Democrats Face a Stacked Field In 2018

Charlie Cook: “In just a few weeks Demo­crats have gone from driv­ing for what figured to be an easy lay up to hav­ing the rest of the sea­son can­celled, with the next sea­son in real doubt. They seemed to have the pres­id­ency in hand, a ma­jor­ity in the Sen­ate very likely, and, while win­ning a ma­jor­ity in the House was al­ways un­real­ist­ic, they did seem to have a good chance to cut the GOP ma­jor­ity in half with a gain of between 10 and 20 seats. In­stead they al­lowed the White House to slip from their grasp, gained just two Sen­ate seats, leav­ing them in the minor­ity, and gained only a half dozen seats in the House, be­low the bot­tom end of what thought pos­sible.”

“It only gets worse. Demo­crats would need a three-seat net gain in the to se­cure a Sen­ate ma­jor­ity in 2018, a tall or­der since they’ll be de­fend­ing 25 seats and Re­pub­lic­ans just eight. Of the eight Re­pub­lic­an seats up in 2018, just one, that of fresh­man Sen. Dean Heller in Nevada, is in a state that went for Demo­crats in either the 2012 or 2016 pres­id­en­tial elec­tions (it voted Demo­crat­ic in both). No oth­er GOP-held Sen­ate seat ap­pears to be even re­motely in danger.”

“Con­versely, Demo­crats are de­fend­ing some states that have been pretty rough on them in the past.”