Op-Ed: No one really has any clue about what’s going to happen in the midterms.
From a voter perspective, Republicans will continue to be unpopular, and only the most delusional can imagine a Democratic resurgence and a blue wave winning the House and Senate. A wave is not happening and the blue wave, even with a blue wave of the right kind, is very much a myth.
However, even the most anti-Democrat, anti-Trump Republicans will not be able to completely crush the Democratic campaign infrastructure, even if they wanted to. They have to make do with just enough votes to win, and the chances of that happening are extremely slim.
When the campaign spending began in 2010, the GOP had a small, but not insignificant, advantage, that was quickly overwhelmed with more than $600 million in outside spending and campaign financing. Now, the balance of advantage in the midterm elections are in the Democratic hands, which means Republicans will have to spend much more money trying to maintain or gain momentum, as well as make many more campaign announcements for their candidates in swing districts.
The party base is not getting behind any of the candidates, and in some districts, there is not a single House Republican who is willing to go on Fox News to endorse their party’s congressional candidate. The base is exhausted, as it seemed in the summer of 2018 but is more pronounced today. It’s not due to Democratic anger or anger with Trump. When he began to lose ground with his base, he lost his base.
There is now a small, but significant, group of Republicans who are more interested in protecting Trump that are willing to put money into their congressional campaigns, despite the risk of alienating their base. They say it is because of a growing discontent with the Trump administration and the Republican party platform, but the base is not satisfied with the Republican agenda, and the Trump base is not satisfied with the Republican party agenda, nor is its base.
It’s getting more difficult and costly for the party to take these voters for granted. The base could swing to the other party, but Democrats are more determined than