For the moment, the House is in play:
Even under very conservative assumptions, arguably much too conservative, recent polling puts the House in playhttps://t.co/0o6OQuDKwW pic.twitter.com/fKzQqd77c9
— dcg1114 (@dcg1114) May 19, 2017
This model is based on two rules:
- Add the predicted swing to the 2016 results.
- If the seat is open, use Presidential Results
There are two reasons this is too conservative:
- It assumes the power of incumbency in 2016 will be as strong as 2018. In wave elections this is not true.
- There aren’t many retirements yet. As this number grows it is likely to put more seats in play.
The last 4 Generic Ballot numbers all show Democratic movement. Morning Consult and Yougov both moved 2 points towards the Democrats in the week of May 14th from the week of May 7th.
Obviously a long way to go.
That’s a big difference between “using rules” and “using Clinton margin”. I assume the difference is whether the starting point is the vote for the Representative per se and the vote for Trump? I’m surprised it’s a 50 seat difference, although there are a lot of seats that were lightly contested or uncontested altogether (famously Session’s seat, although there are quite a few more.) Still – 50 seats?
Any way to put any kind of confidence intervals on this?
The difference is the power of incumbency.
Also keep in mind the electorate is better for Republicans in general in mid-year elections, though this may be less true this year.
I could give probabilities but I think they convey a precision that doesn’t exist yet.
But will uncontested seats be contested? And will they be contested by “Democrats” who are only Democrats in the sense that the vote for Pelosi?
IOW, who should care besides Pelosi?
Anybody who wants investigations of how Trump is running federal agencies? Anybody who doesn’t want the Republican plans written into law?
I would have mentioned the budget, but I have to give the current Democratic Congresspeople for holding the line on the budget so far. So far there have been minimal changes on that in spite of the Republican trifecta. That’s a very impressive accomplishment, and I don’t think it’s ever been done recently. Even Republican intransigence wasn’t able to stop the Democrats that completely in 93-94 or 09-10 – and they are certainly good at obstruction!
To late for that in 2019. Besides, I fully expect Dems to cry out and gnash their teeth, then extend hand backwards to accept the Wall Street envelope and either vote with the (R)s or offer some meaningless verbiage that “fixes” it.
I still remember EFCA. And Bowles-Simpson.
You can call me whatever you want, but please pull the knife out of Labor’s back.