November 6, 2018--Final Predictions
While people are still voting and before there are any results, to distract myself here are a few predictions and speculations--
The numbers in the Senate will remain the same with the GOP continuing to hold a one-seat majority.
Arizona and Texas will flip from Republican to Democratic with Beto O'Rourke emerging as the brightest new Democrat star. By Thursday, no, by tomorrow he will become the frontrunner for the 2020 presidential nomination and two years from now will defeat Mike Pence.
Obviously, this means that Donald Trump, for one reason or another, will not serve out his first term. Early next year he will declare Mission Accomplished and turn the keys to the Oval Office over to Pence.
In the House we will see a real "wave election." Still stung for getting 2016 wrong (no one predicted Trump would win, including Trump himself), pollsters and media pundits are being very conservative this time in analyzing the data and making projections. The consensus going in is that the Democrats will eek out just enough flipped seats (they need 23) to take control. I suspect they will do much better, winning close to 50 currently Republican-held seats.
As it should be, this will be the headline.
Anticipating this, Trump in recent days has been saying he's been concentrating exclusively on the Senate. There are too many seats in the House for him to pay attention to, he said, and thus he won't be surprised if the Democrats take control of the House. "We'll work it out," he has been saying.
Since he's all about winning, "losing" the House will be what will motivate him to not run in 2020. Better to declare victory than try to deal with losing.
In early January the Democrats, who will control all House committees, will begin a judicious number of investigations. To launch too many will make it look as if there is in fact a witch hunt going on, that the election to Democrats was all about the opportunity to overturn the 2016 election.
These congressional investigations, where the Dems will have subpoena power, will focus on Trump's finances. Especially his business dealings with the Russians. The Mueller report, which will be submitted within the month, will cover the same ground, and with both dominating the discourse it will make Trump crazier than anything else that might be revealed about him. In a panic he will fire Attorney General Sessions, Rob Rosenstein, and Mueller himself.
But this will not impede the House's work. The genie is coming out of the bottle and it will lead to Trump's downfall. Giving up the presidency will not stall this momentum much less end the investigations.
Most important, tomorrow's results will be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency and will ultimately lead to his own more personal decline because there is so much corruption and criminality waiting to come to light that even he, as nimble as he has been at surviving (his whole life has been about wiggling out of trouble) will not be able to squirm free. After decades, his luck is finally running out.
This is why people today are voting in record numbers: it is to say to him--"Enough."
Unpacking the polling data later this week we will discover that ten percent of his supporters will have either stayed home, not voted because they can't bare to vote for Democrats, or held their noses and pulled the lever for those who opposed Trump.
Republican survivors in Congress who have been among his enablers will begin to abandon ship. All they care about is having power; and with Trump now a liability, they will cut and run. Even Lindsay Graham will be looking for another macho man to suck up to.
In addition, there is considerable pent-up schadenfreude that needs to and will be expressed.
My final prediction is that all will begin to turn out for the best, The system will have been shown to work. That's a very big thing.
The numbers in the Senate will remain the same with the GOP continuing to hold a one-seat majority.
Arizona and Texas will flip from Republican to Democratic with Beto O'Rourke emerging as the brightest new Democrat star. By Thursday, no, by tomorrow he will become the frontrunner for the 2020 presidential nomination and two years from now will defeat Mike Pence.
Obviously, this means that Donald Trump, for one reason or another, will not serve out his first term. Early next year he will declare Mission Accomplished and turn the keys to the Oval Office over to Pence.
In the House we will see a real "wave election." Still stung for getting 2016 wrong (no one predicted Trump would win, including Trump himself), pollsters and media pundits are being very conservative this time in analyzing the data and making projections. The consensus going in is that the Democrats will eek out just enough flipped seats (they need 23) to take control. I suspect they will do much better, winning close to 50 currently Republican-held seats.
As it should be, this will be the headline.
Anticipating this, Trump in recent days has been saying he's been concentrating exclusively on the Senate. There are too many seats in the House for him to pay attention to, he said, and thus he won't be surprised if the Democrats take control of the House. "We'll work it out," he has been saying.
Since he's all about winning, "losing" the House will be what will motivate him to not run in 2020. Better to declare victory than try to deal with losing.
In early January the Democrats, who will control all House committees, will begin a judicious number of investigations. To launch too many will make it look as if there is in fact a witch hunt going on, that the election to Democrats was all about the opportunity to overturn the 2016 election.
These congressional investigations, where the Dems will have subpoena power, will focus on Trump's finances. Especially his business dealings with the Russians. The Mueller report, which will be submitted within the month, will cover the same ground, and with both dominating the discourse it will make Trump crazier than anything else that might be revealed about him. In a panic he will fire Attorney General Sessions, Rob Rosenstein, and Mueller himself.
But this will not impede the House's work. The genie is coming out of the bottle and it will lead to Trump's downfall. Giving up the presidency will not stall this momentum much less end the investigations.
Most important, tomorrow's results will be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency and will ultimately lead to his own more personal decline because there is so much corruption and criminality waiting to come to light that even he, as nimble as he has been at surviving (his whole life has been about wiggling out of trouble) will not be able to squirm free. After decades, his luck is finally running out.
This is why people today are voting in record numbers: it is to say to him--"Enough."
Unpacking the polling data later this week we will discover that ten percent of his supporters will have either stayed home, not voted because they can't bare to vote for Democrats, or held their noses and pulled the lever for those who opposed Trump.
Republican survivors in Congress who have been among his enablers will begin to abandon ship. All they care about is having power; and with Trump now a liability, they will cut and run. Even Lindsay Graham will be looking for another macho man to suck up to.
In addition, there is considerable pent-up schadenfreude that needs to and will be expressed.
My final prediction is that all will begin to turn out for the best, The system will have been shown to work. That's a very big thing.
Labels: Jeff Sessions, Lindsay Graham, Midterm Election, Mike Pence, Rob Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, Ron Rosenstein, Schadenfreude
posted by Steven Zwerling at
4:44 AM
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