OPINION:
It is fashionable at the moment to predict that congressional Republicans will lose their current majority, at least in the House of Representatives, in the wake of November’s elections. That is certainly a defensible position. In the sixth year of a presidency, the party of that president usually loses about 30 House seats and about four Senate seats.
Still, it’s hard to imagine that history holding. With respect to the Senate, there are relatively few competitive seats in this cycle. The Republicans might take seats currently held by Democrats in Michigan and Georgia, but neither race is particularly promising. The last time the Republicans won a Senate race in Michigan was during the red wave of 1994. Whatever else might happen, we are not headed for a red wave.
The Democratic incumbent in Georgia, Sen. Jon Ossoff, has moderated his stances and raised a bunch of cash. On the other side, Republicans may lose the North Carolina Senate seat currently held by Thom Tillis to former Gov. Roy Cooper.
The House, as usual, is considerably more complex, in no small measure because its control typically tracks the national vote. The party that receives the most votes nationally in all the House races combined generally winds up controlling the House. The Democrats are counting on that as they attempt to make the election a national plebiscite on President Trump, affordability and the general sense of motion sickness that the current administration sometimes induces.
That might work — or it might not. The Democrats have a modest but measurable 4-point lead in the generic ballot test at RealClearPolitics. At the same time, on favorability, the Democrats are 23 percentage points underwater, compared with the Republicans, who are just 14 points underwater. Mr. Trump is only 10 points underwater, so the currents there are a little challenging to read.
As far as the race’s mechanics go, Republican efforts to redistrict their way out of danger have been a failure. In response, the Democrats, not surprisingly, reworked their congressional districts. The result: representative government was further damaged and the nation crept a little closer to disintegration.
The other redistricting shoe that will drop shortly is a Supreme Court decision on racially based gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act. Over the past few decades, about three dozen congressional districts have been drawn to create “safe” districts for candidates from protected racial classes.
When the court announces that those districts violate the Constitution, states will need to redraw them. That will probably result in a small net increase of Republican-leaning districts, in part because many of these districts are in formerly Confederate states.
Finally, in thinking about the November elections, it’s important to remain aware that voters can’t and don’t simply vote against a candidate. They are required to vote for a candidate, so candidates matter.
It’s unclear whether the Democrats will be able to restrain their worst impulses and maintain a moderate pose and tenor all the way through to November. The moderate wing of the Democratic Party, such that it is, would like to stay focused on affordability and the perceived overreach of Mr. Trump.
That, of course, has two problems. First, the more numerous and aggressive Democrats would like to talk about Immigration and Customs Enforcement and immigration and how no one is “illegal.” Some have failed to get the message on the culture wars and want to relitigate whether men get pregnant. Neither blanket approval for illegal immigration nor a willingness to perpetuate the worst of the culture wars is likely to be a winning strategy.
The second problem is that on their main issue, affordability, Democrats have yet to articulate anything resembling a solution. That’s not a problem at the moment, but it will become one when the campaign debate season starts in the late summer.
The prudent answer now is to remain sanguine about the elections, at least until we see how the Supreme Court rules on the Voting Rights Act and get a little more visibility into the Democratic nominees. In other words, it’s way too early to panic, one way or the other.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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