By Bob Shanahan
Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight puts the chances of the Democrats winning back the House of Representatives today at 88 percent. RealClearPolitics calculates that the Democrats will pick up 27 House seats. The Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman said the most likely outcome today is the Democrats picking up well above the 23 seats needed to win back the majority in the House by gaining 30 to 40 seats.
All of these same polls predicted that Donald Trump would be trounced by Hillary Clinton two years ago. How did that turn out? This obsession over polls has been dizzying and perplexing to me as a political analyst. I think now, more than ever, these polls have no predictive qualities during these unpredictable times. Maybe they did during the pre-Trump era, but ever since the Donald has entered the political arena, he has shocked the world time and time again. The discussion of the Democrats’ edge in the generic poll, pitting a nameless Republican congressmen against a no name Democrat, is the most laughably poll of them all, even though it is breathlessly referenced to by the so-called political pundits who claim to have unmatched insights into our current political reality. I’m here to tell you that they, like Jon Snow, know nothing.
Though they surely won’t admit it, Democrats are still paranoid about the possibility of losing today. Just like two years ago, everyone is basically assuming the Democrats will win back the House, for the first time since Obama’s first term. After the shock of 2016, the left has been rattled and their anti-Trump agenda over the last two years has offered no hope or inspiration for Americans to vote for them, putting all their eggs in the Trump-hating basket.
Ohio✈️Indiana✈️Missouri 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Xn51CudZUt
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) November 6, 2018
Whatever happens today, it will be a monumental midterm election with turnout numbers nearing presidential election years. We have never been a more politically obsessed society. We have never been more involved in politics. And we have never been this divided for quite some time. But how will that all play out when we tally up the votes tonight?
One thing that should rattle Democrats going into today is the fact that the Republicans have racked up early leads in seven of the eight key battleground states. An eye-opening 36 million voters had cast their ballots early, as of Monday evening. GOP support for the president and the left’s hatred over him have significantly spiked turnout numbers. In 2014, 27.2 million people voted early.
This voter enthusiasm, on both sides of the aisle, should throw a wrench into the predictive political pundit class’s forecast for what is going to happen tonight. In Texas, more than 4.5 million have already voted. And while Democrats are holding onto a narrow lead nationwide over Republicans, the GOP turnout is leading in key states like Arizona and Florida. One important thing to note is that early voting data can only show who voted, not which party they voted for.
Incumbent president’s parties tend to lose seats in their first midterm election. However, we have seen a narrowing of the enthusiasm gap with Republicans catching up to Democrats since the national disgrace that was the Judge Kavanaugh confirmation process and the unhinged actions by leftist protestors and politicians surrounding it. Republicans tend to turn out more than Democrats. But we have seen a real sense of hysteria hijack the left during these Trump-obsessed times. The biggest question for the Dems is: will that hatred for the president translate to a significant turnout tonight?
Young people will likely do what they always do: act offended, show up to protests, virtue signal on social media, and fail to show up to vote. This helps Republicans immensely as these young Americans tend to exclusively vote Democrat since they haven’t earned enough money or lived long enough to understand what the left really stands for. Nonetheless, some data supports the narrative that Millennials might be waking up and realizing that they need to vote to get what they want. Turnout among voters aged 18 to 29 is up significantly in a few swing states – 400 percent in Georgia and Texas, and more than 700 percent in Tennessee.
Nate Silver, the go-to professional political forecaster, is taking into account the Trump effect after the embarrassment that was the 2016 election for him and his ilk. While his model projects an 80-plus percent chance of Democrats taking back the House, the reality might be closer to 50-50.
“The range of outcomes in the House is really wide,” Silver said to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “Our range, which covers 80 percent of outcomes goes from, on the low end, about 15 Democratic pickups, all the way to low to mid 50s, 52 or 53. Most of those are under 23, which is how many seats they would need to win to take the House. But no one should be surprised if they only win 19 seats and no one should be surprised if they win 51 seats,” Silver added. “Those are both extremely possible, based on how accurate polls are in the real world.”
Basically, no one knows what they hell is going to happen tonight. I’ll be tuned to the TV ready to tell the mainstream media and its leftist political pundits that they were wrong. No matter what happens, not much will change in Washington. The Democrats will move further to the left and blame Trump for everything. Republicans will continue doing nothing about immigration and spending a sh*t ton on our military. But Trump will still be in office. And if the Democrats win the House, get ready for a renewed interest in the Mueller – collusion – Trump takedown investigation and the commencement of impeachment proceedings!
Should make for some great news articles.
Follow me @BobShanahanMan
Bob is a freelance journalist and researcher. He remains forever skeptical of the mainstream media narrative and dedicated to uncovering the truth. Bob writes about politics (in DC and CA), economics, cultural trends, public policy, media, history, real estate, Trump Derangement Syndrome, and geopolitics. Bob grew up in Northern California, went to college in Southern California, and lived 4+ years in Seattle. He now lives in sunny Sacramento. His writing also appears in Citizen Truth and has been posted on ZeroHedge and Signs of the Times.