07 Nov 2018

Digging the trenches. The US mid-term elections will usher in an even more brutal two years

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A week that marks the centenary of the end of one enormous conflict may have also, in terms of American domestic politics, created the conditions necessary for even more rough and sustained battle between now and the presidential contest of 2020.

Although final numbers are not yet in, and in some states may take some time to secure, it seems clear that the Democrats have retaken the House of Representatives and the Republicans have retained the Senate. This has appeared the most probable result for several months now. What was far less obvious was whether the Democratic advance in the House would be of the order of 25-30 seats, a performance which would only be a little better than the recent historical norm for such elections, and which would be vulnerable to a reversal in 2020 if Donald Trump won a second term, or whether it would be a ‘wave’ involving much larger numbers which would render the party confident of its prospects of seizing back the White House in 2020 or at least maintaining command of the House of Representatives if it did not.

Similarly, in the Senate the question was less whether the Republicans would keep a majority but whether their edge would be extremely narrow (50-52 seats), which would mean that they could afford little internal dissent in a chamber famed for a lack of conformity among its membership, or whether they could open a slightly larger advantage and hence have more options for its leadership.

With a few more votes to be counted, the answer to that question is essentially settled. The House has fallen to the Democrats but their anticipated net advance looks to be around 30 seats, which is to the lower to middle end of their private expectations. The Senate remains in Republican hands, with that party taking an extra two to four seats, which is more to the middle to upper end of private hopes.

That a Democratic House and a Republican Senate could be the end result might strike many outside of the United States as strange. In fact, it is entirely the logical result of constitutional and political norms. The whole of the House of Representatives is elected every two years. While the personal appeal and characteristics of candidates, especially the incumbent congressman or congresswoman, are more relevant than would be the case in a UK election to the House of Commons, the approval ratings of the sitting President are a significant element in mid-term elections, notably in the middle of a first presidential term.

As Mr Trump has rarely moved above an average of around 42-43% in terms of his approval score, and furthermore has proved such a polarising figure, it was assumed that this would translate into a disproportionately high Democratic turnout. Reinforcing this, a House election of this form could be seen as a straight ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote on the occupant of the Oval Office without the complicating element of having to select an alternative to serve as President.

The blow was softened for the Republicans by the consistent tendency of mid-term elections to witness lower overall turnouts than those held in presidential years and for those core voters to be more white, affluent, conservative, religious and rural than the average American elector. Despite this, by contemporary standards, the turnout in 2018 was high which was destined to be bad for Mr Trump.

The Senate is a different creature. In any election only one-third of its membership (who serve six year terms) plus any ‘special elections’ (the US version of UK by-elections) are on the ballot. The overwhelming majority of those seeking another term this time were last elected in 2012 and in some cases 2006. These were both very good years or ‘vintages’ for the Democrats. Mr Trump’s opponents were thus defending by far the larger number of seats yesterday which meant that their capacity to increase their numbers by winning states held by their Republican opponents was extremely limited.

That space was eroded further still by the geography of where those few Republican states were, namely almost entirely in the south and south west of the United States, which with a few exceptions has become a Republican stronghold in almost all circumstances.

So, while the Republicans had to fend off the Democrats in states such as Arizona, Tennessee and Texas which they would ordinarily regard as sympathetic territory, the Democrats in the Senate had to hold on in states such as Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia, all of which went heavily for Mr Trump in 2016. They also had to combat extremely well-funded Republicans in Florida (where the outgoing Governor ran against them) and in New Jersey (where their senator had a series of corruption allegations against him). They also faced a spirited fight in Michigan and Ohio. The net effect of all this is that the Republicans performed well and almost swept all the close races.

Trump and the House

Whatever platitudes about working together might be expressed in the next few days, this will be conflict on a scale never seen before in American politics. Scorched earth does not begin to describe it. Mr Trump will make it his central mission in life to pin the blame for anything that a section of the electorate might not like on the Democratic majority in the House, and in particular on the person of Nancy Pelosi, the veteran Democratic leader and Californian liberal who is the head of that caucus.

Such is the venom which the White House is capable of mobilizing, and such are Democratic fears that Ms Pelosi might prove incapable of avoiding the damage heading her way, that some still hope she can be convinced (or obliged) not to assume the role of Speaker of the House and make way for an individual who it would be harder for Mr Trump to turn into a poster child for public discontent.

The chances of any notable legislation being enacted are close to zero and clashes over levels of tax and spending are inevitable. The uncertain element is how hard the Democrats will look to revisit accusations of improper collaboration between elements of the Trump campaign and agents of the Russian state in 2016 and that in turn will depend on precisely what Robert Mueller’s report into that saga says when it is released shortly. If it offers any kind of window of opportunity to go after the President or his inner circle of family and supporters, House Democrats will probably take it.

Trump and the Senate

In a sense, other than the risk of his enemies running multiple investigations in to his activities, the loss of the House means less to Mr Trump than might be thought. His signature issue is the economy and his principal achievement in that regard, the tax cut package of December 2017, is in place and is highly unlikely to be reversed. He may be tempted to press his Senate allies for another tax reform aimed at his core vote of white working class Americans in the confident knowledge that the House leadership will find it difficult to agree with him but awkward to be seen opposing such a measure.

Indeed the loss of the House affords him a fresh alibi for what have been his two main failures as President so far: that he has neither obtained funding for his ‘wall’ nor repealed Obamacare wholesale. Nevertheless, defeat in the House will oblige the President to place more weight on policy areas in which the Senate is dominant to maximise Republican control over that chamber to his personal political advantage.

In that light, a fresh drive to appoint conservatives throughout the lower ranks of the federal judiciary can be anticipated, and the longest serving of the conservatives on the Supreme Court – Clarence Thomas – although young by the standards of that institution (he is 70), might be nudged to retire next year to allow Mr Trump to replace him with someone of a similar ideological inclination (but younger) to further buttress the new majority on the court.

The Senate is also more influential on foreign affairs than the House (although most of its members on both sides are more internationalist than Mr Trump by instinct). The President can be expected to turn up the volume even louder on foreign policy, blending a unilateralist and isolationist tone on most issues (notably the inadequate defence spending of allies and trade wars) with his curiously exceptional attempt at seeking a settlement with the North Korean regime. This will all largely be as much about positioning himself for his re-election bid in 2020 as the substance of the matters.

2020 already?

And 2020 starts now. These results allow each side to consider victory two years hence as credible. Even allowing for the seemingly permanent status of electioneering in the United States, the 2020 campaign will be up and running incredibly early.

The pressure on aspiring Democratic candidates to declare early to end any debate about their intentions will be intense. For most of them, such a strategy is compelling anyway because their national profile is so modest. An exception to that is ex-Vice President Biden but he may have to declare his hand sooner than he might wish in the hope of warding off some of the younger competition and imposing himself as a front runner.

In the short-term, Mr Trump’s priority will be to appeal to the Republican base so forcefully that any possible internal challenger to him in the primaries decides not to bother challenging him in that contest. That will leave him free to turn what truly will be fire and fury onto the Democratic candidate. Three months ago (8 August) BVCA Insight looked forward to these elections and asserted that:

“There is a perhaps cynical thesis that the best outcome for Mr Trump is for the Democrats to take the House by a wafer-thin margin… Congress would be gridlocked with one party controlling one chamber and the other party holding the other. The President could spend two years attacking the Democratic leadership in the House for the absence of effective action on any matter whatsoever… It would, in short be the perfect backdrop for a re-election campaign which would also see the House flip back in to Republican hands.”

That thesis is about to be tested.

Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA


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