2018 Elections

In 2018 the midterm elections for the House of Representatives and Senate will happen. Who do you think will gain seats?

I definitely think the Democrats are gonna give the republicans a run for their money. However, there are a few factors that I think are hindering them from winning

1. They still haven't learned their lesson that neoliberalism is no longer popular for either liberals or conservatives, and they need to change that in order to get the vote from the working class and youth. Socially liberal while still being pro-corporations and free trade isn't gonna cut it anymore, as we saw in the 2016 election

2. Republicans have gerrymandered a ton of districts, which severely reduces the power the democrats have in taking seats. A real miracle needs to happen for them to break through this and an extreme turnout for the Democrats needs to happen if they have any hope in winning.

Make no mistake, the Republicans are the weakest they've been in years and Trump himself is only making it worse, but I think they will still remain the majority party. But they will definitely be in a more precarious situation after and will have much more trouble passing laws. I think by 2020 it could be possible for the Democrats to win if they can deal with the 2 issues I just brought up.

Mr Trolldemort wrote:I definitely think the Democrats are gonna give the republicans a run for their money.  However, there are a few factors that I think are hindering them from winning

1.  They still haven't learned their lesson that neoliberalism is no longer popular for either liberals or conservatives, and they need to change that in order to get the vote from the working class and youth.  Socially liberal while still being pro-corporations and free trade isn't gonna cut it anymore, as we saw in the 2016 election

2.  Republicans have gerrymandered a ton of districts, which severely reduces the power the democrats have in taking seats.  A real miracle needs to happen for them to break through this and an extreme turnout for the Democrats needs to happen if they have any hope in winning.

Make no mistake, the Republicans are the weakest they've been in years and Trump himself is only making it worse, but I think they will still remain the majority party.  But they will definitely be in a more precarious situation after and will have much more trouble passing laws.  I think by 2020 it could be possible for the Democrats to win if they can deal with the 2 issues I just brought up.

I agree with the two reasons that you made but I disagree that the Democrats will give the republicans a run for their money. The leadership of the DNC is incompetent even when compared to Trump, they are terrible at spending their campaign fund (Hillary outspent Trump and the Democrats outspent the Republicans in the Georgian Special Election and still lost) and for some reason they decided to have Hillary the person that lost to Trump to help them in the 2018 elections (it would be like putting John McCain in charge of defeating Obama)

I Like The Holocaust wrote:

I agree with the two reasons that you made but I disagree that the Democrats will give the republicans a run for their money. The leadership of the DNC is incompetent even when compared to Trump, they are terrible at spending their campaign fund (Hillary outspent Trump and the Democrats outspent the Republicans in the Georgian Special Election and still lost) and for some reason they decided to have Hillary the person that lost to Trump to help them in the 2018 elections (it would be like putting John McCain in charge of defeating Obama)    

I've never believed in money being the biggest factor in winning elections, especially in the highly polarized environment the US is in today. And yes, I agree with you in that the DNC is also quite incompetent. I think that the sheer hatred a lot of people have with Trump is giving them a huge boost than they normally would, which is probably why they aren't trying to shift to the left and banking on that will be enough, but I highly doubt they will win without some change.

Democrats are my prediction to gain seats. I'm skeptical whether or not they can get a majority though.

I don't see the Dems gaining control of the of either chamber for a few reasons.

1). They have a tough, tough map for the Senate. Almost every GOP seat going up is safe, and there are tons of Dem seats going up, many of which are in states Trump flipped. (23 of 33 seats going up are Dems.) It actually looks like the GOP will even pick up a few seats.

2). The current Dem message is "Trump is a bad man, and we need to save Obamacare." This is the exact same message they had in the 2016 elections. It didn't work, and even now, the Dems have no real agenda other than "Stop Trump." Sure, it tells me why I shouldn't vote for the GOP. But it doesn't tell me why to vote for the Dems.

3). Trump has already laid several giant, solid eggs of f**k, and nothing about the midterm prospects has really changed. A lot can happen in the next year, but a lot has already happened, too.

4). The House map looks a lot riskier for the GOP, but the district lines are already drawn in their favor. The Dems will definitely pick up seats, but they probably won't get a majority.

5). Dems are really bad at turning out for midterms. 2014 demonstrated this quite clearly when Obama finally lost control of both chambers.

6). The DNC sucks at handling elections, and they almost certainly haven't learned their lesson. 2014 and 2016 both showed how terrible their ground game is, and they still have a bad habit of not putting competitors in every district. As FiveThirtyEight writes, "In 2016, Democrats didn’t even field a candidate in 29 districts, including in Republican Rep. Pete Sessions’s district in Texas, even as Hillary Clinton beat Trump there."

7). The Dems have a bad habit of getting cocky. Hillary got very passive in the final months of the campaign after several tidal waves of awful hit Trump's campaign, and she probably lost because of it. The Dems don't seem to have learned their lesson on this. They're looking at Trump's approval ratings and expecting automatic wins. They don't seem ready or willing to do the work.

8. The GOP is more popular than Trump. Almost all of our famous Republicans (McCain, Rubio, Ryan, etc.) won their seats by much greater margins than Trump. They went into 2016 with a historically unpopular candidate and came out with minimal losses. They can do it again.

(My prediction: Dems lose at least one seat in the Senate, probably more. They gain at least three in the House.)