SENATE RACES TO WATCH
Democrats will not be any nicer. But before Republicans leap out the window, they might want to consider what happened next. In response to his rebuke at the ballot box, Clinton famously moved to the political center, and while painting his opponents as right-wing terrorists in public, he quietly worked with congressional Republicans to lower the capital gains tax, reduce the rate of growth in government spending, and balance the budget for the first time in more than 30 years. I doubt Donald Trump is capable of the same cunning and political dexterity that was second-nature to Bill Clinton, and I’m pretty sure Pelosi and Schumer, with a left- wing caucus burbling beneath them, won’t get away with the kind of moderate maneuvering shown by congressional leaders circa 1995. But it would be a happy ending to a wildly unpredictable election on November 6. Of course, Trump won’t forget that for all Clinton’s successes with an opposition Congress, the Republicans impeached him anyway... An electoral wave may first appear like the storm that descended on Elijah and Ahab: a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand rising from the sea. Political scientists have been busy building statistical models that consume raw numbers on one end – polls, economic data, demographics – and then spit out a prediction on the other. Nearly all show the Democrats taking the House with a relatively slim majority. Most show the Republicans keeping the Senate and gaining a seat or two or three in the bargain. Here are a few key races to watch as the election day approaches.
Texas The incumbent Republican Ted Cruz
faces a two-term Democratic congressman improbably named Beto O’Rourke. (In college he was content to call himself “Rob.”) Democrats and their allies in the political press corps have been predicting for several elections now that deep red Texas is about to become Democratic, even though it has voted for Republicans in every gubernatorial, Senate, and presidential race for 25 years. The last telegenic Texas Democrat who was supposed to pull off this magical transformation from red to blue was a feminist icon and state senator named Wendy Davis in 2014. Well-funded and boosted by an adoring press, she ran for governor and lost to her Republican opponent, Greg Abbott, by 20 points. The extremely popular Abbott is on the ballot again this year, and Republicans hope his big lead will spill over to help the much less popular Cruz. O’Rourke has lots of campaign money to spend on identifying and exploiting previously neglected pockets of liberal voters, and he is drawing large, enthusiastic crowds. His press coverage is as giddy as Davis’ was. The Republican leads in every poll but almost always within the margin of error, too close for Cruz’s comfort. If Texas does finally send a Democrat to the Senate, it will be a cruel irony. The trending liberalism of the state reflects an influx of millennials, the most statist age cohort in the country, who are
32 October 2018
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter