It is normal, almost a rule that a winning party loses seats in the mid-term election after they score a victory. Thus, it is expected and seems likely that the Republicans would lose seats, possibly enough to lose these bodies.

However, history by itself is not a very good predictor in individual situations.

My Prediction Methodology

I have one rule for presidential elections which works incredibly well. My rule is simple unlike a similar 12 point rule some academic came up with independently. I look at the GDP growth rate over the last year. If the sitting president has growth under 2.5% in that year that party will lose power. This rule has worked amazingly well over the last 60 years at least since we’ve had good economic statistics.

The rule is based on a simple idea that people make the decision based on their pocketbooks and personal situation and the news and their rationale might be explained by other reasons but my belief is those things are a result of their dissatisfaction with the economy.

The reason 2.5% is roughly the number is that every year the labor force grows by 1-2%. Thus 2.5% is breakeven for the economy. It means overall people are not losing jobs but the economy is not generating enough jobs to create enthusiasm about the future. People feel anxiety. This anxiety ultimately gets translated into dissatisfaction with the current administration.

This rule explains Jimmy Carters one term loss and George Bush Sr’s loss and many other things. However, it failed one time with Barrack Obama who had extremely slow growth in his re-election bid. My analysis of that election is that for the first time in history the US voted racist. Even though the economy was doing poorly and Obama had not instituted a tax cut to boost jobs and the economy a huge percentage of African Americans voted for Barrack. I think this is a one-time thing.

The 2020 Presidential Election

As we come to the 2020 election if the economy is growing faster than this 2.5% which I believe due to the tax cut and DT’s focus on the economy is a foregone conclusion DT will win re-election without much doubt. In fact it could easily be close to the overwhelming win Ronald Reagan had in 1984 when he took >45 states. This may seem an incredible prediction at this time consider how democrats deride Trump daily but in the end people will not vote suicidally and for someone who would institute policies to slow down the US economically or who hasn’t been in charge during such a massive increase in growth.

I think there is a significant chance Président Trump will be murdered by an overzealous person who takes to heart the 12,000 tweets to murder Trump or the hollywood stars joking about murdering him or his family. The media and the Democrats are inciting violence in their followers accusing racism and many evil things about President Trump. The fact these are fantasies and that blacks are doing better than they ever have in America makes no difference because the filter bubble has brainwashed many blacks to disregard their own best interests.

The 2018 Midterms

The senate is easier to prognosticate than the house.

It’s important to note that during the 2016 election the democrats not only lost seats in the house and senate and the presidency obviously. They also lost governorships, statehouses in droves. Republicans gained 900 legislative seats. It must be considered in context of any losses that 900 is a huge number and a few wins here and there don’t substantially turn the huge advantage Republicans gained.

Probably the most important aspect of the loss in 2016 is that Trump was able to place a conservative Chief Justice in place and he may get a chance to place another before he is out thus ensuring a long term control at the Supreme Court. He is also able to replace a huge number of federal judiciary positions more than any other president in history. Due to backlog almost 50% of all the federal judiciary could be replaced by Trump. This will happen regardless of the legislature turnings.

As has been noted the Senate is harder for the Democrats to change because in 2012 they won a lot of seats. Therefore they have the vast majority of seats up for election and few Republican senate seats are being challenged this election. Thus the Democrats need to retain all of the 25 or so senate seats up and then gain some of the Republican seats up. In fact most analysts predict the Republicans will retain a narrow edge. I concur that it is almost impossible given good economic numbers that the Republicans lose the senate.

The house is the big question mark. It is impossible to say at this point. Statistically as has been pointed out it seems likely that the Democrats would make substantial gains especially as the Republicans made such outsize gains in 2016 it seems unlikely they can keep all those seats.

During the last 6 months or so we have seen a number of special elections. The Democrats have won a large number of these. This gives them a lot of optimism that there is an enthusiasm for their winning in 2018. However, I don’t see it that way. The democrats who have won in the last year are all extremely conservative virtually democrat in name only. Some have said they will oppose Nancy Pelosi. Some have said they will work with President Trump.

The 450 house seats will require 225 Democrats and if the Democrats put up “sanctuary city supporting” anti-Trump candidates who promise to undo everything Donald Trump has done they will be sorely dissapointed. The middle of the country is massively in favor of President Trump. Polls by Nancy Pelosi herself show the middle class has been decisively lost by the Democrats. In her poll middle class voters favored Republicans by 35% more than the hispanic voters edge the democrats have.

One can quote polls all day but if my thesis is correct then more underlying phenomenon will control the voters and the news and polls will simply reflect this underlying reality. The fact is that if Democrats message is to undo what has worked for the middle class, i.e. growth continues to help the middle class and they rebuild wages and wealth then it is inconceivable why or how they would vote against their own interests.

The Democrats believe their filter bubble media and the polls they generate too much. They did this in 2016. During the election polls showed the democrats with 20+% leads in some states. Many states in the last month switched by over 20 points. Media pundits were predicting a historic large slaughter for Democrats in 2016 election just one month before the election. About 2 weeks before the election the polls adjusted their numbers down. They did this by playing with the demographic assumptions they made in their polls. John Podesta in Wikileaks had an email to media that described how to game the polls for Hillary and they did this. They used demographic statistics from 2012 which showed young people voting in high numbers and blacks. Those people did not show up in those numbers. They knew this would happen all along but decided not to factor those changes in. The result was a grossly biased polling results all during the campaign.

