Thursday, August 23, 2018

A Blue Wave? No.

The left keeps talking about a Blue Wave taking out the GOP and giving them the House. I simply don’t buy it. In fact, all the evidence I see suggests an election with little change. Consider this.

Trump’s approval rating has been sitting at 48% for weeks now, through any number of scandals. The left points to this as proof that Trump is below 50%, but at the same time, this is somewhere around 7% higher than it was when he won. Moreover, it suggests a hardening of support, not a lessening of support.

Next, a CBS pollster, which means he’s no friend of conservatism, worries that the Democrats will not win the House. He notes that the level of support is remarkably solid/unchanged in the races they look at. What’s more, he notes that the Democratic strategy relies on them turning out two groups who historically haven’t voted in midterms: young women and youths. GOP support, older whites, is solid and intends to turn out.

Further, on the turnout point, I’ve observed before that while the Democrats are sort of winning the turnout numbers in the primaries, (1) there are reasons for this, and (2) they have yet to turn out anything more than average turnout. In other words, it’s not like they normally turn out Y-thousand people but this time turned out 1.5Y-thousand people. To the contrary, in most cases, they didn’t even turn out anywhere near their recent record turnouts. So the enthusiasm isn’t there, nor is there evidence of new voters appearing.

In terms of the reasons Democratic numbers are up in the primary, consider that Democratic primaries tend to be disputed whereas Republican incumbents don’t need to turn out to win. Also, the Democrats are going through a civil war, with progressives/socialists versus “moderates.” So again, they have more reason to turn out in the primaries... but this does NOT carry over into the general election.

On the idea of attracting women, there are a couple problems:
(1) Single women don’t turn out as well as other groups.

(2) Liberal women are currently largely demoralized by the collapse of all these supposed women’s movements. The Women’s Anti-Trump March died the moment they dropped their signs and headed to Starbucks. The #metoo Movement (which never left Hollywood) has imploded into a total route with their leaders now engaging in open hypocrisy and turning on each other, and all the progress feminists had made being undone by due process. In fact, almost every man who faced any punishment is essentially back in business. The “Year of the Woman” remains a dud – the only “women” who matter are Pelosi, Warren, Waters and Hillary, a group of ancient, out-of-touch, dementia ridden losers. Even the cute, inspiring socialist chick turned out to be a moron whose politics are the kiss of death. There isn’t even a platform to draw women in.

(3) Add to this that the Religious Right has been strangely silent and Trump has stopped saying sexist things, and there just isn’t a motivator for young, single women to turn out.

(4) Also, despite talk of women turning against Trump, the gender gap doesn’t support this. The Washington Post poll has a gender gap of 10%. This is supposed to be evidence that Trump is unusually bad with women. But Reagan’s gender gap was 6%, Bush Sr. gender gap was 15%. W Bush’s gap was 7%. Moreover, if we believe the polls, Trump’s gap against Hillary was supposed to be 18% in 2016, but really turned out to be 12%. So a 10% gap means he’s improved and is just about the same as Reagan and W Bush. (Romney was 11%.) Keep in mind too, all of this is after the full-court press to create a women’s movement and make it unacceptable for women to support him.
On the idea of attracting youth voters, there are a couple problems with that too:
(1) Youth never vote.

(2) Youth turnout has been disappointing throughout the primaries.

(3) I’ve been watching groups like these Florida kids and David Hogg. He’s a real turd who will turn off a lot more people than he wins over. But even more importantly, despite all the good wishes the left could offer and a professional team that rivals any campaign, these kids have managed nothing. They have turned out no one. What’s more, they aren’t even trying to help the Democrats. Hogg and the others are running around arguing for some sort of youth uprising to get rid of “old ass parents” and the such. Beyond this, there is no issue to turn out youths. They didn’t even turn out to support the socialist chick... they’ve all but abandoned Bernie too because he’s old, rich and too timid.

The youth “movement” is more of a young communist movement and it has failed to show any evidence whatsoever that it’s inspired any youth to turn out.
What’s more, the issues the left is running on are failing to excite anyone: a $15 minimum wage does not attract low-level professionals, it offends them... proponents of Medicare for all have been getting whacked in the primaries and need to explain the $32 trillion cost... “we can put a woman in charge” didn’t work for Hillary, and won’t work when there is no woman to rally around... Trump’s environmental policies “aren’t as bad as I expected” (an Al Gore quote) doesn’t scare people... peace with North Korea kind of neuters the “he’s dangerous” line... his Supreme Court pick seems really normal. And so on. None of this turns out new people.

