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Friday, May 4, 2018

2018: CAN REPUBLICANS PULL IT OFF…


I tend not to spend much time speculating about polls, especially those that at least ‘appear’ to be favorable to those on my side.  But at the risk of jinxing things I felt it necessary to spend a few minutes regarding some new ‘Morning Consult’ polls that apparently show the Democrats ‘could be’ in serious trouble in Senate races all across the country.  Because it’s at this particular moment that it appears Republicans now have serious leads in West Virginia where incumbent Democrat Joe Manchin trails by 14 points, in North Dakota where incumbent Democrat Heidi Heitkamp trails by 8, and in Indiana where incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly trails by 5.

Also Democrats also seem to be in a bit of trouble in Missouri, where incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill trails by 5, in Montana where incumbent Democrat Jon Tester trails by 5, in Florida where incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson is locked in a near-deadlock with Rick Scott, and in Pennsylvania and Ohio where incumbent Democrats Bill Casey and Sherrod Brown are leading by less than two points each, plus Virginia, where Timmy Kaine leads by just 3 on the generic ballot.  So the best-case scenario has the Republicans actually winning up to nine additional Senate seats.  But November is still a very long way away and there is much that can happen.

The polls also ‘appear’ less than favorable for the Democrats in the House where the RealClearPolitics poll average for the generic ballot has Democrats up 6.7%, but the polls are all over the place.  The Economist/YouGov has Democrats with a 3-point lead, Quinnipiac has Democrats with an 8-point lead, as does Monmouth.  The best available data seems to suggest that Democrats are heavy favorites to take the House, but face a seriously uphill battle to take the Senate from Republicans.  This is a rarity in modern politics; the last time a president’s party picked up seats in the Senate but lost seats in the House was Ronald Reagan back in 1982.

And it was in 1970 that Richard Nixon’s Republicans lost 12 seats in the House but picked up two seats in the Senate.  And it was in 1962 that Kennedy’s Democrats lost four House seats but gained three Senate seats. Today, Republicans are expected to lose dozens of House seats but could simultaneously pick up a half-dozen Senate seats.  Given our wildly divisive politics, this isn’t particularly shocking.  But it is a sign that our national divisions are serious and regional — that politics can’t easily be nationalized. And that means that President Trump still has a path in 2020 to victory, if he can eke out wins in the same states he did in 2016.

One thing that I would like to think that the Republicans may have in their favor is a Democrat platform that has as its major planks things like reparations and the ‘promise’ of gutting much of our First and Second Amendment rights.  And then there’s the Democrat Party’s intense hatred of all white people especially those who reside in ‘Red’ states.  To me that would seem to be a losing platform.  And also, instead of the usual relatively muted response to a presidential defeat that they usually display, they lost their freaking minds and have therefore put conservatives on the defense instead of lulling them into an apathetic stupor.

I do kind of like the way the election is shaping up.  We have prosperity, a level of which that hasn’t been seen for decades, a possible big triumph over North Korea, and growing black support, a mainstay of the Democrats has seen a nearly 10 point erosion in just this week as people wake up to the idea that being employed and having control of your life is better than being dependent on Democrat politicians on the welfare plantation.  If Trump or the Republicans pick up another few points in approval I think both the Senate and the House can be held.  With a solid control of Congress Trump can proceed with making America great again.

While we know Paul Ryan will not be returning, those now being mentioned most prominently as candidates for his replacement would bring about little change.  What I think would go a very long way in helping the Republicans maintain control of the House is Rep. Jim Jordan being selected as Ryan’s successor.  If voters knew going in that Jordan would be the next Speaker it just might be what the doctor ordered as far as convincing people to give the Republicans one more shot at being the majority party.  And over in the Senate, Mitch McConnell has got to go.  He has been nothing but an abject failure as the majority leader in the Senate. 

And you wouldn’t think the antics of congressional Democrats over the course of the last two years would convince enough voters that they deserve being in charge of Congress. Time and again they have continually demonstrated that they have absolutely no interest in helping working class Americans.  They are all about getting power, but when they get it, do nothing positive with it.  A perfect example of that would be the first two years of Barry’s first term when all they did was to force ‘passage’ of Obamacare, which hasn't stopped costing us money and unraveling since day one.  Do we really want to go down that road again? 

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