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NOW AVAILABLE: TRUMPED: THE 2016 ELECTION THAT BROKE ALL THE RULES
The House Tilts Toward the Democrats
Big-picture factors help minority party, but battle far from over; 17 ratings changes in favor of Democrats
, July 24th, 2018
| Editor’s Note: This is a special Tuesday edition of the Crystal Ball. We’ll be back to our regular Thursday schedule next week. |
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE
— Democrats are now a little better than 50-50 to win the House. This is the first time this cycle we’ve gone beyond 50-50 odds on a House turnover.
— We’re making 17 House ratings changes this week, all in favor of the Democrats.
— One of those comes in OH-12, where the last nationally-watched special House election is taking place in a couple of weeks.
Table 1: Crystal Ball House ratings changes
Table 2: Crystal Ball House ratings
Why the Democrats are now soft favorites in the House
As soon as President Donald Trump was elected, the national political dynamics immediately changed. Democrats, somnolent in off-year elections in the Obama years (and also in 2016, at least in some key places), would re-energize. The historical burden of holding the White House transferred to the Republicans, and the president’s party has lost ground in 36 of 39 House midterms since the Civil War with an average loss of 33 seats. In the more recent past, since the end of World War II, the average seat loss is 26 seats, or right on the borderline of the 23 net seats the Democrats need to elect a House majority.
That average includes years where the presidential party broke the historical trend and netted a few seats (1998 and 2002) or lost only a relative handful (1962 and 1990). But the presidents who presided over those midterms were popular and had other factors working in their favor. This president is not popular, and no one believes there is any chance the Republicans come out of this election with more seats than they hold now. Even just a single-digit GOP seat loss would be shocking, an outcome driven by late developments unforeseeable at this juncture.
Yet, to this point, we’ve hesitated to come out and make the Democrats a favorite in the House. The Republicans have strong incumbents in some of their most vulnerable seats, and the national House map has a GOP tilt: By margin, the median House district is about four percentage points to the right of the nation based on district-level results from the 2016 presidential election. The economy is good — or, rather, baseline economic indicators are good even though there is a compelling argument that the nation’s economic gains have been unevenly distributed in recent times — and the nation is not engaged in a major foreign conflict. Recessions and war can hurt the president’s party in midterms, although their absence also does not guarantee a lack of turbulence, as any glance at national headlines these days would confirm.
So what’s changed? Why do we now tilt the House to the Democrats?
Well, part of the reason is simply this: In actuality, not much has changed throughout the cycle. That, in and of itself, is a problem for Republicans.
Election Day is getting closer, and the president’s approval rating is still largely stuck in the low 40s, a big red warning sign that has bedeviled the party of similarly-situated presidents in past midterms. The House generic ballot, which has generally been at around a Democratic lead of between six to eight points, is at the higher end of that range right now. But more importantly for the House battle, for most of this election cycle the generic ballot has shown a consistent Democratic lead that suggests a very competitive battle for the majority. A high number of open seats — the highest number of any postwar election save 1992 — give Democrats many more targets than the GOP (Republicans are defending 41 seats without an incumbent, while Democrats are defending only 22).
Special elections at the state and federal level, sometimes a helpful gauge of what is to come in the midterm, have generally shown Democrats improving on Hillary Clinton’s district-level performance, often drastically. Democrats seem very likely to improve on Clinton’s margin once again in a special election in OH-12 on Aug. 7, the last House special before the midterm, although by how much is a question (an update on OH-12, a race we now call a Toss-up, is included at the bottom of this article).
There are also the specifics of this particular election. The second-quarter (April through June) House fundraising reports came out last week, and the results are alarming for Republicans. It’s not that GOP fundraising, in total, was bad: Many vulnerable incumbents had very solid quarters. Rather, it’s that Democratic fundraising was extraordinary, with dozens of Democratic candidates turning in blockbuster quarters and outraising their GOP opponents. Money isn’t everything, but one expects incumbents to have a clear financial edge on their opponents, and it’s not clear that some current GOP members will have even that with several months of buckraking to go before the Nov. 6 election.
