Now that the partisan hysteria of the 2017 election season has been reduced to a muted slobber, we need someone to unpack those results and apply them to the 2018 midterms.
It's an easy choice: David Wasserman is the analyst and handicapper of House races for the celebrated Cook Political Report, one whose "knowledge of the nooks and crannies of political geography make him seem like a local," as Nate Silver puts it.
Indeed, he's a Jersey guy plugged into 435 districts, and everyone wants to know: Were the extraordinary events of recent weeks a foreshadowing of a wave election next November, when every House seat us up for grabs, and will the Democrats overcome the partisan advantage that Republicans built when they drew the districts? Or will the gerrymandered firewall hold up even when the electorate is fed up with the party of Trump?
We spoke to Wasserman by phone late last week.
Q. What were your biggest takeaways from Election night and from Alabama?
A. Democrats badly needed a win after coming close in four special elections, and they got one in Alabama. Obviously, they won't have the luxury of running against candidates as deeply flawed a candidate as Roy Moore again, but several things allowed Doug Jones to win. One was strong crossover support from college educated whites in the suburbs who couldn't stomach Moore. But just as important, the Trump base failed to turn out. And that's the more ominous sign for Republicans in the midterms. And on Election night, we saw the same pattern in Virginia and to some extent New Jersey, where Democrats turned out at extraordinary rates for an off-year and Republicans did not. In this year's races, the Democratic candidates received an average of 71 percent of Hillary Clinton's votes; Republicans received 55 percent of Trump's votes. That's an enthusiasm gap that should benefit Democrats.
Q. The Cook Political Report has steadily been changing ratings away from GOP incumbents. What went into those changes?
A. We weigh the partisan lean of the districts in past election results against the national environment, the strength of the incumbent, the strength of the challenger, the fund-raising, the polling and the messaging. And there are some Republicans better prepared to withstand a wave election than others, because they have had tough races in immediate past.
Q. You changed Rodney Frelinghuysen's edge in the 11th District from 'solid' Republican to 'lean' to 'toss-up.' How did you make that call?
A. We moved Frelinghuysen after he made an unforced error. When his letter to the bank board member (attacking a Lakeland Bank employee for being a member of NJ 11th For Change) was revealed, it told us this is an incumbent who hasn't had to flex his political muscles in a while. It's the kind of mistake that someone who has survived in a competitive district for many years would not make. But there are several factors that made Frelinghuysen vulnerable.
Q. And they are?
A. There's a perfect storm brewing against him. The first element is the long-term shift of the district away from the Republican brand. Morris County used to be a Republican bedrock; now professionals are shifting away from Trump's brand of politics. And voters moving to Morris have college degrees, work in sectors like financial services or pharmaceuticals, and don't take kindly to a party dominated by Southerners, populists, and a president who screams fake news. Also, Democrats are setting up a favorable contrast in that they're likely to nominate a Navy pilot and former federal prosecutor in Mikie Sherrill, who doesn't have a legislative voting record, against an incumbent who has taken unpopular votes.
Q. Still, it would be a monumental upset.
A. It would. And another part of it is that Frelinghuysen's clout isn't the advantage it might have been 10 years ago. Voters in the 11th don't care that he's the chairman of the Appropriations Committee if there's no major infrastructure bill passing Congress. The most he's been in the news is for his gavel being in jeopardy.
Q. What other Jersey races do you anticipate tightening?
A. Leonard Lance is better versed in the art of defending a swing seat. He's had to run against well-funded Democrats before; he has a more moderate record than Frelinghuysen. He has also held more town halls. But Lance's district went for Clinton (49-48), so even if he voted against the tax bill, that may not shield him from Democrats' anger if they are supercharged to vote. A lot depends on whom Democrats nominate and that's unclear at the moment.
Q. How do you predict the politics will be affected by the GOP tax bill, especially for people like Tom MacArthur?
A. Well, the changes in SALT deduction are the biggest impact of the tax bill. And House Republicans from California, New York and New Jersey are potentially going to pay the biggest price for this bill, because it hands Democrats an issue. If you recall how Josh Gottheimer beat Scott Garrett, it would have been easy to run against Garrett by calling him a homophobe. But Gottheimer made voters comfortable with him by campaigning on a message of lower taxes. Now Democrats in New Jersey can run against Republicans as the party of high taxes.
