TRUMP WON 15 HOUSE DISTRICTS IN 2016. AFTER MID-TERMS, GOP WILL NOW HOLD JUST THREE

…The Trump Mid-Term election had major GOP losses across the board

Trump saying that the GOP candidates meant his name was on the ballot, was a very bad strategy

OK, what did we learn from the 2018 mid-term elections?

First, the GOP did add to their very narrow majority in the Senate.  But that addition came by Trump using his rallies to maximize his support in those few solid red states. But this was specifically among his supporters in very rural areas and small-town communities.

On the other side of the equation, that “Trump-centric strategy” backfired overwhelmingly in the race for control of the House.  

This came as the nation’s large suburban voters revolted against the president.  They delivered a total rebuke to his party’s candidates in district after district.  Democrats have gained (so far) 39 seats in the House with the possibility of hitting 40 depending on the outcome of the still uncalled election in California’s 21st District and there's a run-off Senate seat in Mississippi.

If the enthusiasm for Trump in rural and small-town America constituted the story after 2016, the revolt against him in the suburbs, led by female voters, has become the story of the 2018 elections. The more you analyze the House results, the more the GOP’s suburban problem stands out.

There is a way to look at the House mid-terms by the population density of congressional districts.  CityLab breaks down the congressional districts on a continuum of six categories, ranging from “pure rural” to “pure urban.” In between these two absolute categories are four sub-categories of the districts, from less dense to more dense districts.

So, take the 11 most rural districts that were on the competitive lists assembled by the Cook Political Report ahead of the election.  Going into the election, Republicans held nine of the 11. When the new Congress assembles in January, they will still hold eight of the original 11.

The GOP losses in the next category, which is called “suburban-rural districts”, they were also modest. Seven of 19 districts in this group changed parties: five shifting to the Democrats and two to the Republicans. The Republicans had 17 of these districts going into the election and will still end up with either 13 or 14 in the new Congress.

But the damage grows exponentially different in the next two categories. There were 30 districts that were categorized as “suburban-sparse”.  Heading into the election, Republicans held “every one of them”.  But as a result of the election, Democrats will have 16 to the GOP’s 14.

In the 15 districts described as ”suburban-dense”, something similar happened. Republicans held all 15 before the election. In January, they will have control of just 3 districts. In the nine districts categorized as “urban-suburban”, Republicans will go from holding 7, to holding just 1.

Democrats made big gains in 12 districts held by Republicans that were won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Barack Obama in 2012, flipping 9 of them. In another 13 districts won by Clinton in 2016 and by Mitt Romney in 2012, Democrats flipped another 12 districts.

Democrats also converted eight of 12 districts that Trump won in 2016, but that Obama had won in 2012. 

Republicans did better in the districts won by Trump in 2016 and Romney in 2012, which constituted more than half of all the competitive districts, but Democrats still managed to convert nearly a third of them.

California delivered the most significant blow to the Republicans. The Republican party there has been in a long decline, and Trump’s presidency has made things much worse.  Democrats will pick up at least six House seats in California, with a seventh possible. The lone competitive seat that remained in GOP hands was that of Rep. Duncan D. Hunter.  But Hunter is currently under federal indictment for making personal use of his campaign funds, so he may be out anyway.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has closely allied himself with the president. He was also among those who pushed an initiative on the fall ballot for repealing the state gasoline tax increase.  The California legislature approved the tax to fund repairs of state roads and bridges.  Californians are solidly against anyone that is against the gasoline tax that is already showing good signs of improving the conditions of the roads and freeways in California.  (If only the “do nothing US Congress” would pass a national infrastructure bill that would deal with the Federal Interstate Highways.)

The Republican McCarthy had hoped his repeal initiative would spur the Republican turnout and thereby protect some of his party’s endangered seats.  Unfortunately for him, by a 55% majority, the gas tax initiative was totally defeated.  As expected, the California rural voters supported it; the urban voters opposed it.  That vote is a microcosm example of the “urban-rural divide” that is now one of the most defining features of US politics.  (And in the United States, there are many more urban voters than rural voters.)

Republican strategist, Bruce Mehlman, produced a set of charts for analyzing the 2018 election, including one chart showing various fault-lines within the electorate.  They included divisions based on race, age, gender, education and geography.  Whites vs. non-white voters remains the biggest divide of all.  But geography is by far the fastest growing divide, and now the “urban-rural divide” is almost as wide as the divide between “whites and non-whites”.

Craig Gilbert of the Milwaukee Journal found Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who was defeated in his bid for a third term, he lost ground in the 35 most populous counties in Wisconsin, but he gained ground in 16 of the 20 least populous counties.  Given the closeness of the results in this governor’s race, that analysis suggests Trump might still win some states like Wisconsin by running up his margins in those rural areas.  This is probably the strategy Trump will pursue in 2020, as he seeks to hold onto the states that delivered the presidency to him.  However, many of these rural voters are not as sold on Trump as they were in 2016.

Trump’s rhetoric about “America First,” law and order, closing the border and attacks on immigrants, that rhetoric has brought a strong rebuke from massive numbers of voters in the suburbs.  This fall, Republican candidates throughout the country found themselves tethered to Trump, sometimes by choice.  But also sometimes, even when the candidates tried to distance themselves from Trumpism.  In many mid-term races, Trump became the drag that brought them down.

The House will again be up for grabs in 2020.  It is important that about half of the roughly 80 most competitive races were won by only five or less points.  They were split about evenly between the two parties.  For Democrats, to maintain their new majority will require replicating the energy, enthusiasm, pro health care and jobs, plus the anti-Trump fervor that powered them to victory in November.

For Republicans in those suburban districts in Democratic hands, it will mean trying to insulate themselves from that anti-Trump sentiment more successfully than they did in the mid-terms.  

As Trump keeps offering multiple falsehoods as he is stepping on his own private parts on a daily basis, that is no small task.

Copyright G. Ater 2018