Winning by losing? Will Trump and Republicans retain the House in November? Do they want to?

Politics might seem deadly quiet across most of Europe right now but in the United States it is not. The Republicans appear to have narrowly won a Special Election (by-election in British English) for the House of Representatives in Ohio’s 12th district last night which could serve as a bellwether for the outcome in that chamber as a whole in November.
The focus on the House might seem strange as the party holds the Senate by a very close 51-49 margin, whereas it emerged from the November 2016 elections with a comparatively robust 241-194 majority in the House of Representatives. In any election cycle, however, only one-third of Senate seats are contested. It so happens this year that the vast majority of them involve states which are already held by Democratic incumbents.
It is just about possible that the Democrats could take the Senate by defeating the one Republican who appears vulnerable (in Nevada), and the one seat where a serving Republican is standing down and the race to succeed him seems competitive (Arizona), and then hold on everywhere else including races that look exceptionally awkward for the party (such as in Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota and West Virginia – all states which Donald Trump carried against Hillary Clinton).
There are, though, not many people who are not on the Democratic National Committee payroll who would swear hand-on-heart that they think this will happen. The most likely outcome is that the Republicans will make a modest addition to their lead in the Senate when the votes are counted.
That makes the House of Representatives central to the action, although there are also contests occurring in the majority of states to be Governor and for the state legislatures of said states (every one, bar the curious unicameral Nebraska, has a lower and an upper chamber). The stakes are high as a Democratic victory in the House would effectively end the chances of the President moving any more of his agenda through Congress this side of the 2020 elections and it would allow his rivals to exploit the authority of having a House majority to hold even more intrusive hearings into the set of alleged scandals that relate to Mr Trump personally and to his wider administration.
To avoid that happening, Mr Trump has pledged to campaign all but continuously before Election Day. At one stage earlier this year a ‘Blue Wave’ (hence favouring the Democrats) was considered all but a certainty. Most observers would today probably contend that the overall result is too close to call.
The case for a Democratic victory
The logic behind an outright Democratic win is still a strong one. The party of the President usually loses seats in the second year of their first term (and indeed the second year of a second term). The exceptions to this have been very rare indeed (Bill Clinton in 1998 and George W. Bush in 2002). The average loss is about 25 seats, which is almost exactly what the Democrats need to secure this time. Furthermore, in recent times landslide elections have become more common with the Democrats benefiting from one in 2006 and the Republicans doing well in 2010 (spectacularly) and in 2014. On this basis, it could be argued that the failure of the Democrats to take the House would be damning.
This is compounded by the President’s somewhat underwhelming approval ratings. His average is about 42%, which is strikingly low for a President at this stage of their tenure, although it should be remembered that his approval score on the day he was elected was only 36% which meant that fully one in ten of those who cast ballots in November 2016 endorsed Mr Trump even though they stated that they disapproved of him, presumably because they found Mrs Clinton even harder to swallow.
Not only that, an unprecedented level of Democrats do not merely disapprove of Mr Trump, they absolutely hate him and are deeply embarrassed that he is the President of their country. To the extent that in 2018 the House elections can be seen as a referendum on the President and not, as in 2016, an unpalatable choice between two deeply polarising figures, the Democrats should triumph.
Finally, there is an important detail of the House elections themselves. It is far easier to win a seat where the serving member is not standing for re-election (‘open’ seats in the argot) than where a sitting member, who has high name recognition and might be personally more popular than the President, has to be ejected. In 2018, only 18 Democrats are retiring from the House (either to leave politics altogether or seek a different office) whereas a much higher 36 Republicans are out.
The case for the Republicans holding the House
There is, nonetheless, an entirely respectable case for the Republicans losing seats but clinging on. It rests, first, on the fact that turnout in mid-term elections is always considerably lower than in a race where the White House is at stake.
The participation rate will be around 35% to 40%. The lower it is then, as a rule, the better that is for the Republicans. The average habitual mid-term active elector is older than the normal American, wealthier than the normal American, more white than the nation as a whole, more likely to be religious than their fellow citizens and more conservative than usual. At least four of those five factors help Mr Trump and his fellow Republicans (interestingly, it is wealth that is the potential rogue element, as Mr Trump does better among poorer whites than richer ones). So, the functional electorate, rather than the theoretical one, is likely to have a Republican bias to it.
Added to this, the economy, always an overwhelmingly important factor in American elections, is in strong shape at present with pronounced real wage growth being assisted by the large tax cuts that were passed by Congress at the behest of the President at the end of last year. This more than any other element has convinced Republicans that they can pull off an improbable hold of the House.
Finally, the ‘enthusiasm gap’ is obviously closing. Republican approval of Mr Trump is strong and becoming stronger. This is reinforced by a deliberate strategy at his end at throwing red meat to his supporters to pump them up and ensure that they bother to visit a polling station in November.
Every action, even every tweet, to emerge from the Oval Office of late has this consideration in mind. It explains the approach to his Supreme Court nomination, revisiting the immigration issue and the much fabled ‘wall’ and even the tariffs being directed against China and others. These are all positions that delight the Trump base and which may mean that those who favour Mr Trump are no less likely to vote than those who utterly detest him.
As an extra twist, many of the millions of Trump-haters may turn out to live in the wrong sort of congressional districts, ones such as those in California and New York that the Democrats already control, not marginal seats in the Midwest.
Winning by losing?
These evenly balanced arguments suggest a close race in which the likely range runs from 225-210 for the Republicans to the same numbers but with the Democrats on top.
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 (say 220-215 seats). The very liberal and not wildly popular Californian Nancy Pelosi would probably be the Speaker of the House (although she might face a challenge for that role). Congress would be gridlocked with one party controlling one chamber and the other party holding the other. The President could spend two years brutally attacking the Democrat leadership in the House for the absence of effective action on any matter whatsoever. He would propose all manner of outrageously populist initiatives confident that there was no chance whatsoever of the measures being enacted. The loyalty of the Republican base would be enhanced, on past form the impact on the economy would be minimal and the chances of the Democrats nominating a liberal woman from either the west or east coast (ideal from a Republican viewpoint), which is already high anyway, would become yet more plausible.
It would, in short, be the perfect backdrop for a re-election campaign which would also see the House flip back into Republican hands in 2020. Better that, in many respects, than the Republicans scraping home by 220-215 seats in the House but in practice unable to legislate. The ‘art of the deal’ in this case might suggest a short-term setback to seize a long-term advantage.
Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA