Democrats have faced an uphill battle in the House since a Republican wave in 2010 gave the GOP control over drawing new congressional maps in a majority of states in 2011. Those maps drawn by Republicans allowed Democrats to get huge margins in urban districts, but they gave Republicans healthy partisan margins in more suburban and rural districts.
A Brennan Center analysis of the 2012 election showed that in states where Republicans controlled redistricting, their candidates won 53% of the vote and 72% of the seats. That year, Republicans won 48% of the vote nationwide while taking 54% of House seats. In 2016, they won 49% of the vote and 55% of the seats — a 6 percentage-point gap.
In the November midterms, a combination of shifting populations, high voter turnout, a revolt of suburban female voters, and court-ordered redrawn congressional maps in key states allowed Democrats to capture seat totals closer to their share of the vote, Bloomberg News noted..
Republicans added to their narrow Senate majority, Dan Balz noted in the Washington Post, as Trump and his allies maximized support in red states among voters in rural areas and small towns. But the Trump-centric strategy backfired in the race for control of the House, as suburban voters — particularly women — revolted against the president, delivering a rebuke to his party’s candidates in district after district.
Among the 11 most rural districts considered competitive by the Cook Political Report before the election, Republicans held nine of the 11, Balz noted. When the new Congress assembles in January, they’ll still hold eight of the 11.
GOP losses in the next category, suburban-rural districts, were also modest, as seven of 19 districts in this group changed parties, with five shifting to the Democrats and two to Republicans, and one remaining to be decided.
The damage to Republicans grows in suburban-grounded districts. In 30 districts categorized as suburban-sparse, Republicans went into the election holding every one of them. Democrats won 16 of the seats in the election.
In 15 districts described as suburban-dense, something similar happened. Republicans held all 15 before the election. In January, they’ll represent just three. In nine districts categorized as urban-suburban, Republicans go from holding seven to holding just one.
Democrats will have a better chance of winning a Senate majority in 2020. While Democrats and independents who caucus with them were defending 26 Senate seats this year, only nine Republican-held seats were up for election. Democrats flipped two Republican seats while Republicans flipped four Democratic seats, and likely have a 53-47 majority (the Mississippi seat was up for grabs when we went to press). In 2020, the GOP is expected to defend 22 seats, including a special election for the late Sen. John McCain’s seat, while 12 seats held by Democrats are up.
Among the most endangered senators in 2020 are:
• Doug Jones (D-Ala.), who won a special election in 2017 to replace Jeff Sessions. Unless he can get the GOP to renominate Roy Moore, Jones will have trouble in a state Trump won by 28 points in 2016.
• Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) has been a faithful Trumper in the Senate despite his state’s increasingly blue lean.
• Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) was appointed to the seat in September after John McCain’s death. But Kyl indicated he’ll step down early next year, so another Republican will run in 2020 in an increasingly competitive state, where Kyrsten Sinema (D) narrowly defeated Martha McSally (R).
• Susan Collins (R-Maine), a four-term senator who faces criticism from Republicans for her vote against Obamacare repeal while Democrats, spurred by her support of Mean Drunk Justice Brett Kavanaugh, have already crowdfunded $3 million for a challenger in a state Democrats have carried in the past three presidential elections.
• Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has been a faithful Trumper who may seek a second term in a swing state that Trump won by three point in 2016 but narrowly elected Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper on the same ballot. Tillis is rumored to be considering running for governor.
• Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) would be seeking a third term in a state that has gone from reliably Republican to a swing state as Democrats have moved into Boston’s outer suburbs.
• Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is seeking a second term in a state that Barack Obama carried twice but Trump carried by nine points.
Other Republicans who are potentially vulnerable include David Perdue in Georgia, Mitch McConnell in Kentucky (OK, we wish) and Steve Daines in Montana, particularly if term-limited Gov. Steve Bullock (D) runs. Republicans also likely will target Tina Smith, seeking her first full term in Minnesota, and Mark Warner in Virginia, who would be seeking his third term.
Republicans are counting on the urban-rural divide, as well as racially polarized voting, to keep Republicans competitive in 2020.
Democrats used to be competitive in rural areas and they should be again. Tom Vilsack, a Democratic former governor of Iowa who was Barack Obama’s agriculture secretary for eight years, told The Guardian his party needs to connect with the rural voters to win the next presidential election.
Vilsack said Democrat J.D. Scholten worked hard in his challenge of right-wing Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), losing by only three points in a rural western Iowa district that King won by 22 points two years ago. Vilsack said Scholten was let down by the failure of the Democratic Party, particularly its national leadership, to offer a vision to rural voters who feel the party has little to say to them and is focused on urban supporters.
Vilsack thinks the party should talk more about rural challenges, such as the rapid contraction of small family farms, the disappearance of factory jobs, and shrinking populations as small towns are left with boarded-up businesses and aging residents. Democrats should have a plan for a future beyond an extraction economy and the kind of jobs that will keep young families in rural towns. He also wants the party to challenge the GOP’s anti-government rhetoric by championing the role of federal programs in helping rural communities by guaranteeing property loans, expanding access to clean water and reaching millions of people with broadband internet access.
Vilsack is right. Rural America hasn’t gotten much in return for its support of the Republican Party, which has neglected rural schools, health care facilities and economic development — and now Trump’s ill-considered trade war with China has left farmers with bins full of corn and soybeans and no place to sell them. Trump promised a $12 billion emergency farm aid package, but the average payment to farmers is $7,236, according to the Environmental Working Group, and many of the checks are less than $25, as corn growers are getting only a penny a bushel. “The corn payments are a joke. Someone at USDA made a mistake” in determining the formula for assistance, said Dermot Hayes, an Iowa State University economist, to the Des Moines Register (Nov. 28). Farm bankruptcies are up in North Central states, and experts fear the trend will get worse as farmers cope with the fallout from Trump’s trade war with China.
Had enough? Vote Democratic.
From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2018
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