FOUR SEAT PICKUP IN THE SENATE FOR THE GOP?

 

10/27/22

As my loyal readers have doubtless noticed, I have not written on the blog for a long time.  However, both demand for my thoughts on the upcoming election and the sheer enjoyment yours truly derives from writing and opining dictates an election special as the mid-terms draw near.

 

Never to be one to avoid an opportunity to go out on a well-fortified limb, yours truly is calling for the GOP to pick up as many as four Senate seats on November 8.   According to my analysis, the Republicans will overcome the drag of, er, low quality candidates to pick up seats in

 

·         Georgia

·         Arizona, and

·         New Hampshire.

 

The GOP will also take advantage of having a good candidate to pick up the seat in play in

 

·         Nevada.

 

The GOP will hold onto four sharply contested states despite having mediocre candidates:

 

·         Ohio

·         Pennsylvania

·         Wisconsin

·         North Carolina

 

Recognizing that things often don’t go as we suppose they will and having gained at least a measure of humility in all my affairs, but perhaps especially in the calling of elections and markets, I will adjust this prediction downward by a seat and prognosticate that the Republicans will pick up “only” three seats, still enough to leave them in firm control of the Senate.  The outcome will most likely be contrary to my four seat expectations, if at all, in Arizona, where Mark Kelly is both popular and doing a good job of convincing people of his moderation, or in New Hampshire, which is the longest shot for the GOP and where Don Bolduc isn’t helping his own cause.   I was inclined to include North Carolina in this list, but I’m surprised at the lead the polls show Ted Budd holding, the largest lead of any candidate in all these very close states.   Perhaps the always hyper-informed electorate is confusing the last two letters of his name and is mistaking him for popular incumbent Richard Burr.   Despite my concession to humility, however, I am quite comfortable with my initial inclination toward the GOP’s running the table Tuesday night.

 

 

So why the GOP blowout?   Several reasons.

 

First, loyal readers will remember one of my most notable posts, published of a few days before election night of 2016, in which yours truly was among a very small group of observers calling for a Trump victory (TRUMP WILL WIN, AND WIN BIG, ON TUESDAY, 11/4/16).   In that post, I spoke of the “reverse Bradley effect,” which I had written of several months earlier.   This effect was the tendency of people who were going to vote for Mr. Trump to tell pollsters, friends, acquaintances, etc. otherwise.    While this phenomenon is common knowledge now, it wasn’t when yours truly expostulated on it extensively throughout much of 2016.    We are witnessing the same phenomenon in 2022, but now it has been extended to the entire Republican Party, to wit, people are now afraid to admit in polite company, especially in upper-middle class suburbs that used to be GOP bastions, like the one in which yours truly resides, that they plan to vote for what the Democrats and mainstream media are portraying as the dastardly, evil, Trump-worshiping, mega-MAGA, rights-grabbing, woman-hating, racist GOP.   Admittedly, there are some corners of the (hopefully) post-Trump GOP that have made the Democrats’ job of demonizing the GOP far easier than it should be, but one easily notices that it seems to be exceedingly difficult of late for many of our media estimables to get the words “Republican” or “GOP” out of their mouths without barely suppressing a gag.    But I digress.  The point is that there are a lot of people who plan to vote Republican next Tuesday who will not share this information with their friends who, ironically, may feel the same way.

Second, judging from their advertising and the tone of their campaigns, the Democrats have two major issues:  abortion and Donald Trump.   Both are powerful political issues that give the Democrats a boost, especially when the Dems have managed to convince much of the hyper-informed electorate that the Dem position on the former is the national consensus of “legal but regulated and, hopefully, rare” while the GOP’s position is a fervent desire for a return to the horrible days of rape victims’ being forced to carry to term and women being forced to back-alley butchers to terminate pregnancies.   

In any case, no one can reasonably deny that abortion is one of the issues that has given the Democrats whatever momentum, and whatever chance, they have in this election.   It will surely help the Dems in the suburban districts where these elections will be decided.   Incidentally, just remember this when you hear supposedly insightful and intelligent people ranting and raving about a “political” Supreme Court.   If the Supreme Court were truly political, it would have passed on hearing Dobbs and waited until after the election when another case challenging Roe would inevitably come before it.   The Justices are smart people who are not unacquainted with politics; thus, they surely realized what impact overturning Roe would have on the mid-terms.   If they were just a bunch of politicians in robes, as much of the Democratic story goes, why would the Justices give the Democrats such a valuable issue?   But I digress.

 

Donald Trump is another big plus for the Dems, especially, again, in the suburban areas in which these elections will be decided.   The Republicans have surely not done enough to distance themselves from the solipsistic Mr. Trump, often through lack of desire to do so, and Mr. Trump does not help his party by managing to inject himself into elections to sell himself, usually at inopportune times, while declining to put his proverbial money where his mouth is by providing more than token financial support to candidates he likes in areas in which he is popular.   Further, need I remind my readers that the GOP would not be fighting to regain control of the Senate were it not for Mr. Trump’s self-obsession that resulted in both Georgia seats going to the Dems in 2020?

 

So the Democrats have abortion and Trump, both strong issues.   But the average voter replies “Is that all ya got?”   Judging, again, from Democratic advertising and the tone of their campaigns, the answer is a resounding “No.”

 

Meanwhile, the Republicans have

 

·         The economy

·         Crime 

·         The border

·         Foreign policy

 

I am more sanguine about the prospects of avoiding recession than are most; unless we talk ourselves into a recession, or the seemingly maniacal and disengaged Jay Powell (a Trump appointee, by the way) drives us into one to prove his steely-eyed determination to fight a war for which he didn’t show up when he could have made a difference, we can avoid a recession.   However, both those conditions are longshots and it doesn’t matter what I think; most people think we are in, or are headed for, a recession.  Inflation, on the other hand, though I think past its peak, is an undeniable reality.   While the blame for inflation can be laid primarily at the door of Jay Powell, President Biden and the Democrats behind him are also culpable and, in any case, Jay Powell is not on the Tuesday’s ballot.     

 

Crime is more a state and local issue than it is a national issue, but the hyper-informed electorate does not know that, so the crime issue is also a big winner for the GOP.

 

The border is a national issue, but it is a state and local issue in Arizona, which is a big reason I feel confident in my assertion that the GOP will pick up a Senate seat in that state despite having Blake Masters as their candidate.

 

Foreign policy is always a national issue, and our foreign policy is a directionless mess.   Could anybody do worse than the Democrats on this front?    Since we are not at war, foreign policy will not be a huge issue this Fall, but it certainly favors the GOP.

 

On the issues that most people think are most important, the GOP holds all the cards; that is why they very well may run the table Tuesday.   Even if they fall short of a four seat pick-up, they will surely control the Senate next year.

 

 

ON THE HOUSE….

 

Doing an extensive analysis on the House is difficult due to the sheer numbers of seats involved, and such an analysis is nothing I am going to attempt at my hourly rate in such matters of zero dollars ($0.00).   It would, however, be neither unusual nor daring to predict a GOP pick-up of about twenty seats, far more than would be needed to gain control of the People’s House.   The pickup could easily be larger, but bear in mind that the Republicans picked up seats in 2020, which is unusual in years in which a party’s presidential candidate loses.   Perhaps some of the normally expected pickup in 2022 was carried forward to 2020.   In any case, though, the GOP will comfortably gain control of the House as a result of November 8’s election.

 

A FEW CAVEATS…

 

First, I am writing this earlier than my previous election specials, leaving more room for an October or, more likely given the lateness of the vote this year, early November surprise (e.g., a war, a candidate consorting with the proverbial dead woman or live boy, etc.) that could change things.   I doubt this, but such a surprise is always a possibility.

 

Second, a much stronger possibility is the political junky’s, and the electorate’s, nightmare of our not knowing the outcome for weeks after the November 8 election.   The pivotal Senate races are all close and all will involve a lot of absentee and mail-in ballots.

 

FINALLY, A WISH…

 

When the GOP takes control of Congress, I hope you will join yours truly in hoping, and praying, that the adults take control of the Party.   Alas, this wish for adult supervision is itself perhaps a longshot; after all, assuming control of the Congress, and the White House, had no such salubrious effect on the Democrats.