First Read: “A few hours into Election Night 2018, it felt like it was happening again — Donald Trump and the GOP were about to defy political gravity… But by 11:00 pm ET that night — and especially in three weeks since the midterm elections, as races have been called and more votes have come in — it was clear that political gravity caught up to Trump. And that might have been one of the more consequential outcomes of the 2018 midterms:
- that being a president with a 45 percent job rating (or lower) will hurt your party, like it did to Bill Clinton in 1994, George W. Bush in 2006 and Barack Obama in 2010;
- that focusing only on your base can’t save your party from losing up to 40 House seats and control of Congress, even when the unemployment rate stands at 3.7 percent;
- and that the most favorable Senate map in generations couldn’t net the GOP more than two net pickups.
“To be sure, Trump and Republicans turned out their voters, ensuring that the GOP didn’t lose more House seats and control of the U.S. Senate… But that the laws of political gravity applied to Trump in 2018 – and we also saw this play out in Virginia’s gubernatorial race in 2017, in Alabama’s Senate contest in December 2017 and the special PA-18 race in 2018 – provide an important lesson for 2020: Political fundamentals still matter.”
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