Things are not looking good for the GOP

If the demeanor of the folks on MSNBC and CNN is any indicator, it is clear that the Democrats are expecting a good day tomorrow. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, on Morning Joe, and Alisyn Camerota and John Berman, on New Day, are all smiles. There is a pre-Election Day celebratory giddiness about them and their panel of parroting pundits. In terms of enthusiasm, they are just a few degrees short of breaking out into that iconic Democrat campaign song “Happy Days are Here Again.”

Their exuberance is buoyed by the most recent polls that show movement in favor of Democrats across the board – even in those seemingly insurmountable Senate races. According to the CNN poll, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill has moved ahead for the first time in weeks. The so-called generic poll has Democrats up by double digits – 55 to 42.

Of course, the Democrats have always had the wind at their back. The party that holds the White House loses seats in Congress in the majority of midterm elections – occasionally enough to lose control. The fact that the GOP is likely to defy that tradition in the Senate is a significant accomplishment, in and of itself. It is not entirely due to overall popularity, however, but to the very unique fact that Democrats are defending so many seats in states won by Trump. To pull that off in the House, too, is a feat beyond imagination. If the Republicans maintain control, it will be by a much narrower margin.

Based on early voting, we already know that this is going to be a very large turn out for a midterm election. The old political rule-of-thumb is that big voter turnouts do not bode well for incumbents. When voters take to the polls in unusually large numbers, it is almost always to throw the “ins” out.

The accuracy of polling can be taken into question. However, when the numbers become consistent over a number of polls and the margins between Republicans and Democrats widen to more than five points, the pollsters can afford to be wrong on the numbers – generally giving Democrats an advantage – but are likely to be right on the partisan outcomes.

Then there is Donald Trump. In 2016, voters tended to look past the pugnacious personality and – shall we say – messy personal history because of a belief in his promised policies and the repugnance of Hillary Clinton. But that is not to say that the personality did not have some negative impact. Trump lost the popular vote at a time the GOP should have been cruising to a major victory based on the political tsunami that began in 2010. The Republican presidential candidate should have won the popular vote by a good margin.

It was Trump’s personality traits that tamped down the GOP vote, giving him a technical victory in the Electoral College. Though the polls failed badly in picking the winner in 2016, they were not so far off in terms of the popular vote. Since then, Trump has operated in a belief that he personally had raised the GOP from defeat because of his combative style. It is that ego-driven miscalculation that caused him to mistakenly make the midterm election about him … again. A mistake I have criticized throughout the campaign. But, he succeeded and the midterm campaign became mostly about him.

Trump’s belief in the importance of himself is what led to endless rallies said to be designed to motivate the base in key states. That may have even happened. But the every-day rallies and his comments were also broadcast to the national audience — and his statement analyzed and interpreted by a hostile news media. The more unpopular personality pushed out the all-important issues and accomplishments. It is about the economy, stupid, but only if you go out and sell it.

All this means that the likelihood of a 2016 style surprise is less likely. Maybe it is just that old saw that lightening does not strike twice in the same place. If the GOP will oversee both the Senate and the House next year, that will be a surprise even bigger than 2016. In 2018, there is no Electoral College to eke out a technical victory over the votes of the people.