Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian’s work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.
Last fortnight, I discussed Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the US Supreme Court. On October 6, following a one-week FBI investigation of sexual assault allegations that was criticised as a whitewash by Democrats, the US Senate confirmed Kavanaugh by a 50-48 margin. One Democrat, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, voted for Kavanaugh, and one Republican, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, voted “present”, though she was opposed, to cancel out the absence of another Republican. Maine’s Susan Collins, who is up for election in 2020, was the critical vote to confirm Kavanaugh, as a tie would have been broken by Vice President Mike Pence.
As of last week, the fight over Kavanaugh appeared to help Republicans – see my Conversation article. While Kavanaugh was unpopular, he was more popular than Trump and Republicans, and lifted their ratings. The Democrats’ lead in FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate of the race for Congress was 8.7 points last fortnight, 7.7 points last week, and is back to 8.4 points now. Democrats probably need to win the House popular vote by six to seven points to win the House. The FiveThirtyEight Classic model currently gives Democrats a 79% chance of winning the House (80% last fortnight, 74% last week).
In the Senate, there have been bad recent polls for Democrats in North Dakota and Tennessee, with Republicans leading in those states by double digit margins. Trump won North Dakota by 36 points in 2016, and Tennessee by 26 points. Democrats also trail in Texas and Nevada. If the Democrats lose North Dakota, they will need to run the table in all the close states and win Texas to gain control of the Senate.
The FiveThirtyEight Classic Senate model currently gives the Democrats just a 19% chance to win the Senate, down from 22% last week and 32% last fortnight. The hope for the Democrats is that most Senate polls were taken when the Kavanaugh fight was at its peak, and that they regain ground as it fades as an issue for most voters.
Trump’s ratings are currently 41.8% approve, 52.5% disapprove, for a net approval of -10.7 points. His approval rating is well up from 40% in mid-September, but down from its peak of 42.5% on October 8, two days after Kavanaugh was confirmed. The strong US economy continues to assist Trump and Republicans, though Trump should be doing much better given economic conditions. A key risk for Trump and Republicans is the stock market: US shares had large falls on Wednesday and Thursday, though they recovered some ground on Friday. Stock market falls are likely to be partly blamed on Trump’s tariffs, and could undermine his economic credentials.
As well as US House and Senate elections, 36 of the 50 states hold gubernatorial elections on November 6, and there are also elections for state legislative chambers. Republicans are defending 26 governors, Democrats just nine, and Alaska has an independent governor. The Senate map is tough for the Democrats, as they had a great year in 2012, the last time those seats were up. The governors’ map is tough for Republicans, as they had a great year in 2014.
State elections are important not just for state politics, but because they affect federal boundaries. Every ten years a Census is carried out, and Congressional Districts are required to have roughly equal numbers of people. However, in most states politicians draw the boundaries. If a party has complete control of a state (governor and both chambers of the state legislature), that party can gerrymander that state’s federal districts to its advantage.
The last Census was conducted in 2010, and that was a great year for Republicans. Partly due to gerrymandering, Republicans retained control of the US House in 2012 by a 234-201 margin despite losing the popular vote by more than 1% – see my 2012 election report for The Green Papers. If Democrats have a great year this November, and again in 2020, they could do their own gerrymandering after the 2020 Census, or at least force neutral maps.
Far-right Bolsonaro likely to win October 28 Brazilian Presidential runoff election
I previewed the Brazilian presidential election on my personal website. At the October 7 first round election, the far-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, won 46.0% of the vote, while the left-wing Workers’ Party candidate, Fernando Haddad, had 29.3%. Another left-wing candidate won 12.5%, and a centre-right candidate won 4.8%. As Bolsonaro did not win over 50% in the first round, a run-off will be held on October 28 between Bolsonaro and Haddad. The three runoff polls taken so far give Bolsonaro a seven to fifteen point lead over Haddad. Bolsonaro has made comments sympathetic to the 1964-85 Brazilian military dictatorship.
Steve Kornacki on Real Time yesterday said the Democrats need to win one Nth Dakota, Tennessee or Texas just to have a shot at winning the Senate. Essentially, control of the Senate is being decided in ‘deep red Trump country’ where he had big wins in 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbXG5N01D1E
Texas swung away from the Republicans in 2016 and has similar demographics to California but much lower voter turnout. If Democrats can increase voter turnout in Texas, they can win in Texas (which in a presidential election would make it very hard for the Republicans to win).
for a senate win the democrats need to retain their own seats and win 2 net…. these extra will come from.. Arizona, Nevada Texas and Tennesse…… at the moment the last two look unlikely and at least one of the existing seats look doubtful…. so at best 50/50
Usa has a system where the state govts determine the federal seat boundaries…and if one party gets the senate , the lower house and governor … the so called trifecta they can rig those boundaries
Been hearing from my American friend on Facebook that there has been a massive increase in voter registrations in Utah in the lead up to these midterms. If that’s the case then it seems many who didn’t vote in 2016 are pretty keen to make their voices heard this time around. I’m thinking that doesn’t bode well for Trump…
P.S. This article shows that there has indeed been a very large increase in voter registrations all across the US: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/10/midterm-elections-voter-registration-turnout
“Usa has a system where the state govts determine the federal seat boundaries…and if one party gets the senate , the lower house and governor …”
Thing that intrigues me is that Art 1 sec 4 of their Carnstitootion says:
It seems to me (perhaps naively, without having studied it in any detail) that the bolded words have the same effect as the words in our constitutional provisions about State laws applying to federal elections only “until the Parliament otherwise provides” – as it promptly did by enacting the Commonwealth Electoral Act. So when the Democrats win the trifecta federally they could enact a similar law and even give the “districting” decisions to an impartial body like our AEC. But maybe the Yanks don’t read it like I do – does anyone who has studied their Const Law know?
And when I say “bolded words” above I mean “but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators“. Seems that bold tags don’t work inside blockquotes…
Interesting Jack so national government may override also that would apply to voter repression as well but the dems would need the trifecta nationally to do so
Jack, I think the reason gerrymandering hasn’t become a national issue before is that both sides have benefited in the past. Democrats had the Trifecta in Illinois and Maryland after the 2010 election, and they gerrymandered in those states. States where control was split used to draw maps that protected incumbents of both parties. So until recently neither side really wanted a fair map.
I submitted this article on Saturday, and it’s 25 days from then until Nov 7, when the results come in Melbourne time. As it was published on Sunday, the heading should be “minus 24 days”.
Keep in mind the Senate requires the Democrats to run an inside straight whilst standing on their heads. So anyone who looks to the Senate not flipping as a failure needs their head examined. I still think the polling is a little wonky and isn’t picking up a few 2018 trends. So I doubt that Bredesen is losing TN by more than 6-7, not double-digits. Texas will be close. ND is probably the only Dem seat I’m comfortable in saying is probably gone.