While Republicans may have started 2019 hoping they could get the 18 seats they needed to regain the majority they lost in 2018, those hopes are long gone.
At this point, given the appalling numbers in President Donald Trump’s poll nationwide, and especially in the suburbs, the goal for House Republicans is to avoid a kind of seat loss from landslides that could relegate them to the minority for the next decade.
It is not entirely clear if they will be able to avoid that nightmare scenario.
“Now they are just trying to avoid a repeat of 2008, when they not only lost the presidency, but were inundated with Democrats’ money and lost even more seats in the House after losing 30 seats and control two years earlier. For the first time this cycle, Democrats have at least the same opportunity to win seats in the House as Republicans on a net basis. “
The problems for Republicans are compounded by the massive fundraising disparity they face.
Combine a declining national environment with that kind of fundraising problem and you have a recipe for House of Representatives disaster for Republicans.
*The Senate:
At the start of the 2020 elections, it would have been difficult to find a single national political impediment willing to predict that Democrats would retake the chamber on November 3.
While the gross numbers looked good (23 Republican seats compared to 12 for Democrats), the outlook was less favorable for the minority party. Only two Republican incumbents – Sens. Cory Gardner in Colorado and Susan Collins in Maine – run in the states that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. Which means that 21 of the 23 Republican seats are in places where Trump won four years ago.
And yet, as the elections progress, the outlook has changed considerably, thanks in large part to the fortune and rapidly declining struggles of Trump by Republican incumbents to distance themselves from him.
In Arizona, Senator Martha McSally (R) appears dead in the water in her career against former astronaut Mark Kelly (D). Gardner is in serious trouble against former Governor John Hickenlooper (D). And Collins faces by far the biggest challenge of her political career in the form of the Speaker of the state House of Representatives, Sara Gideon (D).
And those three seats are just the beginning of the problems for Senate Republicans. Both seats in Georgia are in jeopardy, as are North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, Montana Senator Steve Daines, and the open seat in Kansas. (Yes, Kansas!)
By contrast, Democrats have only one real problem: Alabama Senator Doug Jones (D), who will face former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville in the fall. Jones, due to the state’s strong Republican bias, could well do everything perfectly and still lose. (While Republicans talk about Senator Gary Peters’ vulnerability in Michigan, there isn’t much evidence that the race is going to be this close.)
What it all means is this: Democrats have a WIDE playing field where they try to win the three seats they need if Biden wins the White House and four if Trump is re-elected. And at this point, they must be considered favorites to do so, which is remarkable given the start of this two-year cycle.
*The White House:
There is simply no way to sweeten this for President fans. If the presidential elections were held today, Trump would not only lose the White House, but would do so by a wide margin.
There is no secret about the “why” here. Most of the public disapproves of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. And the coronavirus pandemic is the dominant problem for voters, especially suburban women who Trump needs to do well to have a shot at winning nationally.
As his ratings on how to deal with the pandemic have declined, his overall job approval numbers and his position in hypothetical clashes with Biden have also plummeted.
If the problem is obvious, the solution is less. Even if Trump tries a new tone on the virus, as he did this week, promoting the need to wear masks and speaking more soberly at daily Covid-19 briefings, it’s not entirely clear if that would change the minds of people on it.
If the past is a prologue, it is very difficult to change people’s opinion on a subject that deeply interests them. We believe what we believe and in general that’s it.
That is the reality that Trump faces 100 days after his bid for a second term. And no amount of Fox News tweets or interviews will change it.
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