Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight points out the obvious conclusion from the House Democratic ‘Wave’ election and the weak US Senate wins for Republicans…
Looking at the vote demographics and size of the midterm vote ?
Silver points to problems for a guy who lost the popular vote in 2016 and his party lost the overall House vote across the country two weeks ago in an ever widening footprint…
You get elected President NOT by the popular vote…But by winning House districts in states….
Democrats cleaned up in House districts across the country ….Owning California , stole House races in the MidWest and the Sunbelt and even made gains in Texas….
On top of this?
They filliped several House Republican seats gained just two years ago under trump’s win….
Donald Trump has managed to lose suburban women, voters of color, women and even some GOP voters with his bombastic and insulting off the wall rants and polity pursuits….
Silver points out that absent a course correct back to the political middle and act clean up?
He could be what some of hope and feel he will be…
A one term wonder….
…presidents such as Reagan, Clinton and Obama, who recovered to win re-election after difficult midterms, didn’t do it without making some adjustments. Both Reagan and Clinton took a more explicitly bipartisan approach after their midterm losses. Obama at least acknowledged the scope of his defeat, owning up to his “shellacking” after 2010, although an initially bipartisan tone in 2011 had given way to a more combative approach by 2012. All three presidents also benefited from recovering economies — and although the economy is very strong now, there is arguably more downside than upside for Trump (voters have high expectations, but growth is more likely than not to slow a bit).
Trump’s political instincts, as strong as they are in certain ways, may also be miscalibrated. Trump would hate to acknowledge it, but he got most of the breaks in the 2016 election. He ran against a highly unpopular opponent in Clinton and benefited from the Comey letter in the campaign’s final days. He won the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote — an advantage that may or may not carry over to 2020, depending on whether voters in the Midwest are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt again. Meanwhile, this year’s midterms — as well as the various congressional special elections that were contested this year and last year — were fought largely on red turf, especially in the Senate, where Trump may well have helped Republican candidates in states such as Indiana and North Dakota. The Republican play-to-the-base strategy was a disaster in the elections in Virginia in 2017 and in most swing states and suburban congressional districts this year, however.
At the least, odds are that Trump needs a course-correction, and it’s anyone’s guess as to whether he’ll be willing to take one. While there’s some speculation that Trump could move in a more bipartisan direction, that hasn’t really been apparent yet in his actions since the midterms, or at least not on a consistent basis. Instead, he’s spent the first fortnight after the midterms firing his attorney general, implying that Democrats were trying to steal elections in Florida, and bragging about how he’d give himself an A-plus rating as president. The next two years will less be a test of Trump’s willpower than one of his dexterity and even his humility — not qualities he’s been known to have in great measure….
Note…
Things COULD get so bad after Mueller does his throw down and Trump keeps doing stupid things that Trump could get primaried, forcing him to divert from a straight shot at Democrats come early 2020….
Maybe the guy will just give up and quit?
image…Time Magazine