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The fight to win the most unruly institution in Washington

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MIKE LAWLER, a Republican congressman representing New York’s 17th congressional district, considers himself a moderate. Mondaire Jones, a former congressman challenging Mr Lawler, also considers himself a moderate. Neither candidate in this swing race agrees with the other’s self-description. “At the end of the day, if it talks like a socialist, votes like a socialist—folks, it’s socialist,” Mr Lawler said in a recent debate. Mr Jones hit back, “If it talks like a fascist and supports a fascist for president of the United States for the third consecutive presidential election, then it’s a mini-fascist.”

That hyperbole probably won’t sway the contest’s outcome, which is driven more by national trends, but this mostly suburban district north of New York City will help influence which party will control the House of Representatives. Though Senate races get most of the attention, the country’s lower chamber also can make or break the next president’s agenda.

By this point in the election cycle, everyone knows that the presidential election will be decided in six or seven swing states, and that the electoral college gives states in the upper Midwest an outsize say over the future of the free world. The electorate that will determine what the next president will be able to do—the voters who will pick the House majority—are different. During the 2022 midterm elections Republican wins in California and New York, two states used to being ignored in presidential elections, gave the party its majority. Both sides agree that those states could make the difference again. The Economist’s forecast shows that seven of the 20 closest House races are in either New York or California, and are now held by Republicans like Mr Lawler.

Unlike the electoral college, which gives the Republican candidate an advantage worth about two points of the national vote share in this election, the House map is fair. Democrats used to complain about being at a disadvantage due to gerrymandering (the practice of politicians drawing district maps to their advantage). Now we estimate Democrats need only win by one point to have a 50:50 chance of controlling the House.

The tightness in national elections means that control of the House changes often. Between 1955 and 1995 Democrats had the majority. Since 1995 control has switched five times. But the House hasn’t flipped in the opposite direction to a presidential race since the 19th century, and both parties agree that it’s unlikely to happen this year. They also concur that whoever wins a majority will have a narrow one. That means that if Donald Trump wins, Republicans are quite likely to have a House and Senate majority (Republicans are favourites to win the Senate regardless of who takes the White House).

“We’ve expanded the map of competitive districts, which gives us more paths,” says a House Democratic operative, referring to how Joe Biden’s departure from the presidential race boosted down-ballot candidates. Even so, the Democrat believes that only around three dozen races are truly competitive, a view shared by Republican strategists: “I think this really comes down ultimately to a Republican or Democratic plus-five majority.”

Dial five for shutdown

The difference between a five- and ten-seat majority could have tremendous implications for public policy, particularly if Republicans win the House. Their current narrow majority made governing nearly impossible for the past two years, as the party’s nihilists had disproportionate clout. The latest fiscal year was nearly halfway over, for example, by the time Congress approved a permanent government-funding bill. Given that the next president’s ability to govern rides on the shape of Congress, it is perhaps surprising how little money is spent on House campaigns compared with Senate races (let alone the presidential contest).

Congressional Leadership Fund, the most important Republican super PAC for winning the House, raised $81.4m from July to September. House Majority PAC, the equivalent Democratic group, pulled in about $99m. In the Texas Senate race alone the two candidates have raised a total of $166m. The presidential candidates have mustered $1.4bn (campaign groups have gathered an additional $1.3bn). This reflects the fact that House races have been eaten by national politics. If either Kamala Harris or Mr Trump somehow does end up controlling the White House but not the House, it will be because of candidates who managed to defy political gravity in their small corner of the country.

New York’s 17th district is an example. There are almost 90,000 more Democrats than Republicans in Mr Lawler’s seat, which Mr Biden won by double digits in 2020. The candidate will have to buck national trends if he is to remain in Congress. On a recent Sunday, he visited New Life Pentecostal Church in New York’s Hudson Valley. Its pastor, Denochy Cowan, does not endorse candidates, but welcomes any to speak to his congregation, made up of immigrants from Antigua, Haiti, Ghana, Guyana, Jamaica and Kenya. Mr Lawler acknowledged that he may not have much in common with those in the pews, but said it’s OK because that’s what democracy is all about. Paraphrasing Ed Koch, a former New York City mayor, he joked, “If you agree with me on nine out of 12 things, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 things, have your head examined.”

Stay on top of American politics with The US in brief, our daily newsletter with fast analysis of the most important electoral stories, and Checks and Balance, a weekly note from our Lexington columnist that examines the state of American democracy and the issues that matter to voters.

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Economics

How we will cover a second Trump presidency

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This is the introduction to The Economist this week, a free weekly newsletter that includes a note from our editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes.

Sign up for The Economist this week

The world has just witnessed a historic turn. Donald Trump’s election as America’s 47th president was not a fluke: his victory was decisive. By securing more than 70m votes, he has won the popular vote for the first time in three attempts. The Republican Party now runs the Senate and is likely, within days, to secure control of the House. Add that the Supreme Court will be firmly entrenched with MAGA values for a generation. All this constitutes a stunning comeback and provides a powerful mandate for Mr Trump; in our cover leader we call him the most consequential American president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Our weekly edition considers what a second Trump presidency means. If Mr Trump has wrecked the old order, what will take its place? Will the return of Trumponomics spark a global trade war? How will Mr Trump handle the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East? His sweeping victory could set the tone for fellow nationalist populists such as Marine Le Pen, who hopes to secure France’s presidency in 2027. Mr Trump was too easily dismissed as an aberration in his first term. Not now. He has defined a new political era, for America and the world.

Subscribers can now sign up to participate in our live digital event on Friday November 8th, where our editors will discuss the election’s aftermath and what comes next. I also recommend the US in brief, our daily newsletter devoted to the most important matters in American politics.