Put it all together, and the Democrats now look like soft favorites to win a House majority with a little more than 100 days to go. The usual caveats apply: There is time for things to change, and the Democrats capturing the majority is not a slam dunk. We recently were discussing the House map with a source who recited reams of positive indicators and data for Democrats. After hearing those, we suggested that, based on what this person was saying, the Democrats should win the House with seats to spare. The source then said it will come down to just a few seats either way. By the way, such a close outcome — a House where the majority party has 220-225 seats or even less (218 is the number required for a bare majority) — remains a distinct possibility, and the presence of so many competitive House seats in California, where the vote count takes weeks to finalize, could delay the final House outcome.
This week’s ratings changes
Ratings changes continue to push more seats into increasingly competitive categories for Republicans.
The headliners are the formerly Leans Republican districts that we’re moving to Toss-up, eight in total. We’ll discuss seven here, and the eighth (the OH-12 special) in a separate section below.
The sheer weight of the Democratic fundraising advantage is a factor in some of these moves. For instance, Reps. Steve Chabot (R, OH-1) and Mike Bishop (R, MI-8) hold districts that Trump won by about a half-dozen points apiece. They have had relatively easy elections over the past couple of cycles (Chabot has been in the House since 1995, with an interruption in service from 2009-2011, while Bishop was first elected in 2014), but they face two seemingly high-quality Democratic challengers, Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval (D) and Elissa Slotkin (D), an Obama-era Defense Department official. Pureval raised more than double what Chabot raised last quarter and is approaching the long-time incumbent’s cash-on-hand total, while Slotkin has been crushing Bishop in fundraising so badly that she holds a $2.2 million to $1.7 million cash on hand advantage, an unusual edge for a challenger to hold on an incumbent. Both districts have above-average college graduation rates, often a predictor of Trump skepticism that could have down-ballot repercussions.
Two other districts also feature well-funded Democratic challengers, but this time in districts that flipped from backing Mitt Romney in 2012 to supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016: IL-6, held by Rep. Peter Roskam (R), and TX-7, held by Rep. John Culberson (R). Republicans have fretted that Culberson, who basically has never had a hard race in a Houston-area district that has long been deeply Republican (George H.W. Bush won a version of this district back when it was created in the 1960s), was not taking his race seriously enough, but party leaders believe he has gotten the message. That said, he still got more than doubled up by attorney Lizzie Pannill Fletcher (D) in fundraising in the second quarter of 2018, although Fletcher had to use resources to win a primary runoff. Roskam, meanwhile, is more battle-tested: He won his first House race in 2006 against now-Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) in what was a rare bright spot for Republicans that year (Roskam replaced prominent Republican Rep. Henry Hyde, who retired in 2006). Roskam faces clean-energy entrepreneur Sean Casten (D), who won the nomination in something of an upset. Roskam and Casten both had outstanding quarters: The incumbent outraised the challenger about $960,000 to $820,000 and retains a roughly 3.5 to 1 cash-on-hand edge.
Two other Toss-ups come in Appalachia. In the Lexington-based district held by Rep. Andy Barr (R, KY-6),[1] former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath (D) turned heads by upsetting Lexington Mayor Jim Gray (D) in a May primary. McGrath’s victory prompted us to hesitate moving this historically competitive district to Toss-up — Gray was more of a proven commodity — but Democrats argue McGrath is leading and Republicans concede this will be a hard race. Across the border in West Virginia, state Sen. Richard Ojeda (D) has become something of a folk hero in Coal Country and is locked in a close race with state Del. Carol Miller (R) in an open seat contest for WV-3.
Both of these districts (KY-6 and WV-3) are more Democratic than meets the eye. While Trump won KY-6 by 15 points and WV-3 by an eye-popping 49 points last cycle, at the same time Gray carried KY-6 in his unsuccessful challenge to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and then-Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Justice (who is now the governor, and a Republican) carried WV-3 by 17 points. Certainly the trend in American politics has been toward less ticket-splitting and more partisanship, but there are still many places that make different partisan decisions up and down the ticket in a single election and many others that are willing to toggle between the parties from year to year. The Democrats’ House hopes are riding on this dynamic, because practically speaking they cannot win the House with just Clinton voters and Clinton-won districts alone.
An additional new Toss-up is IA-3, a Des Moines-based swing district, where private and public surveys from Democrats show Rep. David Young (R) either narrowly leading or narrowly trailing small business owner Cindy Axne (D), and Trump’s star seems weaker in Iowa than when he won the state by about nine points in 2016. So IA-3 also moves to Toss-up. Iowa is a place where Trump’s trade wars may have some political salience depending on what impact tariffs and tariff retaliation has on crops like soy beans, the price of which is down 20% as the president prepares to visit Iowa later this week. Farm economy disruptions have hurt the president’s party in this state and region in the past, like in the mid-to-late 1980s, when this dynamic ended up hurting Republicans. Iowa was never more Democratic than the nation than it was in the 1988 presidential election, when it strongly backed Michael Dukakis over George H.W. Bush.
As long as we’re on the topic of Iowa, let’s also note the new inclusion of Rep. Steve King (R, IA-4) in our ratings as Likely Republican. King’s district is very conservative, but he is constantly in the news for extreme comments on immigration.[2] He also has been lapped in fundraising by J.D. Scholten (D), a paralegal and former professional baseball player. Other additions to the Likely Republican list are Rep. John Carter (R, TX-31), where veteran M.J. Hegar (D) is raising a lot of money even though she faces a very uphill battle; Reps. Jackie Walorski (R, IN-2) and Trey Hollingsworth (R, IN-9), who face credible opponents in districts that are historically more competitive than Trump’s lopsided vote totals would indicate; and Rep. Mike Kelly (R, PA-16), who occupies a Western Pennsylvania district based in Erie that has some similarities to the one Rep. Conor Lamb (D, PA-18) captured in a March special election. To be clear, Likely does in fact mean Likely — Republicans ultimately should hold all of these districts, although in the event of a true wave one or more could flip. In what could be a turbulent year in the House after three relatively quiet elections (the total net change in the House from 2012-2016 was Democrats gaining a single seat), observers such as ourselves are straining to identify potential upsets, and one way of flagging those districts is to put them in the Likely Republican column, which is what we have been doing. Republican operatives believe we’re doing the Democrats a favor by listing so many GOP-held seats in competitive categories and helping the Democrats bolster their argument that the playing field is very large. They may have a point, but we also think in a year like this that many GOP incumbent vote shares will be significantly lower than what they are used to, both because of the national environment and because the Democrats are running a big roster of candidates who have at least some money and credibility. That could lead to a shocker or two or three come November if some members are caught napping.
More competitive than Likely Republican are three other districts, which move to Leans Republican in this update. Rep. Steve Pearce’s (R, NM-2) decision to once again seek statewide office (he’s running an uphill battle for governor and lost a Senate race in 2008) has opened his conservative but sometimes-competitive district, NM-2. Democrats won NM-2 when it was open in 2008, and attorney Xochitl Torres Small (D) is running a credible campaign and holds a nearly five-to-one cash-on-hand edge over her opponent, state Rep. Yvette Herrell (R). However, Herrell did have to expend funds in a competitive primary and one would still rather be the Republican in a district that is decidedly right of center. The same is true for Reps. French Hill (R, AR-2) and Vern Buchanan (R, FL-16), who have faced real races in the past and likely will again this cycle in competitive but GOP-leaning districts.
Finally, Rep. Charlie Crist (D, FL-13), the party-switching former governor who won his first term in a close race last cycle, probably could be pushed by the right Republican in the right year in his St. Petersburg-based district, but he is not a real Republican target this year and he moves to Safe Democratic. The only truly vulnerable Democratic House incumbent in November continues to be the aforementioned Lamb, who because of redistricting is running in a new district against another incumbent, Rep. Keith Rothfus (R, PA-17), although Republicans hope to push a few others by November.
The OH-12 special
The final House special election scheduled before November comes in the northern Columbus suburbs, where state Sen. Troy Balderson (R) and Franklin County (Columbus) Recorder Danny O’Connor (D) are battling to replace former Rep. Pat Tiberi (R, OH-12), who resigned his seat to take a very lucrative job with the Ohio Business Roundtable.