A similar thing may be happening here. I don’t believe the polls unless I see the assumptions they are using. I use common sense instead and use rules based on statistical logical basis. Frankly, I don’t have that for the house. I have not studied the results of house races or the house in general enough to know what will flip these seats.

My conclusion that the Democrats will have trouble winning more seats in 2018 is based on the idea that unless the Democrats have a message of positive reasons that is believable and their is significant slowdown in growth the electorate will NOT change the power structure significantly.

There are extraordinary political messages coming out that have influenced elections in the past. The tea party for instance seemed to help swing the election to republicans in the past. Here are the swing issues that divide americans and are very emotional and might effect people’s vote somehow outside their own personal financial situation:

1. Illegal Immigration

2. Guns

3. Abortion

4. Impeaching Donald Trump

5. The Economy

6. Sexual Scandals

I believe 2,3,6 are irrelevant and are a wash at best for Democrats. While many people seem to be energized about guns the fact is youth rarely votes in elections at all and almost never in mid-terms. If democrats are able to get interest in this it is likely that other voters who are vastly more in favor of protecting gun rights will counter. I don’t believe we are on the cusp of overturning the 2nd amendment. Too many people see guns as something they need or want. Similarly abortion and sex are side issues that have been decided by the Supreme Court or are endemic to both parties and nobody believes it is only Democrats or Republicans who commit sex crimes.

I believe 1,4,5 all strongly favor President Trump and Republicans.

I believe the more the Democrats call for Donald Trumps impeachment the more likely there will be a voter backlash against Democrats. People do not see the crime that Donald has committed and he will gain sympathy votes. Today something like 10% of voters believe the media. Few voters watch media regularly. Most voters don’t pay attention to politics until the month of the election. They use their own personal information and discount much of the media. To my understanding the media made no difference in the 2016 election. They lambasted Trump 24×7 for a year and he won anyway. Only the people who are already voting against Trump listen or believe the propaganda media of the left. They are lying to themselves.

If the US impeached a president not for a significant crime it would have repercussions for our democracy that would be incredibly bad. People know this. Besides the way the process works is that the house votes to impeach but the senate tries the president and determines if he is actually convicted/thrown out. It also requires a super majority to remove a president. Since the Republicans will likely still retain control and unlikely to vote out Trump they will never be able to remove him although if the house does go democratic they may be able to russell up enough votes to “impeach” him similar to how Bill Clinton was impeached but not convicted. The more the Democrats talk about impeaching and the resulting chaos this would create and lack of action I believe this will hurt the democrats.

Illegal immigration is a far more damaging issue for Democrats. Polls show that large fraction of voters don’t think we should support sanctuary policies or encourage illegal immigration. This is not racist but simply common sense. The tide I believe is strongly in Trump’s favor that we need to tighten the border and reduce illegal immigration.

During the 80s, 90s and 00s the illegal immigration tide was huge. Probably 20-30 million illegals poured into this country to take the high growth rate jobs. However, during the Obama years of average 1% growth even illegal immigrants knew that the number of jobs and quality in America wasn’t that good. Illegal immigration has naturally fallen off. If the economy goes into high gear then people south of the border will undoubtedly have huge incentive again to pour across the border. Another 20 million illegals could easily flow in. I think the prospect of that is frightening to America. With 30,40 million illegals in the country it would completely change what America was and I think this would be a major disaster. It’s not a matter of whether they are hispanic, black or white illegals. The mere fact of having such a large number of de facto hidden workers and hidden income would destroy the economic model of the US. I think people know this. If the economy grows this year we will see an uptick in illegal immigration and this will galvinize Americans that we need programs to protect our country.

Lastly I believe the economy favors Republicans retaining control.

Conclusion

The result of all this is that I believe strongly that the Republicans will control the house and senate after the midterms as they do now. This will come as a major shock to democrats who think that they are “due” to win. They believe their own narratives and lie to themselves and will be disappointed again when another prediction and false narrative is exposed.

I am hoping that this electoral defeat in 2018 will convince Democrats to abandon the filter bubbles and the strategies of hate rhetoric and realize they can’t win by pure intimidation and yelling. They need to have reasons why Americans should vote for them that affect them personally not some abstract evil they have fantasized.

Like in the 2016 election the reality overcomes the fantasy and democracy is proven to work. People cannot propagandize the electorate in the US. No matter how they try to scare people with “blacks will be exterminated by Trump” or “the environment will crash and cities will sink under water.” Or “taking away guns from the legal owners somehow will affect crime” when legal firearms are responsible for only 3% of all crime will not work.

The democrats will have to learn they need to perform. They need to have policies which work. They need to do what they say they will do and provide for the middle class. The middle class is almost by definition the majority of voters.

The democrats cannot win significant number of elections locally or in presidential elections without winning back the middle class more. To do that they have to stop breaking the middle class into races and deriding some of them.

Democracy works if the majority (the middle class) wins. This country must function for the majority while protecting the minorities. That happened in 2016. Donald Trump spoke to jobs for the middle class and he is delivering. Unless the Democrats can stop insulting the middle class, calling them racists (when they voted for Obama 2 times) and creating fantasy problems they scare people with they will not win elections across this country.