Wherever you live, Mr Trump’s presidency will affect you. Over the next four years, we will report on and analyse the effects of the second Trump presidency on policy, business, economics and more—in America and around the world.

I invite you to be a part of this. If you already subscribe to The Economist, thank you.

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Economics

Opinion polls underestimated Donald Trump again

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FOR THE third presidential election in a row Donald Trump has stumped America’s pollsters. As results came in on election night it became clear that polls had again underestimated enthusiasm for Mr Trump in many states. In Iowa, days before the election a well-regarded poll by Ann Selzer had caused a stir by showing Kamala Harris ahead by three percentage points. In the end, Mr Trump won the state by 13 points.

Overall, the polling miss was far smaller. Polls accurately captured a close contest in the national popular vote and correctly forecast tight races in each of the battleground states. National polls erred by less than they did in 2020, and state polls improved on their dismal performances in 2020 and 2016. Yet this will be little comfort to pollsters who have been grappling with Mr Trump’s elusive supporters for years.

The Economist’s nationwide polling average found Kamala Harris leading by 1.5 percentage points, overestimating her advantage by around three points (many votes have yet to be counted), compared with an average error of 2.7 points in past cycles. State polling averages from FiveThirtyEight, a data-journalism outfit, had an average error of 3.0, smaller than the average of 4.2 points since 1976.

Chart: The Economist

But in contrast to 2016, when pollsters’ misses were concentrated in certain states, those in this cycle were nearly uniform across state and national polls. In the seven key states, polling averages underestimated Mr Trump’s margin by between 1.5 and 3.5 points (see chart). Pollsters may claim that their surveys captured the “story” of the election. But the awkward question remains: why did they underestimate Mr Trump for the third cycle in a row?

In past election cycles, pollsters have tweaked survey “weights” to make their samples of voters more representative. Although polls aim to sample the population randomly, in practice they often systematically miss certain groups. Weights are used to increase the influence of under-represented respondents. This has been especially true in recent years as response rates have plummeted.

After the 2016 election, when surveys systematically missed voters without college degrees and therefore underestimated support for Mr Trump, pollsters began accounting for respondents’ education levels. And after 2020, in an effort to ensure that Republican voters were represented, more pollsters began weighting their samples by respondents’ party registration and self-reported voting history. This caused the range of poll outcomes to narrow (weighting reduces the variance of survey results), with many pollsters finding similar results in key states and nationwide.

If there is a lesson from this year’s election, it could be that there is a limit to what weighting can solve. Although pollsters may artificially make a sample “representative” on the surface, if they do not address the root causes of differential response rates, they will not solve the underlying problem. They also introduce many subjective decisions, which can be worth almost eight points of margin in any given poll.

A pollster which gets those decisions right appears to be prophetic. But with limited transparency before the election, it is hard to know which set of assumptions each has made, and whether they are the correct ones. To their credit, the pollsters get together to conduct comprehensive post-election reviews. This year’s may be revealing. Still, without a breakthrough technology that can boost the representativeness of survey samples, weighting alone is unlikely to solve pollsters’ difficulty in getting a reliable read on what Trump voters are thinking.

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Economics

Donald Trump also won a reprieve from justice

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IT WAS A high-stakes election for all Americans, most of all Donald Trump. Had he lost, there was a fair chance that he would have gone to prison. He faces four separate sets of criminal charges, each with a prospect of jail time. Instead, once back in the White House, Mr Trump will be able to quash his two federal indictments and the two state cases against him are all but certain to be frozen.

That Mr Trump has managed to largely evade legal accountability is partly a result of his stalling for time, in anticipation of this very outcome. His strategy was aided by the Supreme Court, a third of whose justices he appointed. And yet his supporters see a justice system that is pliable and easily weaponised. To some in MAGA world, Mr Trump’s threats to train it against his political enemies now sound eminently reasonable.

The first post-election piece of business in Mr Trump’s trials will come in the hush-money case in Manhattan, where, barring further delay, he is due to be sentenced on November 26th. In May he was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a payment to a porn star. Each charge carries a maximum of four years in prison. Yet there is hardly any chance of the judge imposing jail time—constitutional scholars agree that a sitting president cannot be locked up. In any event Mr Trump’s lawyers will probably ask to postpone sentencing until after his term in office ends.

Next come the two federal cases brought by Jack Smith, a special counsel in the Department of Justice (DOJ). Mr Trump stands accused of refusing to return classified documents upon leaving the White House and of attempting to overturn his defeat after the 2020 election. He denies wrongdoing in both. DOJ policy says that a president cannot be prosecuted while in office. Extinguishing these cases is simple: Mr Trump can fire Mr Smith and direct DOJ lawyers to drop them. He can do this even before his attorney-general is confirmed, notes Mary McCord, a former federal prosecutor.

In Georgia, meanwhile, Mr Trump faces charges in state court over his meddling in the 2020 election. The case is on hold while an appeals court weighs whether the prosecutor who brought the charges should be removed for alleged impropriety. If it ever gets going again, it will not include Mr Trump so long as he is the sitting president. But his 14 remaining co-defendants could still stand trial.

Then there is the civil litigation against Mr Trump for his role in the January 6th riot. Several Capitol police officers have sued him, alleging that he instigated the attack; courts are in the middle of sorting out whether his conduct is immune from civil liability. If they say it is not immune, precedent suggests that civil suits against a sitting president can proceed.

Soon enough attention will turn from Mr Trump’s legal jeopardy to that of his opponents, whom he has vowed to target. At a MAGA victory party attended by your correspondent, shortly before the conga line started, several of his supporters suggested that Joe Biden ought to drop the federal prosecutions against Mr Trump as a show of goodwill. Then one gleefully added that she would love to see their man “take the Bidens down”.

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