I wrote a lot of pieces previewing the 2017 Election. I looked at mayoral races, special elections, New Jersey, ballot propositions, Virginia House of Delegates, and Virginia statewide. So I was prepared for most all outcomes that were possible on Tuesday night. But even I wasn’t prepared for what happened. It was a complete and utter domination. A beatdown. A bloodbath. A landslide. A blue tidal wave. So let’s get right into it, a recap of what went down last night and its implications for 2018 and beyond:
Virginia Statewide
This was the only acceptable for Democrats: a statewide sweep. But it was the margins that were shocking. Polls had Northam up by about 4 points. One thing that should always be said about polls is that they are equally likely to miss in both directions. And a Gillespie win would’ve been a miss by around 4-5 points in the red direction, while the reverse was a Northam win by 8-9 points. And that’s what happened. Northam currently leads by over 8.5% and the New York Times estimates the final margin will be about a 9% win for the Democrat. Attorney General Mark Herring and Lieutenant Governor nominee Justin Fairfax ran behind the pace of Northam but both will snare comfortable wins. What stands out about this? Well, while Gillespie did do better than Trump in Northern Virginia, he didn’t do so substantially and he still got annihilated, with Northam running ahead of Clinton in many of those same counties, mitigating any gains Gillespie may have had. Additionally, he underperformed Trump in Southwestern Virginia, the GOP base, with turnout there sagging when compared to the very high turnout in NoVA. But NoVA wasn’t the only place that Northam did well in: he overperformed Clinton in the Richmond area, and as was thought possible, he did very well in the Hampton Roads region in the southeastern portion of the state. Northam flipped Virginia Beach and ran up the score in Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Hampton. It was a massacre of Ed Gillespie and a repudiation of his racial politics, no doubt helped by the anti-GOP environment Trump helped to create.
Virginia House of Delegates
Dave Wasserman of Cook Political had put it that a Dem gain of 0-5 seats in the House of Delegates was a sigh of relief for the GOP, 5-10 was a sign that the US House is in play in 2018, 10-15 is a sign that Democrats are favorites for the US House in 2018, and 15+ is the sign that a possible tidal wave of the sort that could yield massive US House gains and maybe flip the US Senate was possible. At the end of the night, they have gained 14 seats, with 5 others too close to call (2 of which Democrats have more votes in at the moment). It is likely that Election Day 2017 will fall in that catastrophic-for-Republicans 15+ scenario. First off, what are the implications for governing? Well, as I mentioned, earlier, 5 seats are too close. Of those, Dems lead by 316 and 68 votes, and GOP lead by 12, 86, and 129 votes. Recounts are no doubt to be in order and provisional ballots have to be counted. While I expect four of those five to remain in the party that currently leads them, HD 94 is the real question mark, where the GOP leads by just 12 votes. Recounts don’t normally change the results of elections and again, I don’t expect it to in four of those five. But HD 94 is so close that with provisional ballots and a recount, I think both parties could win it and the fact that Republicans currently lead doesn’t mean a whole lot. That means that more than likely, this chamber will be either 50-50 or 51-49 in favor of the Democrats. If it’s the latter, it’s an obvious scenario. If it’s the former, things get messy, where a power sharing agreement is put into place. Either way, 2018 will begin with Republicans holding a one vote edge in the State Senate (21-19 with a Dem tie breaker) and either a tie or a one vote Democratic edge in the House of Delegates. The biggest implication is that it becomes very likely that Medicaid is expanded in Virginia. Not just was it the key campaign proposal of a governor who was just given a mandate, but with all Democrats in favor, just one Republican in both chambers needs to vote for it (maybe), and that’s not hard to see happening. There are many Republicans who do support Medicaid Expansion nationwide (John Kasich, Rick Snyder, Brian Sandoval for instance). I bet there will be at least one to make that happen. Even if it comes to a deal, it will be a top priority for Northam once he is sworn in. Additionally, it puts Dems on the offensive to take unified control of Virginia in 2019 when the State Senate is up for grabs, and they have a chance to either break a tie/expand a majority in the House of Delegates. Finally, it’s important to see where the flipped seats happened. 10 of the seats were in Northern Virginia, 1 in Blacksburg, 2 in Virginia Beach, and 3 in Richmond area. HD 94 is in Newport News if that seat does flip. It was not just in the key areas, it was across the board dominance.
