Compared to all the drama from its western neighbor, North Carolina’s campaign has so far proven to be comparatively tame. Both the popular democratic former governor Roy Cooper and the Trump-allied former RNC chair Michael Whatley breezed through their respective primaries, and the campaign hasn’t really heated up yet. The two candidates offer a terrific study in contrasts of political lifers.  Cooper has been a visible center-left face in North Carolina politics for nearly four decades, having served four years in the state House, ten years in the state Senate (four of them as majority leader), sixteen years (!) as attorney general, and eight years as governor. On the other hand, Whatley has never run for public office, but has been a party apparatchik for at least as long, having climbed the ranks from misguided high-school volunteer on Jesse Helms’s senate campaign to legal advisor on Bush’s team trying to halt the 2000 Florida recount. The polls have consistently shown Cooper with a comfortable if not exactly overwhelming lead. SCB recently joined CPR in leaning this one blue, while R2WH has this with Georgia as likely blue. Previous power ranking: 2.

3. New Hampshire (necessary hold). We still have a way to go until the early September primary, and the mudslinging hasn’t quite begun in earnest, but the respective frontrunners have been clear for quite some time. Democratic congressman Chris Pappas shows a modest lead over republican dynastic heir and former senator John Sununu (assuming the latter can dispatch the has-been Scott Brown), though the state has been polled pretty lightly (a common problem this far out from the election). As mentioned last time, it’s hard to imagine a state that spurned Trump three times suddenly going red during these polarized times, but New Hampshire is probably more elastic than Georgia is inelastic, and you never quite know with the granite-heads until the last votes are counted. All three analysts show this one leaning blue, though R2WH is a smidge more confident than the others. Previous power ranking: 3

4. Michigan (necessary hold). The Toteboard could not have summed this one up any better than NYT’s Michelle Goldberg: “The three-way Democratic Senate primary in Michigan is a remarkably precise microcosm of the divides within the Democratic Party. Representing the Bernie Sanders wing is Abdul El-Sayed, a proponent of Medicare for all who supports abolishing ICE and cutting off arms to Israel. The candidate of the Democratic establishment is the passionately pro-Israel congresswoman Haley Stevens, backed by the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer. Between them is the liberal state lawmaker Mallory McMorrow, endorsed by progressive senators including Elizabeth Warren and Chris Murphy.” Simply stated, as the democrats have to try to reel in votes from across the political spectrum, the whole “Israel thing” may prove to be an albacore around their collective necks. If candidates are unapologetically pro-Israel, they risk the abandonment and/or harassment from their progressive base (and its uncomfortably antisemitic bedfellows). If they are overtly pro-Palestinian, they risk antagonizing moderates and traditional old-school Jewish liberals (not to mention all the various Islamophobes). Sadly, at this point in time, it seems that Goldilocks lived only in fairy tales, and that any middle ground on the Middle East exists only rhetorically. The Jewish-Arab binational state advocated a century ago by visionaries like Martin Buber and Henrietta Szold fizzled like a wet menorah candle, the contemporary fantasy of a two-state gay cruise has long since sailed, and the ambitious “A Land for All Plan” for  a new (or actually, an old) style confederation of states appears stuck in dry-dock. The unfortunate reality on the ground today is simply that a significant number of participants on both sides of this mutual vendetta hate and fear each other virulently, aspire to control the same geographic territory, and have accumulated enough atrocities and violations of international law that it almost doesn’t even really matter anymore who has the more legitimate claim or can enumerate the most grievances. Anyway, back to Michigan, McMorrow pulled out of the race a week or so ago, ostensively because she wasn’t getting much traction with her attempt to have it both ways, but more likely at the behest of party insiders who are panicked at the prospect of a divisive El-Sayed candidacy. Of course, it’s not clear which of the two candidates – the one tied to a possibly antisemitic blogger, or the one tied to AIPAC and the national party machine – will ultimately prove the more divisive, and Michiganders have just under a month to figure which way they’re going to go. The republican candidate, Mike Rogers, barely lost to Elissa Slotkin two years ago during a republican year, so the conventional wisdom is that he won’t do as well this year running into generic headwinds. It’s just a question of whether the democratic in-fighting carries through to the general election. CPR and SCB still rate it a tossup, and R2WH still tilts it somewhat blue. Astonishingly, this state did not lose any ground in the power rankings, but only because of the Maine clusterfuck. Previous power ranking: 4

