The general election of the 2018 midterm elections are two months from this week. The scheduled date is Tuesday, November 6, 2018. (I have another related post coming next Monday.)
The title of this blog entry points to this quick summary: Whichever of the two major political parties wins on the counts of U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and Governor—and this means majority numbers—are going to achieve with Florida.
Here is a fact not many election pundits realize or, if they do, tend to not mention: Since after the 1994 midterms, and starting with 1995, the party which had the majority in the U.S. House also had the majority number of governorships. This means there is importance with the governorships, for Democrats wanting to flip both houses of Congress, which are also critical. The governorships are also important for state houses. They are also important for a possible setup of the next presidential election of record in which the presidency flips from the Republican to the Democratic column (which, at this point, I guess not to be with an unseating of Donald Trump in 2020 but with an open race in 2024).
The last Democratic gubernatorial win in Florida was Lawton Chiles, with his second-term re-election, in 1994. He died in office in December 1998. Just before that, Jeb Bush won a Republican pickup, in November 1998, and was re-elected in 2002. Charlie Crist made it three-in-a-row for the GOP in 2006. Rick Scott, with margins of only +1.15 and +1.07 percentage points, won in 2010 and 2014. So, the Democrats—in what should be a midterm elections wave here in 2018—are looking to end their losing streak of Florida governor races in what is also a long-established bellwether state (since 1928, with exceptions of 1960 and 1992, it has carried for all presidential winners). For the Democratic Party, this is alarmingly overdue.
On Tuesday, August 28, 2018, Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, above, won the 2018 Florida Democratic gubernatorial nomination with 34.3 percent of the vote. Congresswoman Gwen Graham, the daughter of former governor and U.S. senator Bob Graham, came in second with 31.3 percent. They were followed by Miami Beach mayor Philip Levine, at 20.3 percent, and real estate billionaire Jeff Greene, at 10.1 percent.
When you get at least four people seeking a party’s nomination, and that fourth-place candidate finishes with 10 percent of the vote, it is remarkable the winner can prevail with that 3-point margin, over the top runner-up, and also win key counties. Given he was also the lowest-funded candidate in the race, it says a lot about the candidate himself. This is a lot of credit earned by Andrew Gillum.
Here is a screen shot of the 2018 Florida Democratic Gubernatorial Primary:
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Source: 2018 Florida Democratic Gubernatorial Primary Map |
Andrew Gillum carried the southeast populous counties Miami–Dade (Miami), by +6 over Levine; Broward (Fort Lauderale), by +12.1 over Levine; and Palm Beach (West Palm Beach), by +0.5 over Graham. In the middle areas of this Florida map, along the I–4 corridor, Gillum also carried Hillsborough (Tampa)—which is a bellwether-to-the-state county (at least in presidential elections)—by +5.4 over Graham. He also carried Orange (Orlando), by +9.9 over Graham. In the northern region, Gillum naturally carried his home county, Leon (Tallahassee), by +7.5 over Graham. He also won Duval County (Jacksonville), by a landslide +27.6 over Graham. (In raw votes, Gillum outpaced Graham there by more than double their votes. Given the Republican side, with the nomination won by Donald Trump-endorsed Ron DeSantis, the congressman from Florida #06 who was in a two-person primary race over ex-congressman Adam Putnam, Gillum had a better Duval County margin than DeSantis, who won Duval County by +26.6.)
Duval County, at the presidential level, has been trending away from the Republicans over the last five presidential elections: In 2000, it was +16 percentage points more Republican than the state of Florida. In 2004, it was +11. In 2008, as Barack Obama flipped the state by nearly +3 percentage points, Duval County was +5 points more Republican. It was at that level, again, in 2012. And in 2016, Donald Trump flipped the state by +1.19 points and won Duval County by +1.36, a spread of a mere 0.17 points. So, this county is trending away from the GOP. If Andrew Gillum wins a 2018 Democratic pickup of the Florida governorship, Duval County may flip with the state of Florida.
