The Roads to Congress 2018

American Elections in the Trump Era

Sean D. Foreman, Marcia L. Godwin, Walter Clark Wilson, Sean D. Foreman, Marcia L. Godwin, Walter Clark Wilson, Sean D. Foreman, Marcia L. Godwin, Walter Clark Wilson

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783030198190
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

While the roads to Congress are often full of potholes, in 2018 many of those roads looked like mine fields. With partisan control of both chambers of Congress up for grabs in the first midterm of the Trump presidency and the theme of potential impeachment looming on both sides, The Roads to Congress 2018 offers inside views of this critical election through expert analysis and case studies of the year's most high-profile races. Thematic chapters examine the intraparty battles occurring within both the Democratic and Republican parties, the use of social media as part of House and Senate campaigns (including Twitter use by and about President Trump), and the potential impact of an increasingly diverse Congressional candidate pool on the structure and functions of the national legislative branch. Additionally, key case studies written by local experts offer fresh analysis and original insights on a sampling of major campaigns spread across the country, featuring in-depth analysesof contentious U.S. House and Senate campaigns across the nation. This book illuminates the key themes and trends coming out of the 2018 midterm elections to help readers cast off the uncertainty that surrounds our politics, and to understand the dynamics of elections which may either herald the triumph or signal the demise of Trumpism.

Part ICongress in Transition

© The Author(s) 2020

Sean D. Foreman, Marcia L. Godwin and Walter Clark Wilson (eds.)The Roads to Congress 2018https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19819-0_1

Begin Abstract

1. The 2018 Midterm Elections and the Changing Congress

Sean D. Foreman¹

(1)

Department of History and Political Science, Barry University, Miami, FL, USA

Sean D. Foreman

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Changing Faces in Congress

The roads to Congress were particularly tumultuous in 2018. Both the Democratic and Republican parties continued their internal battles, while also increasing their partisan attacks. It was the first midterm election since President Donald Trump was elected in 2016 to the surprise of many academics and analysts. Heading into the November 2018 elections, many expected a referendum on Trump that would result in Democratic gains in the House of Representatives. At the same time, most saw the Senate as up for grabs and each party with a narrow margin for error to gain majority control in the upper chamber. Ultimately, Democrats won 40 additional seats in the House, a form of the anticipated “blue wave,” but also lost a net of two seats in the Senate.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) announced in April 2018 that he would not run for reelection, relinquishing the Speaker’s gavel. Ryan, 48, had served in Congress since elected in 1998 and had witnessed his career goal of tax reform achieved with Trump’s signature on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Yet, Ryan’s term as Speaker resembled that of his predecessor, John Boehner (R-OH), who served in the House from 1991 to 2015. Both were frustrated in the position by intra-partisan disagreements between moderate Republican members and more conservative and Freedom Caucus members. Ryan’s anticipated departure led Republicans to jockey for positioning in leadership, creating an odd dynamic for a majority party in election season.

Most analysts agreed that Democrats were quite likely to gain the majority and thus control of the speakership. On the Democratic side, minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was poised to be speaker for the second time, based on the projections. But, along the campaign path, numerous Democratic congressional nominees refused to lend their support, when asked if they would vote for Pelosi for speaker. After some concessions made and new alliances formed, Pelosi secured the votes to become speaker in the 116th Congress.

Those concessions, made mostly by moderate Democrats, were facilitated by the need to balance a coalition of new members led by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive Democrat who defeated 20-year incumbent Joe Crowley in a June primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District.¹ It was a stunning idea that a powerful and respected incumbent who served as Democratic Caucus Chair would lose a primary. But primary voters saw him as out of touch with the district and Ocasio-Cortez spoke with a new voice in American politics that was unabashedly socialist and visionary. The outcome of the race was reminiscent of the 2010 primary upset of then Republican Minority Leader Eric Cantor by economics professor David Brat.²

The win by Ocasio-Cortez was followed by Ayanna Pressley’s primary defeat of longtime Democratic representative Mike Capuano in Massachusetts’ 7th District. Pressley ran to the left of the otherwise liberal progressive Capuano³ and went on to become the first African American female from Massachusetts to serve in the House. The primary wins by Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley, followed by several other female and more liberal candidates across the country, showed that the Democratic Party would be pulled to the left with their new majority. Like Brat’s defeat of Cantor in 2010, the nomination of more ideologically liberal Democrats provided signs that primary voters can be more concerned about the representation of activist attitudes within their districts than the power and seniority of their representatives in Washington, DC.