We previously held our rating in the OH-12 special election at Leans Republican for several reasons. This is a district that Trump won by 11 points, and it’s probably more Republican than that — some parts of it are among the most historically Republican counties in Ohio. Additionally, all the polling we have seen (public and private) has shown Balderson leading. It seemed as though Balderson was positioned to hold on and win by somewhere in the neighborhood of five points. But signs of strain are showing: GOP outside groups have long been involved in the district, although not at the heavy rates of the PA-18 special that Lamb won in March, but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently jumped in too, making a small but noteworthy $240,000 ad buy. Early voting, which often has a Democratic lean in Ohio and therefore can sometimes be overinterpreted, nonetheless is very Democratic so far (Ohio doesn’t have formal party registration, but voters can be identified by party in voting statistics based upon which party’s primary they most recently voted in). Democrats might just be front-loading their votes — again, that happens in Ohio sometimes, like in 2016 when early votes tailed first on election night suggested a close statewide race for president before Election Day votes appeared and were very Republican (this is a dynamic worth remembering when tracking the OH-12 results on Aug. 7, by the way). But, as the Columbus Dispatch pointed out, the early voting in OH-12 specifically so far is much more Democratic than it was leading up to the 2016 election.
There are two competing factors at work in OH-12: The local specifics and the national trends. For a while, it appeared as though the local specifics — a decent GOP candidate in Balderson and the GOP’s historic strength in this district — were guiding the race and contributing to Balderson’s lead. Simply put, this is not a district that a Democrat should be able to win under normal circumstances. Period.
But as the election approaches, the national trends may be asserting themselves in what are not normal circumstances: Democratic enthusiasm and special election results that have often broken in their favor. Oh, and there’s another local factor: O’Connor is a decent candidate, too.
The Republican’s PA-18 nightmare certainly has a chance to repeat itself and, if it does, the race may unfold in a similar way: O’Connor, like Lamb, will lose a lot of the district’s more rural territory, but he could be powered by disproportionately strong turnout and good percentages in the part of this district closest to Columbus (Lamb was boosted by the parts of his district closest to Pittsburgh).
So we’re calling OH-12 a Toss-up now, similar to how we felt about some other big special elections this cycle: PA-18, Alabama Senate, and GA-6. Democrats ended up winning two of those (PA-18, Alabama), while Republicans won the other (GA-6).
Conclusion: The Toss-ups
This week’s changes leave a very large number of Toss-ups: 36, 34 held by Republicans and just two held by Democrats. That leaves 200 districts at least leaning to the Republicans and 199 at least leaning to the Democrats, assuming the non-Toss-ups go the way we currently project (and there are shaky seats in both “Leans” columns).
That basically means that the party that wins about half of the Toss-ups (18 of 36 for Republicans, 19 of 36 for Democrats) will be the majority party in the House. At this point, we see the Democrats with slightly better odds to get their required share of the Toss-ups based largely on the environment, but also because they appear to have well-funded and credible challengers in these districts that can capitalize on that environment. But, as noted above, it’s not a slam dunk, and the GOP has the ability to hang on even if the big-picture national indicators (Trump’s approval and the generic ballot polling) do not get better for them. The danger for Republicans, and one thing that could put the House out of reach for them, is if those indicators get worse.
Footnote
1. Rep. Andy Barr (R, KY-6) is a former student of Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato, and thus Sabato is not involved in ratings decisions in that race.
Correction
2. Because of an error in the Almanac of American Politics, a previous version of this story misstated Rep. Steve King’s (R, IA-4) share of the vote in 2016. He received 61% of the vote, not under 55%.
Mountain State Manchin-Ations
The Democratic incumbent appears to be ahead in West Virginia’s Senate race, but Republicans remain overall favorites to control upper chamber
, July 24th, 2018
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE
— Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is once again a small favorite in our ratings, moving from Toss-up to Leans Democratic in his race against state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R).
— That ratings change leaves six Toss-ups on the Crystal Ball Senate map: Democrats are defending seats held by incumbents in Florida, Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota, while Republicans are defending the seat held by Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) and an open seat in Arizona.
— Democrats likely have to sweep all of those Toss-ups to win a narrow 51-49 Senate majority. That is possible but — at this point — probably unlikely, so Republicans remain favored to hold the Senate.
Table 1: Crystal Ball Senate ratings change
Map 1: Crystal Ball Senate ratings
Manchin again favored as we assess the Senate playing field
This week, the Crystal Ball offered a substantial update of its U.S. House ratings. Additionally, we have one ratings change in the U.S. Senate, a shift that also allows us to offer a fresh outlook for the elections in the upper chamber.