Ballot Proposals
The big story here is Medicaid expansion in Maine. By an almost 3/5 margin, Mainers made their state the 33rd to accept the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid Expansion. The opinion outpaced Hillary Clinton in the state, with the cities of Bangor and Portland going majorly in favor of it. Now, thousands of low income people in the state will receive health insurance, lowering the nationwide uninsured rate. In New York, voters emphatically denied the holding of a Constitutional Convention and in Ohio, the misleading and deceptive proposal 2 related to prescription drug prices met the same fate as Michigan’s Prop. 1 from 2015: bad policy being detected by voters and being voted down in overwhelming numbers. Marsy’s Law did pass in Ohio, however, and that concludes all the important ballot proposals.
Special Elections
Democrats have done well in special elections throughout this year and November 7, 2017 was no different. Democrats protected every seat that they held entering the night. That includes Michigan’s 109th, which in my preview I singled out as a crucial seat. In the Upper Peninsula, it swung from Obama +4 to Trump +8. If Michigan Democrats want to flip the State House next year, they have to hold seats like that and they did so by a 22 point spread, far larger than Obama’s, in holding that seat. They also flipped a seat in New Hampshire, following a consistent trend from this whole year, and flipped 3 seats in Georgia, breaking a GOP supermajority in the process. But all of these were simply appetizers to Washington’s SD-45, a Seattle-area seat with a Democratic lean at the Presidential level but a habit of electing Republicans to legislative seat. The winning party would take control of the State Senate and millions of dollars were poured into this race. Democrat Manka Dhingra won the race by about 11 points, meaning that Democrats now hold the majority in that body, giving them unified control of government in Washington. As a result, they also now hold a trifecta in every West Coast state and Governor Jay Inslee can begin to enact a very liberal agenda in that state.
New Jersey
This wasn’t all that exciting of a state. As it was expected, Phil Murphy cruised to victory. While it was not as large as some polls expected, his margin of victory was around 14 points, which is a very comfortable win. In the process, Democrats completed the trifecta in New Jersey, giving them unified control of that state. The legislative races weren’t terribly interesting due to the fact Democrats already hold wide majorities in both chambers, but it was the kind of result I was expecting. Democrats picked up 2 seats in the State Senate to increase their majority to 26-14, while they picked up 2 seats in the State Assembly to increase their majority to 54-26. Expect this state to be a focal point of resistance to Trump going forward.
Mayoral Elections
Democratic winning didn’t stop here. They unseated Manchester Republican Mayor Ted Gatsas, had incumbent Rick Kriseman fend off a challenge from popular former Republican mayor Rick Baker, and had Democrat Vi Lyles hold the Charlotte Mayoral seat, defeating GOP nominee Kenny Smith. Other results were matchups of Democrats vs. Democrats, but in the cities where there was a two party contest, it was Democratic domination.
Other results of interest
Democrats had more wins in lower level races. For the Nassau County Executive seat, Laura Curran (D) defeated Jack Martins (R) and in the Westchester County Executive seat, multi-term incumbent Rob Astorino (R) lost to George Latimer (D). A reform-oriented DA was elected in Philadelphia, advancing Democrats’ criminal justice reform agenda in the nation’s 6th largest city. Perhaps the only tough loss of the evening was the failure to unseat Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Sallie Mundy (R). However, due to the retention of two other Justices, Democrats still hold a 5-2 edge on that court.
Thoughts, Conclusions, and Implications for 2018 and Beyond: Again, this was a dominant showing for Democrats. Despite all the panic from liberals down the stretch, Northam & Co. won comfortably, in the largest win by a Democrat for Governor in over 30 years. But it was the dominance in the House of Delegates that was so stunning. I said that the realistic possibilities were a 7-14 seat pickup, but I didn’t think there was much chance at all of anything more than maybe a 12 seat gain. Instead, Democrats picked up either 16 or 17 seats, which required an extraordinary feat: winning every Lean D seat, going 5/7 (or 6/7) in tossups, and sweeping the Lean R seats. That’s called running the gauntlet. But they even made seats that weren’t expected to be close competitive, coming within 4 points of 4 seats in the Likely R column. A rebuttal I’ve heard to this is that 15 of the 16 seats where Dems are leading were seats that Hillary Clinton won at the presidential level, and that because there aren’t many of those in the 2018 US House Elections, this night means nothing when extrapolating to that result. I have to vehemently disagree with that perspective. Why? Yes, many of these seats were ones where Clinton won, but quite a few were not blowout wins, but tight races that Trump feasibly could have won too. In the “soft” Trump seats, like HD 26, 27, and 85, Dems won one and are in recount procedure for the other two. Additionally, Democrats defeated 10 incumbents for their 16 pickups, and if they get a 17th, then they will have defeated an 11th incumbent. Those who follow politics know that incumbents have a big advantage when compared to open seats, so the fact that Democrats knocked off so many incumbents is a big, big deal. If every seat was open, you probably would have seen Democrats running significantly ahead of the pace Hillary Clinton ran in 2016 (they ran ahead in most districts anyway).
