The 2018 midterm elections are scheduled for Tuesday, November 6, 2018.
A part of the guessing—and the predicting—has to do with people’s senses as to whether the incumbent majority party, the Republican Party, will end up with party-held majorities or if the minority party, the Democratic Party, will win a new majority pickup of one or both houses of Congress.
I wrote about this topic, at the start of 2018, here: A 2018 Blue Wave.
I will be concentrating, with this blog entry, on the U.S. House.
(Side note: This is not about how I personally will vote this coming November.)
I was looking at Real Clear Politics for its aggregation of recent polls. (The above is about “Generic Congressional Ballot.” Those shown cover this current month of June up to this blog entry’s posting date.)
Every source reports that Democrats are in the lead. So, I would not predict the Republicans to ultimately win the overall seat gains—certainly not for U.S. House. There are the the retirements. And there is the fact that 54th U.S. House speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin #01) is ending his active career after 2018. That tells me the speaker’s internal poll numbers—and I am sure he has them on his Republican House—informed Ryan’s decision to not try to get re-elected. (He did not want to risk losing re-election.)
2018, from the Democratic Party’s perspective, is one they think they will win with flipping at least the U.S. House but are hopeful they will likewise achieve with the U.S. Senate. They would like it to be a national wave which also changes their count for state governorships and state legislatures. And, to achieve that, they figure voting patterns—and Republican incumbent president Donald Trump—will make that happen. (Check out, for a reminder, a post-Election 2016 Nancy Pelosi, at the mark of 09:10, from the linked video of The Jimmy Dore Show.) Well, the Democrats may be correct. 23 of the last 26 midterm elections—that is, since the 17th Amendment affected first the midterm elections of 1914 (and running that through the most recent such cycle, 2014)—were won with overall seat gains by the White House opposition party.
I recently looked at past elections in which there was a party switch for U.S. House. Knowing there is a record of the U.S. Popular Vote, specifically for U.S. House, I think I can gauge what it will take for the 2018 Democrats—on the watch of Republican incumbent president Donald Trump—with how much this Democratic Party will need in order to win over the U.S. Popular Vote to feasibly flip party control for at least the lower chamber.
In 2016, the Republican pickup year of the presidency for Donald Trump, Team Red won the U.S. Popular Vote for U.S. House by +1.08 percentage point. (It was the Republicans at 49.11 to the 48.03 percent for the Democrats.) In 2014, the midterm year in which Republicans won a majority-control pickup of the U.S. Senate, their U.S. Popular Vote margin for U.S. House was +5.70. (It was the Republicans’ 51.23 to 45.53 percent for the Democrats.) So, the 2014-to-2016 popular-vote margin shift was Democratic +4.62. Despite having the White House, and seeing it flip Republican, this yielded +6 seat gains for Team Blue.
Since I am noting the word shift, I want to quickly explain why that is important. In elections that switch party control, the level of a shift, and in which party’s direction, informs whether it is sufficient for the flip—and, if so, how much gets delivered for that eventual party-pickup victory. For example: In the Democratic presidential pickup year of 2008, for Barack Obama, the national 2004-to-2008 shift was +9.72 percentage points. 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry lost in the U.S. Popular Vote by –2.46 percentage points. (Kerry received 48.27 to the 50.73 percent for re-elected Republican president George W. Bush.) 2008 Obama, with that Democratic +9.72 national shift, won over the U.S. Popular Vote by +7.26 percentage points. With that, Obama carried the losing Kerry map: 19 states, plus District of Columbia, and their mathematical 252 electoral votes. That Democratic shift is what helped Obama flip nine states (plus Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District), and their combined +113 electoral votes, for a winning electoral-vote score of 365.
The following is a review of the past party-flipping U.S. House elections, post-17th Amendment, and with comparing them to the cycle just two years earlier. I note the margins won in those elections, nationally, and I also note the national shift from the previous election cycle. I also note the numbers of switched seats. From these pickups, I was able to determine the average number of percentage points nationally shifted that brought those results. (The 2018 Democrats need a pickup of +25 seats.)
• 1930 (Democratic pickup off Republican president Herbert Hoover): No Information. (Republicans, as of Election Night outcome, held by one seat the U.S. House. Special elections followed which made Democrats the new majority as the next Congress commenced.)
• 1946 (Republican pickup off Democratic president Harry Truman): Republican [R] +11.5. (Shift, from 1944: R+16.2.) Seats gained: R+55. (Average percentage points nationally shifted for each seat gained: R+3.39.)
• 1948 (Democratic pickup with full-term election for Democratic president Harry Truman): Democratic [D] +7.2. (Shift, from 1946: D+18.7.) Seats gained: D+75. (Average percentage points nationally shifted for each seat gained: D+4.01.)
