Jordan Klepper is a genius! Watch him how he fools Trump supporters and the idiots don’t even realize it. Super hilarious, no wonder they voted for Trump.
Democrats suddenly look strong again in the Midwest
The Midwest’s central role in the 2018 midterms, explained.
By
Dylan Scott@dylanlscottdylan.scott@vox.com Updated Oct 25, 2018, 2:00pm EDT
Donald Trump shocked election watchers on November 8, 2016, by winning states across the Midwest — states that were supposed to be part of Hillary Clinton’s “blue wall.” This year, Democrats have an enormous opportunity to start regaining ground in those same states.
Political pundits have wondered if Trump’s wins in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio represented a realignment of American politics for good. Republicans in some of those states dreamed of turning them permanently red with big wins in
the 2018 midterms.
But in the weeks before Election Day 2018, Democrats are poised for huge wins across the Midwest, a resurgence that seemed unimaginable just two years ago.
Incumbent senators in
Ohio,
Michigan, and
Pennsylvania seem assured of reelection.
Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a coveted target for Republicans, is leading by 10 points in Wisconsin, where
Republican Gov. Scott Walker could finally lose a reelection campaign. And in
Ohio and
Iowa, states Trump won handily, Democratic candidates for governor have a narrow advantage in the polls.
Of course, polls do not guarantee election victories. After all, Democrats were polling well in the Midwest in 2016, too, before an undetected Trump wave won him the White House. All it would take is
a small polling error, which happens all the time, to swing many of these races to Republicans once the votes are counted.
Still, no one factor explains this apparent Democratic strength. The minority party typically performs well in midterm elections. Democrats have particularly strong incumbents in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The Republican brand is tarnished in
Michigan and Ohio over some state-specific scandals. But those variables only explain so much. Run-of-the-mill Democrats have big leads in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
Rather, these states have the right ingredients for a blue wave in 2018. Suburban, mostly white women seem to be drifting toward Democrats. Working-class whites, historically Democratic voters who broke for Trump, show signs of returning to their economically left-leaning roots. Strong black turnout would deepen the Democratic advantage.
The omens are good, and Democrats have reason to hope that 2016 was just an aberration. But, until the election returns come in, it is still only a hope.
The obvious reason Democrats suddenly look strong in the Midwest
It is a fact of American politics that voters seem to strive for balance: One party wins the White House in presidential years, and then the other party makes gains in the midterms two years later.
To some extent, the apparent swing in the Midwest simply follows that history. Wisconsin elected Walker governor two years after voting for Barack Obama. Ohio elected Democrat Dick Celeste governor two years after voting for Ronald Reagan. Voters do seem to like a partisan equilibrium.
“The Midwest is the most consistently competitive region of the United States, and it oscillates between the two parties,” Kyle Kondik, who follows elections at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and wrote a book on Ohio politics, told me. “Trump’s election may suggest a longer-term realignment toward Republicans given how white the Midwest is, but for the time being it remains hard to classify as being solidly in either camp.”
Some Democratic gains in the Midwest in 2018 were to be expected. Democrats look dominant in the Illinois governor’s race and in Minnesota’s Senate and governor elections, poised to score important victories in the bluest Midwestern states.
But there seems to be more happening than history repeating and blue-leaning states staying blue, according to Democratic and Republican operatives across the region. Democrats aren’t just shoring up the elections they were already expected to take. They also have a chance to hold onto Joe Donnelly’s Indiana Senate seat, in the reddest state in the Midwest region.
The path to a big Democratic wave in the Midwest in 2018 runs through three voting blocs: Suburban Republican-leaning women who don’t like Trump, the white working-class Democrats who voted for the president, and black voters who are less likely to vote in off-year elections.
Democrats need to win back some Obama-Trump voters in 2018
The difficulty of the Democratic task can’t be overstated.
Take Ohio. In 46 of Ohio’s 88 counties, Barack Obama got at least 40 percent of the vote. Hillary Clinton hit that floor of 40 percent in just 13 counties. Or look at it this way: Obama lost the 50 smallest counties by 180,000 votes; Clinton lost them by 400,000 votes.
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One person is in custody in connection with a sweeping investigation of the 12 bomb-like devices addressed to prominent Democrats, the Department of Justice said. Read more
