The US Midterms: Democrats have made an easy win too close to call

Lunch yesterday at the former Trustees Board Room Restaurant on the sixth floor of New York’s Metropolitan Club overlooking a Central Park that is about to flush with fall colour. Huzzah!

This was not, perhaps, the most representative setting to gain an insight into America’s midterm elections which take place next month. But, my hosts – New Yorkers whose politics I guess verge on agnostic, east coast lefty – were 100% certain that the Elephant (the Republicans) would hold the Senate and about 50/50 uncertain that the Donkey (the symbol of the Democrats) would take the House. That’s almost all the “vox pop” in this piece, folks. Sorry.

What’s going on? We all know that The Donald is the worst dinosaur ever to roam The Mall in DC, knocking over the Washington Monument, kicking down the Lincoln Memorial and generally upending the balanced constitution of Montesquieu’s meticulous separation of powers that has made the US the democratic envy of the world. Well, apart from its record in Iraq …. and Afghanistan and, oh yes, how did that go in Vietnam and Nicaragua again?

Today we have a US President who is foul-mouthed, irrational, ignorant, inconsistent, untrustworthy in elevators, and who has elevated chaos to the status of a winning political strategy. He and his party, which has been reluctantly dragged to embrace Trumpism since 2016, are bound to be in for a drubbing the first chance the voters get.

Nope. Here are independent polling stats presented at a conference I attended in Chicago last week, focusing particularly on the crucial “swing seats” the Democrats must win to control the House.

First, the background: President Trump’s approval rate is 43.2%  – and rising. Prior to the 2010 midterms Saint President Obama’s approval rating was 45.9%. They are only a smidgen apart. Today, 40.2% think the country is going in the right direction. In 2010 it was 32.4%. This is still a challenging landscape for the incumbent party, but it’s not the political wasteland that was predicted. This is one tight race.

More meat to chew on: Since 1934 the President’s party has lost an average of 30 House seats and 4 Senate seats in midterms. In the 1994 (Clinton) midterms the Democrats lost 52 House and 8 Senate seats; in 2010 (Obama) they lost 63 House and 6 Senate – and went on in 2014 to lose a further 13 and 9 respectively.

“Facts are chiels that winna ding” – well, I’m a Scot, so indulge me. The baffled can look it up. The stark point is that not even the most optimistic Democrat cheerleader is forecasting Republican disaster on a similar scale borne under conventionally acknowledged “popular” Democrat presidents.

Secondly, in the House 218 seats are needed for a majority. The current “likely” tally is 205 Democrat, 200 Republican with 30 “toss up” seats in play. So, the race is actually too close to call. Of the “toss ups” 29 are Republican, only 1 Democrat, so conventional wisdom makes it likely the Democrats will take the House. Er… just as Hillary was conventionally bound to take the Presidency.

My sense is that momentum post the fiasco of the Kavanagh nomination process is with the GOP and the House race is now too close to call. I went to bed on the night of the Presidential election in 2016 only to wake up in the morning on a different planet. I’m staying up on November 6th.

In the Senate the cycle favours the Republicans. Remember, 35 Senate seats are up for re-election, 26 Democrat, and only 9 Republican. So, it’s already a steep hill for the Democrats to climb. And 10 of those “D” seats are in states President Trump won in 2016. Current polling puts only 6 seats in the “toss up” category, which suggests a hung Senate. The point is, there is no scenario for a Democrat landslide.

My gut feeling on the Senate is that the Republicans will hold it. There’s an outside chance they may actually snatch a couple of seats.

These midterms should be a slam dunk, a shoo-in, a home run for the blue party, the Democrats, yet here they are on the last straight emptily boasting they are out-raising Republicans to fund expensive campaigns they should have won at a cheap canter. Panic. It’s too late for cash to count. Early voters are already flocking to the polls.

A key point is that GOP organization is deeper and more focused on a district-by-district basis in critical seats than the Democrats’. Red troops are on the ground and HQ servers hold gigabits of personalized voter data. Targeting delivers. Instead, Democrats are squeezing irritated local advertisers off the air with mind-numbing commercials, flattering themselves that noise equates with persuasion. The GOP machine is getting its vote out.

Why is this happening? It’s spelt out in Bob Woodward’s excellent book, “Fury”. I believed the reviews in the Washington Post and the New York Times, et al, which breathlessly described it as an excoriating indictment of the Trump administration. Bound to have voters fleeing into the arms of Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren.

So, when I actually read it I was astonished to discover it was an even-handed indictment of the Obama administration for leaving his successor a right royal mess; slip-sliding away from decisions in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Korea and the South China Sea; and of President Trump for being a loud-mouthed bully who’s worst loony tune plans are swiped from his desk by zealous White House staff. (As if subterfuge in the West Wing is anything new!)

And let’s get a bit of context here. The White House has been occupied by a few oddballs since the 50’s – Kennedy (philanderer and intern seducer); Johnson (corrupt and an inveterate liar – think Vietnam); Nixon (a frequently out of control foul-mouthed drunk and psychologically off the charts); Clinton (another intern seducer  – although Hilary now says Monica was not a minor, so that’s alright then. Where’s the #MeToo movement when you really need it?); and George W Bush (simply out of his depth, but now very polite to old ladies in supermarket checkout queues in Texas).

The almost terrifying conclusion is that the good ship “Trump Presidency” is slowly drifting towards a conventional political shore, despite all his apparent failings. He has – probably unwittingly – crafted a successful Republican Party in his own likeness. He has delivered a tax cut package – reform would be too generous a term. The economy hums; jobless numbers are at record lows; he has secured the Supreme court appointments he wanted, and he knows how to keep his finger on the populist pulse.

Some more vox pop. Ray, the suspiciously raven-haired Sicilian born, “Noo Joisey” resident barber at the University Club of New York – my Manhattan home – also thinks it’s too close to call on November 6th. So, that’s that then.