• 1952 (Republican pickup with Republican presidential pickup winner Dwight Eisenhower): Bad sampling which will not be averaged here. (Long story short: The 1950 Democrats won the U.S. Popular Vote by +0.7 percentage points. The 1952 U.S. House Republicans shifted the national popular-vote margin gain by just +0.27, allowing the Democrats to hold the 1952 U.S. Popular Vote by +0.43, but the Republicans flipped 22 Democratic-held U.S. House seats along with that party’s pickup of the presidency. When Dwight Eisenhower won his Republican pickup of the U.S. Popular Vote, he shifted +15.33 points in order to win his popular-vote pickup with a margin of +10.85. The Democrats’ margins, for U.S. House, were through their held seats in the south, at which time that region was still aligned to their party. The only non-southern states carried by losing Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson were border states Kentucky and West Virginia.)
• 1954 (Democratic pickup off Republican president Dwight Eisenhower): Democratic +5.51. (Shift, from 1952: D+5.08.) Seats gained: D+19. (Average percentage points nationally shifted for each seat gained: D+3.74.)
• 1994 (Republican pickup off Democratic president Bill Clinton): Republican +7.04. (Shift, from 1992: R+12.03.) Seats gained: R+54. (Average percentage points nationally shifted for each seat gained: R+4.48.)
• 2006 (Democratic pickup off Republican president George W. Bush): Democratic +8.01 (Shift, from 2004: D+11.37.) Seats gained: D+31. (Average percentage points nationally shifted for each seat gained: D+2.72.)
• 2010 (Republican pickup off Democratic president Barack Obama): Republican +6.73. (Shift, from 2008: R+17.33.) Seats gained: R+63. (Average percentage points nationally shifted for each seat gained: R+3.63.)
Here is a guide (going by +3.66 percentage points nationally shifted with each seat gain) that shows how many seats would emerge as 2018 Democratic pickups:
The National Margin (after –01.08) = Yielded Pickups (increments +xx.08 x 3.66 avg.)
D+0 = +3 [seat gains]
D+1 = +4 to +7
D+2 = +8 to +11
D+3 = +12 to +14
D+4 = +15 to +18
D+5 = +19 to +22
D+6 = +23 to +25
D+7 = +26 to +29
D+8 = +30 to +33
D+9 = +34 to +36
D+10 = +37 to +40
D+11 = +41 to +44
D+12 = +45 to +47
D+13 = +48 to +51
D+14 = +52 to +55
D+15 = +56 to +58
D+16 = +59 to +62
D+17 = +63 to +66
D+18 = +67 to +69
D+19 = +70 to +73
D+20 = +74 to +77
Now, if you want, you can eliminate 1948, because that year was the only applied election that was not a midterm election. Historically, when one or both houses of Congress does a party switch in a presidential election cycle…well, they flip to the party which also won the presidency. (Examples: 1932—Democratic pickups of the presidency and U.S. Senate; 1948—Democratic hold of the presidency and pickups of both houses of Congress; 1952—Republican pickups of the presidency and both houses of Congress; 1980—Republican pickups of the presidency and the U.S. Senate.) Since we are in the year 2018, I will not that a party switch going to the White House opposition party and, as historical pattern, does so in a midterm cycle. So, take that +4.01 average from 1948 and subtract. This would mean a cumulative 17.96 (down from 21.97). After that, divide that by 5 (down from 6) examples. This would yield an average of +3.59 percentage points nationally shifted for each seat gain.
Here is a guide (going by +3.59 percentage points nationally shifted with each seat gain) that shows how many seats would emerge as 2018 Democratic pickups:
The National Margin (after –01.08) = Yielded Pickups (increments +xx.08 x 3.59 avg.)
D+0 = +3 [seat gains]
D+1 = +4 to +7
D+2 = +8 to +11
D+3 = +12 to +14
D+4 = +15 to +18
D+5 = +19 to +21
D+6 = +22 to +25
D+7 = +26 to +29
D+8 = +30 to +32
D+9 = +33 to +36
D+10 = +37 to +39
D+11 = +40 to +43
D+12 = +44 to +46
D+13 = +47 to +50
D+14 = +51 to +54
D+15 = +55 to +57
D+16 = +58 to +61
D+17 = +62 to +64
D+18 = +65 to +68
D+19 = +69 to +72
D+20 = +73 to +75
Perhaps a national margin of +6 would be enough for the Democrats. But, I think +6 is so tossup it would be cutting it too close. I feel certain +5 or less would not be enough for the 2018 Democrats to flip the U.S. House.
If I was working for the Democratic Party, I would look at +7 as sufficient. A margin of +8 would be more comfortable. A national margin even higher than +8 would yield dramatically more seat pickups. (I came across this Gallup that says the average number of flipped U.S. House seats, from past midterm elections, for when an incumbent president’s job approval has been below 50 percent, has been 36. Link: Gallup — “Avg. Midterm Seat Loss 36 for Presidents Below 50% Approval”—so, if the Democrats flip the U.S. House, and reach that historical number, they would win nationally by either +9 or +10.)
When you compare those scenario lists, you can see why I conclude the 2018 Democrats, in their attempt to win over a new majority for the U.S. House, will need to win a likewise Democratic pickup of the U.S. Popular Vote a margin of +7.
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