Our one Senate ratings change comes in West Virginia, where incumbent Sen. Joe Manchin (D) faces state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R) in the general election. Just after the Mountain State’s May 8 primary, we moved the race from Leans Democratic to Toss-up, in part because GOP voters avoided making the potentially disastrous mistake of nominating former coal magnate Don Blankenship to face Manchin. Morrisey defeated Blankenship and Rep. Evan Jenkins (R, WV-3) in the Republican primary, and as a twice-elected statewide official, Morrisey has the résumé of someone capable of defeating Manchin. However, in the two or so months since our ratings shift, campaign developments and poll numbers show a race that leans in Manchin’s direction. As a result, we are moving the West Virginia Senate contest from Toss-up to Leans Democratic.
On the polling front, there have been eight surveys released since the May primary. Of those, seven found Manchin ahead by at least seven points in head-to-head matchups with Morrisey. The lone exception was a Republican poll from WPA Intelligence two days after the May 8 nominating contest that showed Morrisey ahead 46%-44%. Another Republican pollster, Trafalgar, just found Manchin ahead by 10 percentage points last week. However, three others polls showing Manchin up were Democratic-sponsored surveys, so those pollsters also had direct skin in the game. Nonetheless, the three nonpartisan surveys of the race all tell the same story: Manchin appears to be ahead by more than a few points. Table 1 displays the nonpartisan polling data.
Table 1: Head-to-head polls of Manchin vs. Morrisey since May 8 primary
Note: *Monmouth offered three different figures; this result comes from using its standard midterm likely voter model.
Since mid-May, two pollsters have found Manchin with double-digit leads, and Monmouth University found Manchin ahead seven points in both its full sample and standard likely voter model (shown in Table 1) and ahead nine points in its “Democratic surge” model.
Now, having just three nonpartisan surveys in about three months is certainly not ideal when it comes to analyzing data, and especially with just one live-phone poll (Monmouth). Yet some campaign developments, in conjunction with these surveys, supply further evidence that Manchin holds an edge in the contest. It is possible — though unclear how probable — that Blankenship will make the general election ballot as the Constitution Party nominee. A month ago, we examined Blankenship and how his third-party (or write-in) candidacy might impact the race. Should he contest the election, it’s unclear how much more Blankenship might hurt Morrisey than Manchin — Blankenship’s strongest areas in the May 8 primary actually overlap with Manchin’s (and other Mountain State Democrats’) traditional stronghold in southern West Virginia’s Third Congressional District. Still, Republicans would prefer Blankenship, a former GOP candidate, to not make the ballot. The former coal executive would surely serve as a distraction for Morrisey as the Republican nominee focuses his attacks on Manchin. As it is, Morrisey may find himself receiving less support from outside Republican groups than he expected. On Thursday, news broke that One Nation, a notable conservative nonprofit aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), had decided to cancel much of a $750,000 TV and radio ad campaign against Manchin while continuing its efforts in four other competitive Senate contests. Whether this is a one-off exit remains to be seen, but it is worrisome for Morrisey that an outside Republican group halted attack ads against ostensibly one of the most endangered Democratic incumbents in the country. The West Virginia race remains very competitive, but it seems that Manchin now has at least a slight edge.
The new rating in the Mountain State means that we now favor Democrats to some extent in 22 of the 26 seats that they are defending in 2018. The other four Democratic-held seats in Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota are all Toss-up races. Republicans are favored to some degree in seven of the nine seats they are defending, with Toss-up contests in GOP-held Arizona and Nevada. Overall, Republicans hold a slim 51-49 advantage in Congress’ upper chamber and it remains their chamber to lose. For Democrats to reverse the status quo and win their own 51-49 majority, they will likely need to retain every seat they currently control while picking up the open seat in Arizona and defeating Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) in the Silver State (an even 50-50 split would allow the GOP to retain power via Vice President Mike Pence). It is possible that Democrats could win the open-seat race in Tennessee, where ex-Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) has led most polls against Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R, TN-7). However, the Volunteer State is a very conservative place these days and may prove to be a reach for Democrats by November. But even if Bredesen were to win while Democrats gained the two Toss-up races out west, the Democrats could still only afford to lose one of their most endangered seats (the toss-up races mentioned above plus Montana and West Virginia) and win a majority. While history is on the Democrats’ side — incumbents from the non-presidential party rarely lose in midterm cycles — there are five Democrats seeking reelection in states that President Donald Trump won by at least 18 points in 2016. That is a lot of red turf to defend, and Florida has become another serious battleground via Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) resurgent popularity and gigantic war chest against Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL).
