Everything's Coming Up Milhouse ... for the GOP

There's been quite a reversal of fortune for congressional Republicans over the past two weeks.

I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email - or you are a free subscriber - and you’d like to subscribe: you can sign up here.

Midterm Update

So things are looking a lot better for Republicans these days:

FiveThirtyEight

The simplest explanation for why Republicans have narrowed the gap in the Senate and expanded their advantage in the House is the generic ballot has shifted in their favor (RCP recently “unskewed” their polls, so I’d take that topline 3.1 number with a grain of salt).

Keep in mind some of the polls are red-hot garbage. Rasmussen and the Harvard-Harris poll are crap, and Trafalgar has had a pretty significant Republican lean this entire cycle. The NYT/Siena had some serious issues, including a result that showed Republicans up 5 with men and the parties tied with women voters (for comparison’s sake, Trump won male voters by 8 points in 2020, and Biden won women by 15). But the other polls show Republicans with a very slight lead.

One interesting tidbit is that among registered voters (RV), Democrats continue to lead, but their advantage evaporates when likely voter screens are applied. So a lot of how you think about what will happen in the midterms depends on your expectations of what the electorate will look like. If it’s a traditional midterm electorate (based on past voting patterns), then one should expect Republicans to do very well — which means winning the House and possibly the Senate. On the other hand, if we have a different kind of electorate — a more Democratic one, energized by the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade — we would expect the Democrats to hold the House and Senate. The current evidence suggests that we might see some of the latter but probably more of the former, which means Democrats might hold the Senate but will almost certainly lose the House. However, one can’t dismiss the possibility that Democrats will lose both. Democrats can try to spin this any number of ways, but it’s getting increasingly difficult to escape the conclusion that with two weeks to go until Election Day, the trendlines are not looking good for them.

On the Senate side, the race has tightened and mainly because of three states — Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Nevada. The polls have tightened in the Keystone state. However, there are still no polls showing Democratic candidate John Fetterman losing to Dr. Oz. Same thing in Georgia as Raphael Warnock has maintained a small but persistent lead over Herschel Walker. In Nevada, the last major poll gave incumbent Democrat Cortez Mastro a 2-point edge. It’s the first survey in a month that had her slightly ahead. Though there is a new poll out today that has Laxalt up one point … and it has one result that should scare the hell out of Democrats.

Notice what word is not here: abortion.

Then again, the race has been tight as hell for the last five weeks, so I’m not seeing much evidence that Laxalt is widening his advantage, which, I guess, if you’re a Democrat, is kind of good news.

My operating assumption is that Democrats win all three of the closest seats with the best chance for a Republican upset coming in Nevada. Republicans will likely win every other close race — Ohio, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. The Buckeye State is probably the best chance for a Democratic upset, but I don’t see it happening. Still, you shouldn’t trust me; I stink at predictions. Truth be told, this is such a confusing election I don’t think anyone has a clear sense of what will happen. But based on the recent polling data and the steady drumbeat of bad news on the economy and inflation, Republicans are in a better place right now than Democrats.

A Silver Lining for Democrats

There was one piece of good news for Democrats this week.

Democratic candidates outraised their Republican opponents — in many cases by 2 to 1 margins — in 50 of the 65 most competitive House races in the third quarter of the year, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance reports …

… As of Sep. 30, Democratic candidates had more cash on hand than their Republican opponents in 45 of 65 battleground races, a POLITICO analysis found.

And in some cases, the difference was particularly stark. Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) had six times more cash banked by Oct. 1 than George Logan, her GOP opponent. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) had four times more than Republican Paul Junge and Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) had nearly seven times more than GOP state Sen. Jen Kiggans.

The Virginia race between Luria and Kiggans is one of the closest House races in the country, so the Democrats having a 7:1 advantage in money on hand is a big deal. There are two caveats to keep in mind. Republican Super PACS can still spend money on behalf of GOP candidates, but they purchase TV air time at a much more expensive rate than candidates who have fundraised on their own. Second, Democrats drastically out-spent Republicans in 2020 and still lost seats that cycle. Nonetheless, money remains the mother’s milk of politics. In close races, if Democratic candidates can swamp their opponents with ads — and spend heavily on get-out-the-vote operations — they are probably in a slightly better position. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to win.

Having Said That …

There might not be a more frightening candidate this cycle than Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor in Arizona. She is a full-on 2020 election denier and has refused to say that she would accept the results if she loses the governor’s race. Also, she might win — partly because her opponent, Democrat Katie Hobbs, has run a rather timid race. Of particular note, Hobbs has refused to debate Lake publicly.