Another important lesson from Virginia is that if you still believed the “Democrats don’t vote in non-Presidential years” myth, which has long been proven false anyway, this should’ve smashed your narrative. We don’t have final turnout numbers yet, but they were up across the NoVA Democratic precincts, along with Richmond Area, Hampton Roads, and Charlottesville. Meanwhile, Republican turnout sagged in their key base of SW VA. Following a pattern we’ve seen in nationwide special elections throughout the year, Democrats are fired up and motivated to vote against Trump. Trump may in fact be the best GOTV mechanism that Dems have going into next year. And speaking of specials, I want to talk about that for a second. With Michigan’s HD 109 Special Election in the books, it continues a prevailing trend we’ve seen throughout the year, that what happened in Virginia is not limited to purplish states that Clinton won. It’s happening nationwide. And a trend is continuing: the biggest swings towards Democrats are places that swung hardest away from Democrats in 2016. There have been numerous cases in NH, NY, MI, MN, and IA, and HD 109 only adds to that case. Enthusiasm, turnout, fundraising are all there for Democrats.
So as we look towards 2018, what implications does all of this have? Well, I’ll go out and say it: if the environment that was present last night is present on November 6, 2018, Democrats will win a majority in the US House of Representatives. That’s not a hot take or speculation, it’s just a fact. I’m not saying it will happen, I’m just saying if the general environment is present next year too, Republicans are cooked. It’s a bad mixture for Republicans of depressed GOP turnout, high Democrat enthusiasm and turnout, strong GOTV and canvassing efforts by progressive groups, record fundraising, a GOP President with approval ratings in the 30s, and a Generic Congressional Ballot that favors Democrats by almost 10 points. The normal rules of politics still apply to Trump: an unpopular President in off year elections is a very bad thing for the presidential party. Even more so, I think it’s important to add that what we saw last night is a validation of the GCB. No longer is that poll speculative: last night was it in action. Everything that happened was what you’d expect if Democrats are romping nationally, as that poll suggests.
Perhaps the biggest implication that this could have on 2018 is that it could force more vulnerable GOPers to retire and convince more high quality Democratic candidates that 2018 might be a pretty good year to run with a D next to your name. Retirements of long-time, entrenched incumbents in swing seats are the best way for a party to gain a majority in the US House and they often precede a wave election. We’ve already seen a rush of them in Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in FL-27, Charlie Dent in PA-15, Dave Trott in MI-11, and Dave Reichert in WA-08. All four of those seats were not really competitive before the retirement, but after it, they became instant tossups. And then early on Election Day, the biggest and most important possible retirement came in the form of Frank LoBiondo of NJ-02, moving that swing seat all the way from Safe R to Toss Up. The results from Tuesday night will only help to convince other GOP Reps similar to the ones I’ve just mentioned to vacate their seats. Some have suggested more retirements could come this week, but I’d expect the bulk of the ones remaining to come over Christmas break. If I were recommending names to watch for: Pete King (NY-02), John Katko (NY-24), Leonard Lance (NJ-07), Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ-11), Pat Meehan (PA-07), Fred Upton (MI-06), Tim Walberg (MI-07), Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48), Ed Royce (CA-39), and Pete Sessions (TX-32).
On the flip side, this could encourage Democrats who are thinking of running to get involved. The most notable is former ulta-popular Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, the only man who could flip that open senate seat blue, who has thought about running. If he were to get in, a race that is currently Likely R would instantly become a Toss Up, and suddenly the possibility of a Democratic majority is in play. Brandon Presley, a dark horse candidate for Mississippi’s Senate seat could also join the fray. There are plenty other names in US House races and the dynamics will certainly shift after last night’s events.
In my closing two thoughts, I want to acknowledge one last idea. It is certainly now possible that polls have been overestimating Republicans as an overcorrection for 2016. And if that’s the case, I would recommend examining their methods ahead of 2018. Finally, let me leave you with a tweet and say so long, thanks for reading!