Add all this up and I see no evidence of a Blue Wave. The Democrats haven’t increased their turnout beyond normal levels. Their plan requires them to turn out people who are politically lazy, demoralized by the failure of their naive idealism, and generally want others to “do something” for them. Add in that Trump’s support seems solid and seems to grow stronger as the left attacks. Finally, incumbents have huge advantages, including gerrymandering. All that suggests there's just no blue wave coming.

Thoughts?

22 comments:

tryanmax said...

Hey, Andrew, don't take the audience silence as disagreement. Your article on the Blue Swirl is so on-point, it's hard to add to.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks tryanmax. I thought the image was particularly appropriate! LOL!

You know, it's hard to predict what will happen, but I just don't see any of the evidence that would suggest that some sort of wave is coming. Usually, you see lots of signs before something like that happens.

Anonymous said...

"All that suggests there's just no blue wave coming.Thoughts?"
I hope not.
GypsyTyger

Tennessee Jed said...

I hope you are correct. Typically, the party out of power is more energized. The Hollywood money is helping with funds, and R's have more seats to defend. But, who knows? As you say, hard to predict. I would love R's holding the House. My issues remain 1) securing the border and stopping illegal flow of future Democrats, and appointing as many strict constructionists to the bench

AndrewPrice said...

GypsyTyger, I hope not too. But either way, I don't see an evidence for it right now.

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, The Dems have in their favor:

1. The out of power party is normally more energized. Although, it seems they blew a lot of energy on prior movements and failed anti-Trump stuff. Moreover, they have energized Trump supporters, though maybe not the entire GOP.

2. The GOP is divided on Trump and the anti-Trumps will push hard to help the Dems.

3. The Dems are great at voter fraud. That makes close races dangerous.

4. The Dems are awash in billionaire and Hollywood money.

5. They are defending fewer seats.

6. The GOP has a lot of retirements, crazies and corrupt candidates. That's bad.

In the end though, this looks like a hard fought 50-50 election with gerrymandering making the difference.

AndrewPrice said...

As an aside, the CDC doesn't know what it's missing watching Africa for killer diseases. They should check out Middle School. That's some weapon's grade death bugs for ya.

tryanmax said...

Something else to consider: Democrats no longer have access to Clinton Foundation money, Weinstein money, or AFSCME money. Additionally, George Soros said that he "ran into a brick wall" trying to place district attorneys in California.

AndrewPrice said...

You know what's interesting, is in the past week or two, various leftists have straight up attacked people like Jeff Besos and Bill Gates for failing to donate more to the left than they do. It feels concerted and it might be an attempt to replace the lost money you mention.

You hear little about fundraising, which could be because the MSM doesn't like to report bad news for Democrats. Of course, at the same time, the DNC is in utter disgrace after the Sanders v. Clinton issue, the destruction of Wasserman-Schulz, the domestic issues of Keith Ellison they are trying to hush up, and the feud between old-ass Pelosi and a group of Democrats who see her as an albatross around their necks. So maybe they aren't doing much fundraising at the moment. Not sure.

Anthony said...

I'd say Trump's big midterm hope is he has failed to slaughter any sacred liberal cows (not much surprises me but I would have lost money on the survival of Obamacare). Outrages over such gorings have played a large role in midterm sweeps.

It helps Trump that his big legislative accomplishment is tax cuts (which doesn't really bother anyone so long as they aren't 'paid for'). On a related note as one would expect from a populist he has continued the trends of amassing executive power and spending ever larger sums of money.

On those grounds I say the Republicans can reasonably expect to do well. However, I am going to go out on a limb and predict a narrow loss of both chambers.

In 2016 Trump narrowly beat Hillary because she uncharacteristically chased him out of headlines in the weeks right before the election due to her fall and classified material turning up into an investigation into solicitation of a minor.

