- by New Deal democrat
So I am reading some caterwauling in the progressive blogosphere about how the midterm polling has tightened and "the wave may have crested too early."
Nonsense. That the way forward for the GOP was to concede that there would be a big increase in turnout by Democrats, and to focus on increasing the GOP turnout by "nationalizing" the Congressional and Senate elections was obvious to me seven months ago when I wrote about pouring some cold water on Democratic overenthusiasm:
Here's what I said then:
.... The results of last June's special election in Georgia, in which GOPer Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff show that there is a roadmap to the GOP minimizing their losses in this November's midterms.
Because while all of the legislative elections in 2017 and so far in 2018 have featured huge gains in Democratic turnout, the difference in Georgia was that there was a *similar* spike in GOP turnout. And this playbook is going to be easier for the GOP to run in nationwide contests than in local special elections.
....
[In the Georgia special election, w]hile there was sky-high Democratic turnout, turnout by GOPers was almost as high -- enough so that their candidate prevailed. In other words, when both D's and R's turn out at near-Presidential levels, the outcome resembles that of the district's vote in the last Presidential election.
....
In November, it is going to be much easier for the GOP and their propaganda organs like Fox to "nationalize" local elections, arguing that a Democratic House is likely to impeach Trump (true) and veto new regulations on, e.g., Muslim and Latino immigratiion proposed by Trump's bureaucracy (true), while a Democratic Senate will refuse to confirm Trump's anti-gay and anti-abortion Judicial nominations, including any vacancies that may open up on the Supreme Court (also true).
....
If so, the vote in Congressional districts and Senate races is likely to come closer to mirroring that from 2016.
So, here we are in October, and GOP voters are "coming home" in part based on a "vacancy that [ ] open[ed] up on the Supreme Court." Surprise, surprise.
But Trump is probably going to create a bunch of new controversies dominating the news cycles over the next three weeks, so Kavanaugh is going to be something of a distant memory. Get over your caterwauling and get out and vote.