5. Ohio (possible upset). Polls are still showing a close race between democratic former senator Sherrod Brown and republican appointee Jon Husted, and it will probably stay that way for a while. The Toteboard’s summary from two months ago is still pretty much an accurate description today: “The state now has a clear republican lean, but we’ll see if the strong candidate, Ohio’s moderate elasticity, and the general mood of the country are enough to poke Brown back over the finish line.” The analysts all rate this one a tossup now (SCB had tilted it red last month), though R2WH might even tint it slightly blue-ish. If Brown does manage to pull this out, it will offer real vindication for Chuck Schumer’s strategy of aggressively recruiting candidates with strong name recognition, good electoral track records, and a proven ability to reach out to moderates and other constituencies. Previous power ranking: 6

6. Maine (necessary flip). If Ohio (and a couple other states) demonstrate how effectively Chuck Schumer can strategize, Maine demonstrates how badly he can miscalculate. And it also serves as a living testament to how seriously outside forces can fuck up a race when they don’t really know or have stake in the communities at hand. Even as the story is currently unfolding before our eyes, most people haven’t really been privy to what actually gave rise to the Maine fiasco. In a nutshell, Schumer had put all of the democratic eggs in outgoing governor Janet Mill’s septuagenarian basket, which effectively prevented the state party’s fairly deep bench from stepping forward and debating among themselves whose vision best represented Mainers and who possessed the temperament to knock off the unctuous Susan Collins. In response to Mills’s perceived tepid pragmatism and fading popularity, a gaggle of unaffiliated progressive activists sought out a working-class alternative with a  populist economic message and a rogue, grassroots persona, and they pretty much plucked Graham Platner out of relative obscurity, but failed to vet him properly. Now, both Mills and Platner are history, and the party has a matter of days to get a viable candidate on the ballot. The good news is that the state party does have a number of credible options who register well in flash polls – logger and former state senate president Troy Jackson, secretary of state Shenna Bellows, former CDC deputy director Nirav Shah, and others – but it remains to be seen whether the different wings of the party will all feel like they had a voice in the makeshift nominating process, and whether the electorate won’t view the eventual nominee (and the party) as damaged goods. A number of political writers are already lambasting Platner and his handlers for handing Collins the election on a platter, but NYT’s Nate “the Needle” Cohn thinks the state’s blue lean and the country’s mood still give democrats a slight advantage, especially now that they’ve jettisoned Platner’s skeletons. SCB, CPR, and R2WH all see Maine as a tossup . . . probably because they don’t what the fuck else to do with it at this point. Likewise, the Toteboard. Previous power ranking: 5

7. Alaska (possible upset). Only two pollsters have been surveying Alaska over the last six months, so it’s quite difficult to know where this race stands. There’s also the weird matter of an August non-partisan primary and a fringe candidate trying to usurp the GOP incumbent’s name. In any event, most observers anticipate a tight race between Mary Peltola, the first of the Toteboard’s trinity of fascinating candidates (TTFC) – yes, the Toteboard has bought the indigenous fisherwoman’s charisma hook, line, and sinker – and the republican two-termer Dan Sullivan. CPR and SCB have both moved the race from leaning red to tossup, joining R2WH which had been in that column for months. Hail Mary! Previous power ranking: 7

***********************************************************************************

8. Iowa (possible upset). Because of the democratic collapse here a dozen years ago, this one hasn’t really entered the news cycle’s collective consciousness as a legitimate battleground. But Iowa historically had been a fairly elastic state, Trump’s economic policies have not been good for the state’s agricultural base (his unpopularity here mirrors the national trend), and the democrats have offered up a genuinely exciting candidate who survived a tough primary against another good dude. Paralympian medalist and state legislator Josh Turek, the second face in the Toteboard candidate trinity, is going head-to-head against congresswoman Ashley Hinson, a supposed republican up-and-comer (she is young-ish, and poised in front of a camera), though she impresses the Toteboard as little more than a generic party-line rubber stamp. A half-dozen reputable polls over the last month or so show a surprisingly close contest, though CPR and SCB are reluctant to shift it from leaning republican (R2WH has it a red-tinged tossup). That all may change if those numbers keep up. Previous power ranking: 9.