There is more to consider. Andrew Gillum was backed by Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton did not also endorse Gillum. So, this is an example of the test we will be seeing of a Bernie-endorsed candidate and nominee trying to win a statewide general election. Not an ordinary state. The No. 3 most-populous state in the nation. And a bellwether state. While there are corrupt, corporate Democrats ratfucking Ben Jealous’s attempts to unseat Larry Hogan for Governor of Maryland, the 2018 Democrats can’t win back power without Florida. They cannot expect to flip the U.S. Senate if incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson—re-elected to his third term in 2012 by over 1 million votes and +13 percentage points (while Barack Obama was re-elected with Florida by margins of nearly 75,000 votes and +0.88 points)—gets unseated by Republican challenger and current governor Rick Scott. (Scott has gone after Nelson to a point where the governor has some polls showing him slightly ahead of Nelson, who has no business—in what is supposed to be a 2018 Democratic midterm wave—getting unseated.)
Establishment Democrats—who want to control as much as they can inside their party (for who exactly can win nominations particularly in key races from the presidency on down)—would have preferred nomination for Gwen Graham. The nominee is Andrew Gillum.
Let us keep in mind the following:
• The Democrats want the U.S. House. Okay. That starts with 2016 Hillary Clinton’s carried 20 states, minus those (like Massachusetts and Connecticut), which have 100 percent Democratic-held seats, before going to the six 2016 Republican pickup states for Donald Trump: Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (as well as Maine #02, where incumbent Republican Bruce Poliquin is in a tossup race). The 2018 Democrats will likely not flip the U.S. House while no seats in Florida come along for the ride. It has been polled, for more than a year, that retiring Republican Ileana Ros–Lehtinen’s 27th Congressional District will flip Democratic. Republican incumbent Carlos Curbelo, from Florida #26, has been polling in position to become unseated.
• The Democrats want the U.S. Senate. Okay. The last three midterm elections, in which the upper chamber flipped to the White House opposition party, were 1994 (Republican pickup off Democrat Bill Clinton); 2006 (Democratic pickup off Republican George W. Bush); and 2014 (Republican pickup off Democrat Barack Obama). In each case, the minority party heading in ended up not losing a single party-held seat. The Democrats, with 49, would achieve a new majority by holding all their seats and winning pickups with Nevada (unseating Dean Heller by Jacky Rosen) and Arizona (open race with Martha McSally failing to hold via pickup by Kyrsten Sinema). The Democrats are also in striking distance in Tennessee and Texas. In 2012, Texas’s Ted Cruz won by over 1.2 million vote and +15.84 percentage points, and Tennessee’s retiring Bob Corker won by over 800,000 votes and +34 percentage points. Combined, Cruz and Corker won by 2 million votes—and those seats are rated between tossup and Lean Republican hold. The 2018 Democrats should not be getting counter-flipped—especially with Nelson—when three of the eight states won by the 2012 Republicans are Top-10 [Texas] and -20 [Arizona, Tennessee] populous states which are shifting sharply toward the Democrats. The 2018 Democrats are not likely to flip the U.S. Senate if Bill Nelson gets unseated.
• The Democrats should want to win a new majority count of governorships. Following the November 2017 pickup of New Jersey, the 2018 Democrats have 16. They need a pickup of +10 to reach a new majority with at least 26. Recent polls have the Republicans not flipping a Democratic-held governorship but possibly achieving with the independent-held Alaska. But, that would still keep the Democrats at 16 and in need of a net gain of +10. Four states are more immediately in position to flip: Illinois, New Mexico, Maine, and Michigan. (Republican incumbents Bruce Rauner, so severely unpopular and poised to become unseated, is followed by term-limited Susana Martinez, Paul LePage, and Rick Snyder as nooses around the necks of their would-be party successors.) Real Clear Politics has a list of tossup states which are all currently in the Republican column. If the Democrats win over a new majority, they will reach with the inclusion of Florida. My estimate of likelihood are: (21) Nevada; (22) Florida; (23) Wisconsin; and (24) Ohio. To reach the tipping point, that 26th state, look to (cited alphabetically): Arizona, Georgia, and Iowa. Beyond the new majority: (28) Kansas. Requiring a tidal [national] wave: Maryland, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
There is something delicious to this. Establishment Democrats—those who thwart and/or sabotage progressives (or, more to the point, those more progressive to the establishment’s comfort)—will not be able see their political party re-empowered, with the results of Election 2018, without Florida. This means they need Andrew Gillum. And it may turn out—once Election Night arrives and passes, and we see which party prevails on each of the three above counts—the best bellwether state for the midterm elections of 2018 will be Florida.
I will leave this blog entry with was an insightful, early-August 2018, The Young Turks “Rebel HQ” interview between host Cenk Uygur and guest Andrew Gillum.
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