Overwhelmingly, voters who identify as Democrats vote for Democratic Party candidates-- even for candidates for the Republican wing of the Party (Blue Dogs and New Dems)-- and the rapidly shrinking number of voters who identify as Republicans vote for Republicans-- whether mainstream conservatives or neo-fascists and, presumably, Trumpists. So... more than ever, it is independents who will determine who wins the midterms. And guess who the independents can't stand? Yes, Trump... and Trump enablers.Take Wisconsin. Paul Ryan has bowed out of contention with as much grace as he could muster before being taken down by a union iron worker, saving, he hopes, his future political career. Focus groups showed he had irretrievably lost the respect of WI-01 independent voters. But the Randy Bryce congressional race isn't the only one with national import in the state. Remember Governor Walker? Monday morning, Politico reported that his goose is cooked... by the same independent voters who plan to vote for Randy Bryce and Tammy Baldwin. "There’s every reason to believe this is the beginning of the end for Scott Walker. His presidential bid crashed and burned. He’s running for a third term as governor in what figures to be a hostile midterm for the Republican Party. Polling shows that the independent voters who were so critical to Walker’s wins in the 2012 recall and 2014 reelection are breaking away from him... His opponent, Schools Superintendent Tony Evers, has a slight lead in recent polls and there’s evidence that critical suburban voters are shifting leftward."
“I don’t think this is about Democratic enthusiasm in Madison and Milwaukee, it’s about Democratic enthusiasm and a backlash to Trump and Walker everywhere in Wisconsin,” said Sachin Chheda, a Democratic strategist and former Milwaukee County party chair.Chheda points to “a massive shift to the left” in what was once solid Walker territory-- including special elections in Green Bay’s Brown County and in the Twin Cities suburbs in St. Croix County.Democrats also cite three public polls in recent weeks-- NBC/Marist, Marquette and Suffolk/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel-- show independent voters are breaking from Walker, a daunting signal given that the state is almost evenly split politically, making them an essential part of the governor’s path to victory.“What all of those polls said is that independents are going for Evers over Walker by 10 points. Walker has generally won independents when he’s gotten to victory,” Chheda said.While Walker is expected to again win the vote-rich, GOP suburban counties outside of Milwaukee-- he dominates in the so-called “WOW” counties where turnout is high-- Chheda said if Democrats can nibble at the margins, it would make it much more difficult for Walker to win statewide.The Trump factor could play a role in those suburbs. Even Republicans admit Trump’s unfiltered rants on social media and a slew of scandals hitting his inner circle could prompt GOP voters to stay home in November, including those heartened by Trump’s policies on immigration and taxes.
Sunday night Jonathan Swan lit up the internet with a simple statement at Axios that "it's rare to see so much evidence of a trend accumulate so many months out, only for all the signals to be proven wrong... 'Every metric leads you to one conclusion: The likelihood of significant Republican losses in the House and state/local level is increasing by the week,' said the Republican operative who did this statistical comparison to 2010. 'The depth of losses could be much greater than anticipated and the Senate majority might be in greater peril than anticipated.'"This is all about independent voters. Julie Pace, reporting for AP, noted that "Republicans have spent the primary season anxiously watching suburban voters, particularly women, peel away because of their disdain for Trump. The shift seems likely to cost the party in several key congressional races. Still, party leaders are optimistic that Republicans can keep control of the Senate, which could help insulate Trump from a raft of Democratic investigations."
History is not on Trump’s side. The president’s party typically suffers big losses in the first midterm election after taking office. And despite a strong economy, Republicans must also contend with the president’s sagging approval rating and the constant swirl of controversy hanging over the White House, including special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe into Russian election interference and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.Despite those headwinds, Trump is betting on himself this fall. He’s thrust himself into the center of the campaign and believes he can ramp up turnout among his ardent supporters and offset a wave of Democratic enthusiasm. Aides say he’ll spend much of the fall holding rallies in swing states.“The great unknown is whether the president can mobilize his base to meet the enthusiasm gap that is clearly presented at this point,” said Josh Holmes, a longtime adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “Because the middle won’t be there for Republicans.”Indeed, Trump’s turbulent summer appears to have put many moderates and independents out of reach for Republican candidates, according to GOP officials. One internal GOP poll obtained by The Associated Press showed Trump’s approval rating among independents in congressional battleground districts dropped 10 points between June and August.“The great unknown is whether the president can mobilize his base to meet the enthusiasm gap that is clearly presented at this point. Because the middle won’t be there for Republicans.”A GOP official who oversaw the survey attributed the drop to negative views of Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the White House’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. The official was not authorized to discuss the internal polling publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.Those declines put several incumbent GOP lawmakers at risk, including Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock, who represents a district in the Washington suburbs, and Rep. Erik Paulsen, whose suburban Minneapolis district has been in Republican hands since 1961.
Coincidentally, the NY Times took an in-depth look at how the Paulsen race in Minnesota is shaping up. Short answer: very, very badly for the GOP.88% of Democrats are planning to vote for Dean Phillips, an exceptionally bad candidate from the Republican wing of the party, a rich, out-of-touch New Dem who will make an absolutely horrible member of Congress. 92% of Republicans plan to vote for Paulsen, who has already proven himself a horrible member of Congress and a repulsive Trump toadie and rubber-stamp. So why is Phillips so decisively ahead? There are more independents in the district than Republicans and they've swung to Phillips-- 53-40%. That's it. BOOM! And that tells us more than just about one district in the suburbs that wrap around Minneapolis from the west, north and south. Independent voters are not a factor in much of the Old Confederacy. But in the rest of the country... their disdain for Trump is going to be very bad news for the Republican Party 2 months from today.
