Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Ten Reasons to Expect a Red Tsunami in the 2018 Midterm Elections


      At least as early as July of this year, I’ve been forecasting a red wave in the 2018 midterm elections.  Now I’m more confident of it than ever.  Here’s why.
(If you'd rather watch the video than read the article, here it is, below.)
     Reason #1: Opinion polls give the false impression that Democrats and Republicans are evenly distributed within congressional districts.  In fact, Democratic voters are more disproportionately packed into Democratic-controlled congressional districts than Republican voters are.  A Democratic landslide in one district often takes place at the expense of a narrow Democratic defeat in a nearby district.  This usually means that an average of 5% of the Democratic votes are wasted on candidates who are going to win anyway.
     Thus, if the Democrats have a 5% edge over the Republicans nationwide, in practical terms, they’re running neck-and-neck. 
Reason #2: Republicans have the momentum. A month ago, in generic ballots, the Democrats had a 17% advantage over the Republicans.  A few days ago, the Democratic advantage was more like 3% and closing.
Reason #3: For midterm elections, opinion polls usually ask the wrong people.  Candidates don’t win elections by having more people in favor of them; they win by getting more supporters to the polls.  Fewer than 40% of registered voters will vote in the 2018 midterm elections, but most opinion poll samplings imply that 100% of registered voters will vote.  In fact, 60% of their answers are worthless and misleading.  Roughly 20% of registered voters will decide the election.
Reason #4: Who will vote and who won’t vote? With fewer than 40% voting in the midterms, the winners will be the candidates who do the best job of energizing their base.  That usually means that the winners will be the ones who do the best job of framing the issues.  The Republicans are framing the election as a choice between continued progress on hot button issues and a return to higher taxes, excessive regulation, and other issues that are hot buttons for no more than 10% of the voters. President Trump’s voter base is closer to 30%.
Reason #5: Who is making the fewest serious mistakes? Both Republicans and Democrats are making strategic mistakes, but the Democratic mistakes are more serious.  The biggest Republican mistake was for Paul Ryan to continue as Speaker of the House instead of stepping down and being replaced by Jim Jordan.  Democrats have been making massive mistakes.  They include calls for protesters to harass officials who are going about their business, threats to raise taxes on average Americans, and threats to destroy American jobs by restoring job-killing regulations.
Reason #6: The Kavanaugh Effect. The persecution of Brett Kavanaugh was intended to energize the Democratic Party’s most radical base.  For the most part, it has had the opposite effect—and then some.  Married women, especially the mothers of teenage sons, are alarmed at the thought that their sons may one day be presumed guilty by accusation.  The Kavanaugh Effect has likely struck a nerve among blacks and Hispanics as well.  Blacks and Hispanics are all too familiar with being presumed guilty without evidence.  The Kavanaugh witch hunt has become such a disaster for the Democrats that MSNBC and other Democratic-leaning networks lately have complained that other networks have been unfair in their reporting of the process.
Reasons #7: The Black Vote. Democrats have tried to make the 2018 midterm elections a referendum on the presidency of Donald Trump, and they’ve gotten their wish.  Over the past two years, black support for Republicans has quadrupled.  This has been largely because blacks have seen the disparity between the crime and poverty in Democratic-controlled areas such as south Los Angeles and Chicago; and the jobs and opportunities offered by President Trump and his supporters.
Reason #8: The Hispanic/Immigrant Vote. Not all Hispanics are immigrants, and not all immigrants are Hispanic. Democrats, cloistered in their bi-coastal bubble, have deceived themselves with the notion that Hispanics are opposed to President Trump’s policy of securing the border.  In point of fact, Hispanics—both native born and immigrants—as well as immigrants who are not Hispanic—want their children and grandchildren to find the same opportunities in America that immigrants now find when they arrive.  They don’t want America to be turned into the kind of country that other people are fleeing.  Small wonder that Hispanic support for President Trump has more than doubled since the 2016 election.
Reason #9: The Numbers in the Senate Races.  Of the thirty-five contested senate seats, twenty-six are held by Democrats; nine are held by Republicans.  To win control of the Senate, Democrats have to win two of the nine Republican-held seats.  Republicans need only to hold onto the ones they have, and they have twenty-six opportunities to increase their majority in the Senate.  West Virginia has already flipped into the Republican column.  North Dakota and Florida are on the way there. Others are likely.
Reason #10: Increases is Republican Registrations, Requests for Absentee Ballots for Registered Republicans, and Early Voting by Registered Republicans in Florida, North Carolina, Wyoming, Arizona, Ohio, and Iowa.  All these factors indicate a surge in GOP voting. 
     The desperate Democrats in Washington DC and in the Pravda press outlets such as the Clown News Network and MSNBC have been pushing the notion that there’s no need for Republicans to go to the polls because all is lost anyway.  Democrat desperation is becoming more and more evident with each passing week. 
     I forecast that the Republican Party will gain around eight seats in the U.S. Senate, several seats in the House, several more governorships, and control of several more state legislatures.  We’ll see
     With strong Republican majorities in both houses of Congress—real Republicans and not RINOs such as the departing Jeff Flake and Paul Ryan—and with an Attorney General who will do his job, President Trump can finish his task of draining the swamp, securing America’s borders, strengthening America’s economy, securing peace and fair trade with other countries, and making America great again.