I predicted it before it happened and I stand by my theory that Trump and Hillary had a sort of reverse musical chairs going on. Now while there are a lot of Democratic nutjobs and incompetents its not clear any of them are going to successfully drag the spotlight off of Trump the same way Hillary did. I expect interesting things to happen soon. Sounds like the firing of Sessions is imminent. That wouldn't shake support for Trump (like Marion Barry and Bill Clinton, loveable rogues don't lose personal support by being roguish) but it could energize Dems.

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, I think there is something to staying out of the news and right now both sides seem to be doing their best to disappear.

Trump is at a bit of a handicap in that because he's an idiot and he's surrounded himself with people like Omarossa, who is obsessed with destroying him. But even so, I think the public is immune to most of his eruptions as long as he gets into policy. He's also lucky that his enemies just can't stop obsessing at full volume, which seems to be keeping Trump's supporters energized.

(As an aside, it wouldn't surprise me if Mueller is planning to announce an indictment the day before the election to get Trump -- which will completely backfire.)

In terms of win or loss, it seems that everyone has decided the Senate won't flip, but a lot of people think the House will. I think they are underestimating gerrymandering, but we'll see.

Little would surprise me except a wave in either direction. I think it's going to be a long night.

AndrewPrice said...

John McCain is dead. As a human, I wish him peace. But beyond that, I am no fan. I will leave it at that.

Anonymous said...

I won't miss him. His war service was heroic but he dined out on that for the rest of his life. One of the greatest moments of the 2016 election for me was when Trump said "i prefer war heroes who don't get shot down." Now on it's face that's a vulgar remark. But what made it great was the context in which it was delivered. Trump ripped up McCain's free pass card right in his face in front of the whole country. To be blunt, I've always considered McCain to be an asshole and now he's dead. I won't belabor it but I wanted to get that off my chest.
GypsyTyger

AndrewPrice said...

GypsyTyger, I feel the same. His service may have been heroic, but he's done his best to betray conservatism ever since I can remember... and he was an ass about it. There's a reason he was the media's go-to guy for criticism about conservatives.

Anthony said...

Given that McCain (a celeb famous before entering politics and loved in certain quarters for his willingness to provide incendiary but predictable quotes) has feuded with the talk radio wing of his party in general and Trump in particular for years its unsurprising reaction to his death in those quarters has been restrained.

I confess I did laugh when Kelli Ward (a Pizzagater running for McCain's seat) accused his family of timing the announcement of his impending death to inconvenience her campaign. Truly we live in bitter times.

Anthony said...

OT, but I see a Milk Board (and lots of other price controls) in America's future.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/08/24/dairy-farm-turns-to-gofundme-for-survival.html

Dale Cihlar, a fourth generation dairy farmer and grandfather of nine grandkids, had reached a new low – with several prized dairy cows dying, the price of milk plummeting, and another $1,600 monthly payment for the manure storage system the county required them to install. So he and his wife Karen were pressed to take out a loan.

When Dale and Karen went to take out a $35,000 loan to purchase half a herd of cows from a fellow farmer who was going out of business, they were denied time and time again because of projected milk prices. But the last banker they talked to gave Karen an idea.

“The last one said to me to do what you have to do and don’t worry about what others think, so that night I did the GoFundMe page,” Karen told Fox News, adding she didn’t know what to expect but put it in God’s hands.

----------
Over the past year, the state known as “America’s Dairyland” has lost 500 dairy farms, according to the State Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, and something Dale has seen firsthand.
“When I first started dairying in the 1980s there were 13 farms and we’re down to four farms now,” Dale said. “There’s a lot of empty barns.”
While Governor Scott Walker convened a task force to help address the problem, Dale said he believes the price of milk is more of a federal problem that needs a federal solution.

Rustbelt said...

And in the world of truly unfortunate loss, Neil Simon has passed away. 91 years young.

I remember when my English class read "Come Blow Your Horn" back in 11th grade. Laughed so hard it hurt.

R.I.P.

Critch said...

It seems like Mexico is coming around on the trade deals...

AndrewPrice said...

Hi everybody. Sorry there's not article. I seem to have the middle school plague. I'm hoping to be able to write something tomorrow.

Unknown said...

I hope you feel better soon, Andrew

tryanmax said...

Don't die. If my 90 year old grandpa can come through gallbladder surgery, you can kick the pubescent plague.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks folks. I is alive... barely. Apparently, half the town is down with this stuff according to my pharmacist. This was rough stuff.

I'll get some articles done soon.

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