Mixed Results for Incumbents

Though five Republican incumbents also lost in primaries, and reelection rates were lower than average, sitting office holders still fared well. U.S. House incumbents won at a rate of 91 percent in the general election—substantial, but still the lowest House reelection rate since the 2010 midterm when 85 percent of incumbents won.⁴ The 2016 reelection rate of 97 percent and 2014 midterm reelection rate of 95 percent are more in line with the norm so far in the twenty-first century. Two House members and Trump allies, Chris Collins (R-NY) and Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA), won reelection while under indictment, Collins for insider trading and Hunter for abuse of campaign finance laws.

In the Senate, the incumbency reelection rate was 84 percent in 2018, the same as in 2010. This compares to a 93 percent Senate incumbent reelection rate in 2016 and an 82 percent rate in 2014. Senate reelection rates are typically lower than those in the House because these competitive, highly coveted Senate seats draw tougher challengers, more resources, and play out in more diverse and less predictable jurisdictions. The five states where Senate incumbents lost were Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, and North Dakota. Four were Democrats running in states won by Trump in 2016 while, in Nevada, the Republican candidate lost in a state won by Clinton.

Of course, the incumbent reelection rate does not reflect the number of retirements or members running for different offices. Beyond Speaker Ryan, an unusually high number of Republicans—many of them moderates—either retired or resigned. There were also some high profile Democrats who were forced to resign. Among them were Representative John Conyers Jr. (D-MI), who faced ethics charges and health issues, and Senator Al Franken (D-MN), who resigned under pressure from both Democrats and Republicans after a photo emerged of him on a USO tour posing as if he were fondling the breasts of a female colleague and other allegations of inappropriate behavior. Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) announced they were retiring because of their disgust with Washington politics and became openly critical of President Trump in their public comments in their waning months in office.

Thad Cochran (R-MS), elected to the Senate seven times since 1978, resigned for health reasons. This led to a special election in Mississippi and the selection of Cindy Hyde-Smith as the first female senator from that southern state. John McCain (R-AZ), elected six times to the upper chamber and the 2008 Republican nominee for president, died from a brain tumor—but not before returning to the Senate to cast the deciding vote against the full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. McCain gave a speech and then famously gave a thumbs-down as he voted against the repeal of Obamacare, defeating the eight-year dream of Republicans and campaign promises of many of them—also to the disgust of President Trump who had campaigned on ending the law and who continued to disparage McCain long after his death.

There were 25 Republican House members elected in districts that Clinton won in 2016. Eight of those incumbent Republicans decided not to seek reelection. Democrats won 22 of the 25 districts won by Clinton. Only three Republicans in those districts were reelected: John Katko (NY-24), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-1), and Will Hurd (TX-23).⁵

Republican Dave Reichert (R-WA) had won in 2004 and 2008 in a district carried by Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry and Barack Obama, and again won reelection in 2012 and 2016 as his district was carried by Obama and Clinton. He retired rather than face a tough race given his lack of support for the president and a district electorate that was trending Democratic. Though he favored repealing the Affordable Care Act, Reichert was one of 20 Republicans to vote against the American Health Care Act, sometimes called Trumpcare. That vote, along with representing a suburban district, helped to drive this representative off the road to reelection.⁶

Despite the discussion of a blue wave by much of the media, President Trump and Republicans did not do too poorly compared to historical standard for midterms. The 40 lost House seats were only 12 more than the average midterm loss of 28 House seats for a president’s party for the period of 1978–2018. Republicans gained a net of two seats in the U.S. Senate in 2018, while the average is a loss of two to three seats. In this respect, the midterm elections were a bit anomalous in terms of their outcomes, which are usually more damaging to the president’s party (Table 1.1).

Table 1.1

Congressional results for president’s party in first-term midterm election, 1978–2018

Year	President	Party	House result	Senate result
1978	Jimmy Carter	Democrat	−15	−2
1982	Ronald Reagan	Republican	−26	0
1990	George H.W. Bush	Republican	−8	−1
1994	Bill Clinton	Democrat	−54	−9
2002	George W. Bush	Republican	+8	+1
2010	Barack Obama	Democrat	−6...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. Congress in Transition
• Part II. U.S. House
• Part III. U.S. Senate
• Part IV. Roads Ahead
• Back Matter