When the Midterm Walls Start Closing In

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In the fall of 2016, I wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal in which I explained, with extraordinary and misplaced confidence, that the release of the Access Hollywood video in which Donald Trump was recorded making explicit, misogynistic, and wildly inappropriate comments about his past interactions with women would make it absolutely impossible to win the presidential election the following month. I was wrong, of course, and I have generally limited my predictions to Oscar winners, sports, and flight delays ever since.

But as the midterm elections draw closer, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to imagine how the immense motivational advantage that Democrats enjoy with their voters does not translate into sweeping gains for the party. Right now, Republicans are almost certain to lose their narrow House majority, and the fight for control of the Senate, which earlier this year looked like an almost certain GOP lock, is now viewed as a 50-50 tossup with both parties having roughly equal chances for a majority in the upper chamber next January.

The reason the playing field appears so encouraging for Democrats right now comes back to the immense gap in voter enthusiasm between the two parties’ most loyal supporters. By now, regular readers of this column are familiar with my argument that while presidential elections are decided by persuading undecided voters, lower-turnout midterms are won and lost by motivating a party’s base. Less public interest means fewer swing voters decide to cast ballots, which means that the most progressive Democrats and most conservative Republicans have a disproportionate impact on an election’s outcome. And since these are the voters who are least likely to ever vote for the other party, a campaign doesn’t waste time trying to convince them to switch sides and instead focuses its efforts almost entirely on exciting its true believers.

A loyal MAGA Republican will not vote for a Democratic House or Senate candidate, not with a gun to their head and a knife to their throat. But uninspired conservatives who voted for Trump two years ago to end forever wars, bring down inflation, and confront elites like Jeffrey Epstein simply do not have much to motivate them to vote for Trump allies in down-ticket races. Liberals who stayed home in 2024 because of what they saw as a lack of urgency from their party’s leaders over prices, health care, or Gaza have become much more energized: Democratic turnout in party primaries across the country this spring and summer was through the roof.

Trump is doing his best to close that gap, which is why he is fighting with CNN and Politico, boasting about Greenland, and offering cash dividends to key voter groups. But as long as the war continues, prices stay high, and his poll numbers stay low, his efforts have yet to convince his backers that an election without him on the ballot is worth their time and attention.

The challenge that Republicans are facing becomes most apparent when examining where they are spending their time and money. Trump himself was campaigning in deep-red states such as Alabama and Oklahoma last week, and his schedule in the days ahead takes him to what are normally equally safe Republican bastions like Montana and Texas. 

GOP spending is similarly directed. While Republicans have an astronomical fundraising advantage, their money is not limitless. It was reported last week that the national party is pulling its funding from what was originally thought to be a competitive Senate race in North Carolina and moving that money to their campaign in Kansas, where Democrats have not won a Senate seat since 1932. Similar decisions await in other parts of the country as Democrats continue to open up new possible battlegrounds in other longtime conservative strongholds. There are now 43 seats, almost precisely one-tenth of the House membership, where the two parties are spending significant cash. 40 of those 43 districts were won by Trump two years ago, many by double-digit margins. Only three went for Kamala Harris, which means this fight is taking place largely on deep-red turf.

Nothing is certain in politics, of course, and one of Trump’s greatest skills is finding improbable ways of motivating his die-hards when he seems to have run out of MAGA magic. But the clock is ticking, and right now Democrats seem poised for large-scale victories on November 3.

As always, you can read more of Dan’s writing at www.danschnurpolitics.com.