Q. So if the 2010 wave was triggered by Obamacare, a 2018 wave based on this tax bill will be felt in places like the NJ-3rd, MacArthur's district?
A. It's 2010 in reverse. This president and this tax bill are more unpopular now than Obama and the ACA were in 2009. Republicans could lose the 2018 midterms by a larger margin than Democrats did in 2010. The question is how that translates into seats: Can they capitalize in places like Ocean County, which dominates the 3rd District? Democrats don't have a strong opponent for Tom MacArthur. Andy Kim's profile as an ISIS adviser for Obama lends itself to a pretty obvious line of attack. It's also unclear whether he can raise the money to compete with MacArthur's personal checkbook. Also, South Jersey hasn't seen the anti-Trump surge North Jersey has. The 3rd was (51-46) pro-Trump.
Q. The generic polls show Democrats with 11- to 13-point leads - more than enough to take back the House. How much credence should we give it this far out?
A. Democrats probably need to win the national house vote by 7 to 8 points just to win the narrowest possible majority. That's gerrymandering in a nutshell. But it's also the Democrats' natural disadvantage, the fact that they are clustered in urban districts. However, Democrats are polling consistently above that 8-point threshold.
Q. You called 2010 the Year of the Angry White Senior. What is your 2018 theme?
A. It's the Year of the Angry Female College Graduate. Democrats are going to win enormous margins among those voters. But 2018 is on track to feature the largest college-graduate electorate in history. In 2016, 39 percent of the electorate held college degrees. I expect that number to go up to 44 in midterms. That's not just because college educated voters are energized; it's because Trump's base of whites without college degrees is not showing up to vote for candidates other than Trump. And they don't see this tax bill as helping them.
Q. Will Democrats show up because they assume impeachment proceedings would follow?
A. The easiest way for Democrats to forfeit their current advantage is to shift the midterms from a referendum on Trump to a referendum on impeachment. If you look at the most recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, Trump's approval is underwater by more than 20 points. That's a referendum Democrats easily win. But asked whether Congress should begin impeachment hearings, it was 41-54. That's a referendum Democrats lose.
Q. What outcome do you anticipate in the Supreme Court case involving gerrymandering in Wisconsin?
A. If the Court rules that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, the question is what standard they would impose to identify it. And the efficiency gap standard advanced by the plaintiffs in the case leaves a lot of legal gray area. As a result, if the Court adopted a version of it, it would spawn more litigation than we've seen in our lifetimes on gerrymandering and redistricting. Just about everyone would be suing to overturn legislation maps they see as unfair. I still see the most likely outcome as a continuation of the status quo, where the Supreme Court does not rule definitively that partisan gerrymandering is OK. But they also say they lack a legal standard to combat it.
Q. If you were before the court, wouldn't you argue that packing and cracking is simply undemocratic?
A. I see far more potential in technological solutions to gerrymandering than political science solutions with regard to the efficiency gap. If I could wave a magic wand and change the way we draw political boundaries, I would enlist a team of computer scientists to develop an algorithm to divide states into equally-populated districts using the shortest possible lines. It's pretty amazing that in other single districts democracies around the world, redistricting is a simple bureaucratic function that doesn't produce much controversy. We're unique in how screwed up this is.
Q. You've interviewed 500-plus House candidates in your 10 years at Cook. What have you learned about the general quality of people who want to serve in the People's House?
A. Most candidates I met defy people's low expectations of who politicians are these days. Most are well-meaning and qualified people who want to make a positive difference, and I say that about both sides. I've also met a few who confirm voters' worst suspicions, and they are also evenly divided between the parties. And sometimes they get elected. But I think meeting candidates give us unique insight into whether a candidate is cut from the cloth of a district and well-suited to tap into voters' mood. And too often we go without getting to know the candidates running, and use partisanship as a cue. So I appreciate when there's good coverage of candidates and their backgrounds in local media.
Q. Prediction time: The Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats to take back the House. Do they get there?
A. They probably get there. But it's also very possible that the House is decided by less than 10 seats either way. In which case the House would be basically ungovernable.
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