Here’s what the Alabama election numbers just told us about the 2018 midterms
Doug Jones didn’t just pull off an upset victory last night. He did it in Alabama, where it’s supposed to be nearly impossible for a Democratic candidate to win a statewide race. The numbers in the Alabama results tell us a lot about what we can expect in the 2018 midterms in other states. Don’t worry, there’s very little math involved in this article. Here’s a look at how things now stand heading into those midterm races.
Jones won by two points in Alabama. It’s a state where a Republican is supposed to win by around twenty points statewide. It’s difficult to gauge the impact that the child molestation scandal had on the Republican candidate Roy Moore, but I’ve heard multiple political pundits say they believe it had a five point impact or less. So the math tells us that the Democrat did roughly seventeen points better than he should have. We’ve seen this number before.
When Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff narrowly lost in the Georgia 6th special election earlier this year, he also outperformed the previous congressional election in that state by – you guessed it – seventeen points. This tells us that in deeply red states and districts, we should be looking for the Democratic candidate to outperform by seventeen points. So in a place like Texas, which is also deeply red but not quite as red as Alabama or Georgia, it tells us that a Democratic candidate can indeed win the Senate and Governor races in 2018. Ted Cruz should be worried about his seat. There’s more.
Based on the numbers we’re seeing, if the current political landscape holds up, there is every reason to expect the Democrats to win every House and Senate race in 2018 that they would normally win, or lose by less than seventeen points. That would give the Democrats a narrow majority in the Senate and a slightly more comfortable lead in the House. It’s that straightforward. I told you this wasn’t a math intensive article. However, there is one big caveat.
The current political landscape would indeed need to remain the same. If the Republicans get smart and oust Donald Trump before the midterms, and moderate voters give the Republicans credit for it, the Democrats might not see gains as big. Or if the Resistance loses momentum, the gains might not happen at all. Every race, no matter how it’s mathematically tilted, has to be run and won. But if the Resistance continues doing in 2018 what it’s done in the 2017 elections, the Democrats are in prime position to take over Congress.