9. Texas (possible upset). If Texas is going to turn blue, all of the cosmic tumblers have to fall into place, and the stars just might be starting to align. The republicans nominated an unrepentant embezzler and philanderer in Ken Paxton, Trump is significantly underwater here, and the democratic candidate does have the potential to catch some degree of fire. The thirty-something James Tallarico is a state legislator, social-justice Presbyterian seminarian, and the third face in the Toteboard Trinity (note that all three have Biblical names). He simultaneously embodies youth, intellectual honesty, and moral clarity, all without Beto O’Rourke’s smarminess. Still, he’s got his work cut out for him. He has to continue mending fences in his own party after his primary win over Jasmine Crockett, who is a real favorite among African-Americans nationally, and his liberal theology makes him sound like the devil incarnate in not a few Texas enclaves. The republicans are even circulating vicious rumors that Tallarico is a vegan, which is tantamount to the antichrist in the uber-carnivorous Lone Star State. Of course, it would be a feast for the brain to see the two candidates actually debate in a structured format, but Paxton for now seems satisfied simply to dispatch various surrogates to fight dirty. Oh well, so much for civil discourse. As in Iowa, a half-dozen polls over the last month show a close one, and as with Iowa, CPR and SCB still see it as lean republican, while R2WH actually see it as a blue-tinged tossup. Previous power ranking: 8

10. Nebraska (possible upset). The race between populist independent Dan Osborne and mainline incumbent republican Pete Ricketts (the democrats are backing the former) has not been subject to high-quality polling since January, so any claim that this is a genuinely competitive contest is still largely theoretical. Still, there is some money rolling in, so there’s at least a little bit of evidence the GOP isn’t taking the state for granted. The analysts all put this one on the outer fringe of seats in play, with CPR and SCB both rating in “likely republican” rather than “safe republican,” and R2WH giving Osborn a generous 17% chance of succeeding.  If the democrats run the table and start making inroads in unlikely places, this could one of the cherries on top. But that is, of course, an “if” the size of Nebraska.  Previous power ranking: 11.

11. Florida (possible miracle). This race hasn’t received a lot of national attention, and the state has been really bad news in the last several election cycles, but National Security Council veteran and Trump adversary Alexander Vindman has quietly raised a lot of money, and the party may give him a second look after the August primary. The national press did take notice, albeit somewhat parenthetically, when Vindman publicly called for Graham Platner to pull out of the Maine contest, so at least someone is paying attention to his candidacy. But at this point, the analysts are arguing among themselves whether this seat is “safe republican” (CPR), “likely republican” (SCB) or strongly “lean republican” (R2WH), and that’s not a terribly interesting debate. Yet. Previous power ranking :10.

12. South Carolina (possible miracle). A partisan democratic poll may show pediatrician Annie Andrews within striking distance of Lindsey Graham, but the value of the race may ultimately come down less to whether she can really make it close, and more to whether she can continue exposing Graham’s assholerie and forcing republicans to play defense. Remember, this one is only here because of the “heavily tattooed and possibly hallucinating Habitat for Humanity fundraiser” who insisted to the Toteboard that there’s actually a chance. None of the analysts seems to agree, but then again, they’re probably not smoking the same stuff. Previous power ranking: 13.

13. Montana (possible miracle). There may have once been some ray of hope that Montanans would protest the chicanery that handed the republican nomination to Kurt Alme, but no such luck. Big Sky Country inexplicably still gives Trump positive approval ratings, and the once viable state democratic brand is in the toilet. As if to make it more impossible, democrat Alani Bankhead and independent Seth Bodnar are playing chicken with each other, fighting between themselves for the few non-republican table scraps. We might want to scrap this one altogether. Previous power ranking: 12

RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Don't read (or listen to) too much of the news

• Take yourself out for a nice meal

• Pet a cat (or a dog)

• Vote!