2018 Elections: Tide, Wave or Tsunami?
The Hill Correspondent Reid Wilson spoke to State Legislators & Staff on upcoming election predictions.

Wilson, national correspondent for The Hill newspaper, bracketed “wave” with the milder “tide” and the extreme “tsunami” for what voters might produce less than a year from now. Based on the data he shared, Republicans should be prepared to strap on their life jackets.
Wilson said last night’s special U.S. Senate election in Alabama, where Doug Jones became the first Democrat to win a statewide race in 20 years by narrowly defeating Roy Moore, was “a rather unique race.” Jones, he said, was one of the better candidates Alabama Democrats have recruited and Moore, who was accused of dating teenage girls when he was in this 30s, was “probably the worst candidate we’ve ever seen.”

Three suburban counties — Madison, Jefferson and Mobile — that went heavily for President Donald Trump in 2016 and for Republican statewide candidates the last two elections, voted strongly for Jones.

Even allowing for the unique nature of this election, Wilson said, the results are a “continuation of a trend of seeing Democrats building a margin in suburban areas that we just haven’t seen before.”
Examining state legislature gains and losses in the first off-year of a president’s term, Wilson said only twice did the party in power gain seats — 1934 in Franklin Roosevelt’s first term and 2002 with George Bush after the 9/11 attacks.
“Ronald Reagan had a 42 approval rating and Barack Obama had 45 and they both lost a lot of seats,” he said. “Trump’s approval rating is 39 and it’s hard to see this number rising much.”
What the Virginia regular election statewide races say is that Republicans rout in the suburbs and Democrats surge in the suburbs.
“A change is going on in the economy that has attracted more and more people to urban areas,” he said. Of the 100 largest counties in the U.S., all but Hartford, Toledo and Detroit have gained population since 2010.
The urban-rural divide, he said, can be overcome by the GOP and was in 2016 when Hillary Clinton overperformed Barack Obama and Trump underperformed Mitt Romney in urban areas but made up the difference by dominating rural areas.
Wilson made what he called a “counter-intuitive argument” to the famous “It’s the economy, stupid” slogan coined by James Carville for Bill Clinton in 1992.
“We’re in incredible boom times,” he said, and typically a positive economy trickles down to a politician. “So how is his (approval rating) in the high/mid 30s?”
A recent Pew poll reported that for the first time since 2001, Americans say there are plenty of jobs and increasingly don’t think the economy is a problem. A Gallup poll in 2009 reported 86 percent of respondents said economic issues were the country’s top problem. Today, that number is down to 15 percent.
Changing demographics are also working in the Democrats’ favor, he said, as the most diverse generation in American history is moving into the workforce and voting booth in record numbers.
“Last year for the first time in U.S. history, the majority of births weren’t white,” he said. “That’s why the Republicans must reach out to voters who aren’t white, don’t look like them. What’s saving the GOP right now is older white voters are becoming more conservative.”
Reid identified a trio of political/social trends on the horizon:
“The sexual harassment movement is not going to stop. There are several outlets including my own working on stories about members of Congress behaving badly. There is a culture in legislatures that you all know about that’s been festering for a long time.”
Corporations increasingly want workforce development in additon to tax breaks to locate in states, he said. “There is a coming retirement wave among boomers and a tech wave coming in the manufacturing sector. People who are taking these jobs are going to have to know how to operate very complex machines.
“One of the deductions eliminated in the tax reform bill allows people to make public-private partnership bonds tax-free. That might help (Republicans in Congress) save a little money but it’s going to fall on your state and you’re going to have to do something different to attract infrastructure.”
Original Article Published December 13, 2017. Available Here.