As you now, the 2018 midterms were yesterday. As of this writing not all of the races have been called, but generally speaking it was a confusing night. The Democrats had a decent night in the house gaining enough seats to gain control of the body. Republicans expanded their lead in the Senate while several Governor's races flipped for each side, including my state of Wisconsin.
It's pretty clear that I was wrong that the Dems would not win the house. I gave it a 70/30 percent chance that the Republicans would win in the house. That didn't happen. In my defense I did say that I was a lot less confident in victory than in 2016, but that doesn't mean I deserve much credit for that.
So what happened?
-Historical inertia. Presidents almost always lose their midterm elections. For example, Barack Obama got destroyed in 2010. The GOP picked up 63 house seats, 6 senate seats and 6 governor's seats as well. It's just one of those things that happen, similar to why Bush was replaced by Obama and Obama was replaced by Trump. It's just as rare for a party to keep the presidency after two terms as it is for a president to keep seats in the house during the midterms. I thought that this election was going to be different but it obviously was not.
-Strategic considerations. It was pretty clear that keeping control of the Senate was a huge priority for President Trump. Without the Senate he wouldn't be able to confirm any new judges or replace any new cabinet members, which he just did today with Jeff Sessions. Control of the house would have been nice too, but it wasn't critical like the Senate was.
Towards this end, Trump campaigned heavily for critical senate races and won most of them. It was also a counter move to the Democrats who dumped millions of dollars into races like Texas against Ted Cruz. If Trump and the GOP had focused on holding the house, they might have kept it but they would have lost the Senate instead.
-Bad leadership in the house. Let's face it, Paul Ryan did nothing to keep control of the lower chamber. Ryan was part of the never Trump wing of the Republicans and never had the President's back. He also was a lame duck candidate that wasn't running this year and would be out of power in a few months anyways. He didn't care what happened in the House because he is phoning it in anyways.
Contrast this to the Senate where leadership like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham were stumping all over the country to try and win the Senate. Unlike Ryan they were actually trying.
-Lack of October surprises against the Democrats. There were a couple of bad stories for the Republicans in the lead up to the election but nothing really bad happened in the lead up to the primaries. There was the Kavanaugh debacle but that was weeks ago and was already out of the news. Had the FISA warrants been released it might have changed things but that would have been a huge risk if Trump lost the senate.
-Media bias. Speaking of the news, the news probably had an effect. Three years of the media just completely abandoning even the most basic attempts to be unbiased. The constant attacks of racism, sexism and every other ism there is in the book probably convinced a few people to vote for Democrats and got the vote out for them as well.
-Tech censorship. In the past I had paid for advertisement for this blog. I did so in the lead up to the 2016 election via facebook. I didn't spend much money at all, but it did help me reach a larger audience. It wasn't a huge effect but I did get a lot more views that way.
This didn't happen in 2018. I had tried to buy a few ads a couple of times on Facebook but it was no longer possible. Facebook no longer allows ads of a political nature unless you sign you life away, give two factor authentication and go through dozens of hoops. It wasn't worth the effort for me and a lot of other smaller writers, bloggers and activists anymore and those were disproportionately on the right.
And even if you could advertise there was no guarantee that your message would be heard. Almost all of the tech companies out there have banned hundreds of conservative accounts. Thankfully I wasn't one of them but many of the most influential people on the right were kicked off all the major platforms. People like Alex Jones, Gavin McInnes and Rodger Stone were completely silenced. And the one big tech company that didn't censor conservatives, Gab? It was taken down right before the election and only came back a couple of days ago.
So what does the 2018 midterms mean for the future?
-For me personally it was devastating. Forget about the national elections, my state got screwed. I have never been a fan of Scott Walker but he has kept the economy of this state humming and greatly expanded gun rights. With Tony Evers in power both of those things are at risk. Unlike the left, I don't want Evers to fail if it means bringing Wisconsin down with him, but I have little faith that he will leave office with Wisconsin being a better state then it was. Horrible.
-This may actually help Trump in the long run. Many of the house Republicans that lost were anti-Trump people that were no help for him and were actually holding him back. With the fat cut out of the party it's very clear that it's Trump's party now.
Trump also has a built in excuse for anything that goes wrong. Any failures in the house the past two years had to be at either his fault or Paul Ryan and for either to call the other out would hurting unity. That isn't a problem anymore as Nancy Pelosi is the perfect scapegoat.
Trump is also set for the 2020 elections. It won't be likely that the Democrats can take back the Senate with the victories yesterday. The map just doesn't work for them anymore.
-Expect total gridlock from the government. With the GOP in control of the Senate and the Democrats holding the house it's an uphill battle for any new legislation. They have almost zero reason to work with each other so almost nothing will get done from the legislative branch, with pot legalization being a possible exception (I might get around to a post on this topic soon).
-Expect rounds of investigations and counter-investigations.The endless Russia distraction is likely to continue and there will be investigations into the investigation of why that investigation started. It seems very clear that the gloves are coming off. With Jeff Sessions being shown the door it also seems very clear that the investigations will not only be coming from the Democrats.
-The Judicial branch and federal bureaucracy will continue to be staffed with Trump people. With a stronger hold over the senate and only one anti-Trump GOP senator left (Mitt Romney of Utah) Trump has a rubber stamp now to approve judges up to and including Supreme Court Justices. There is a very good chance that if Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies or retires the court will be a 6-3 majority. And she's not the only one that might leave...
All that being said, I don't think this election was a disaster (other than for my state with a new Democratic governor). It's going to be status quo ante for the most part. Neither side delivered any knockout blows and nobody can really claim victory.
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