Are Democrats’ Senate Chances In 2018 Overrated? | FiveThirtyEight

Democrats face a steep climb in 2018, in both the House and the Senate. It’s easy to over-estimate the Trump Effect on 2018 elections, I believe. There clearly was no Obama Effect in favor of Democrats during Barack Obama’s term in office, and maybe the inverse will prove true. Elections might be more localized than nationalized during the midterms. It seems, based on polling of Republicans and GOP-leaning independent voters, they care more about specific issues and party loyalty than they care about Donald Trump. They are a loyal base, even with an unpopular leader.

In my last post on The Map vs. The Wave, I wrote:

Right now, I’m anticipating the House within five seats for Democrats and a Senate margin of two seats for the GOP. But, that estimation can and will change and after primary elections give us actual nominees with better polling data.

I am less and less certain about the House margin tilting to the Democrats as polls have started to appear in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. I live between Pittsburgh and Youngstown and the local ads remind me of the run-up to 2016: heavily pro-GOP independent group expenditures are already dominating the airwaves. With a pro-GOP blitz on the airwaves, that indicates some confidence that some seats that might have switched parties are now returning to their bases.

If the House starts to lean GOP, it follows that the Senate is even more problematic for Democrats. As Nate Silver explains, the worst scenario for Democrats would be localized races. Then again, the Republican voters nominated Roy Moore for the Alabama special election. Local doesn’t ensure the GOP base won’t toss an individual seat to the Democrats. But, all things being equal, here is Silver’s analysis:

Are Democrats’ Senate Chances In 2018 Overrated? | FiveThirtyEight:
JAN. 10, 2018 AT 8:31 AM
By Nate Silver

I built a simulation program in which — unlike in a traditional Monte Carlo simulation where each race is assumed to be independent from the others — I can crank the correlations up or down as much as I want. If I assume that the races are totally uncorrelated — how the Democratic candidate does in Nevada has nothing to do with how the Democrat fares in Arizona — Democrats’ chances of taking over the Senate are only about 1 percent, according to the simulation. If I instead assume the races are perfectly correlated — if you win one “toss-up,” you win ’em all — Democrats’ chances are 50 percent, by contrast.

But neither of those assumptions is realistic. Although it’s important to account for some correlation, Senate races are a long way from being perfectly correlated. Sometimes the candidates can matter, as we saw with Jones and Roy Moore in Alabama. And the most competitive races this year are a somewhat eclectic mix of vulnerable Democratic incumbents (such as Missouri’s Claire McCaskill), vulnerable Republican incumbents (such as Nevada’s Dean Heller), and open seats (such as in Arizona).

A good rule of thumb for Senate races is that roughly half the uncertainty stems from local factors and half comes from national factors. If I encode that assumption into the simulation, it comes up with a 22 percent probability of Democrats taking over the Senate based on the race ratings. That isn’t nothing, but it’s a long way from the even-steven battle that conventional wisdom now seems to assume.

If we assume the Democrats have a 22 percent probability of capturing the Senate as of right now, that’s not nearly as close as the pundits are suggesting in media coverage. Right now, I’d be shocked if the Democrats flipped both chambers. If they won the House by more than two or three seats (a five-seat gap, maybe), I would also be surprised.

An echo chamber among progressives and media elites might be creating an overly optimistic atmosphere — one that is as disappointing as the 2016 election.

I’m not hoping for a Democratic victory in 2018 so much as a GOP loss, at least for the social conservatives. The GOP badly needs a reboot, but it is representative of its base. The primary voters of both parties are a problem for moderates, but the GOP has had more problems as evidenced by Trump’s nomination. The GOP base doesn’t seem to be conservative in any positive sense of the word.

The Democrats need to consider a shift to the middle, nationally, but they cannot offend their base voters, either. Yet, if Democrats come up short in November, the base might demand even more leftward drift in the party. Democrats need appeal beyond urban voters in the ten states with half of the United States’ population. If the Democrats win only the largest states, they will be forever limited to a Senate minority.

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