The point is, Democrats need to either sweep all the Toss-ups to win a slender majority or pull off an upset in another state (like Tennessee). While either scenario could happen — for example, Democrats now hold around a seven-to-eight point lead in the generic ballot, suggesting a friendly environment — Republicans simply have a better chance of maintaining control of the Senate in 2018. Although the race for the House now tilts very slightly toward the Democrats, the GOP remains favored to retain the Senate.
Three Republican Governors Face Increasingly Tough Election Contests
Ratings changes in Arizona, Illinois, and Iowa
, July 19th, 2018
KEY POINT FROM THIS ARTICLE
— The Crystal Ball has three ratings changes in gubernatorial contests, all shifts in the Democrats’ direction: Arizona moves from Likely Republican to Leans Republican, Illinois moves from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic, and Iowa moves from Leans Republican to Toss-up.
New ratings in Arizona, Illinois, and Iowa
Arizona and Iowa have few obvious things in common, but they do both have incumbent Republican governors seeking election in November. Another commonality is that the Crystal Ball now views both states’ gubernatorial contests as increasingly competitive, prompting ratings changes that move the Arizona race from Likely Republican to Leans Republican and the Iowa race from Leans Republican to Toss-up. In addition to these two changes, we are also shifting Illinois’ gubernatorial contest from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic, another downgrade for Republicans.
Table 1: Crystal Ball gubernatorial ratings changes
Map 1: Crystal Ball gubernatorial ratings
In Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey (R) is seeking his second term, having won a comfortable 12-point victory in 2014. Given the Grand Canyon State’s Republican lean and Ducey’s incumbency, he started the 2018 cycle as a relatively strong favorite to win reelection. However, that is no longer the case. In a state that President Donald Trump carried by only 3.5 points, there are signs that the gubernatorial race could be quite competitive, though Arizona’s late August primary means that we do not yet know who Ducey will face in November. This assumes that Ducey will defeat former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett (R) in the Aug. 28 Republican primary; Ducey easily dispatched Bennett (and others) to win the GOP nomination back in 2014, so this seems likely.
Back in April, the Republican Governors Association — tasked with supporting GOP governors — caught our attention by making a television ad buy on behalf of Ducey. The ad focused on Ducey’s efforts to strengthen education in Arizona, coinciding with a teacher strike in the state that led to a legislative deal to raise Arizona educators’ wages. The timing of the ad made sense, but the fact that Ducey might need outside help seemed notable. This development came on top of the fact that Arizona is set to have a very competitive race for U.S. Senate at the top of the ticket. Polls in that race suggest a Democratic-leaning environment, with Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D, AZ-9) leading every nonpartisan general election survey testing her against three possible GOP contenders, led by Rep. Martha McSally (R, AZ-2). Ducey’s incumbency should help him to some degree, but the first nonpartisan survey of the gubernatorial race found Ducey neck and neck with the two most notable Democrats trying for the governorship. Gravis’ recent survey, released in early July, found Arizona State University professor David Garcia (D) up 42%-41% on Ducey and state Sen. Steve Farley (D) trailing Ducey 42%-39%. While more polling obviously will be needed, these data and related information about the political environment suggest Ducey may find himself in a dogfight come the fall. The incumbent remains favored, and he will have a large financial edge in the race: Ducey had $3.5 million in his campaign account at the end of June compared to $490,000 for Farley and about $250,000 for Garcia. News broke on Tuesday that the RGA is spending $1 million on attack ads against Garcia, who lost a close race for state superintendent of public instruction in 2014, and Kelly Fryer, a nonprofit leader and activist also seeking the Democratic nomination. This buy both indicates the GOP’s concern for Ducey but also the resources the party can bring to bear to help Ducey and other Republican candidates. The race remains an uphill battle for Democrats, but our new Leans Republican rating reflects our view that the November contest could be quite competitive.
First elected in 2010 as lieutenant governor on a ticket with Gov. Terry Branstad (R) and reelected in 2014, Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) succeeded to Iowa’s governorship in May 2017 following Branstad’s confirmation as ambassador to China. She is now seeking a full term as governor in her own right this November, having been unopposed in the GOP primary in June. Along with Govs. Jeff Colyer (R-KS), Kay Ivey (R-AL), and Henry McMaster (R-SC), Reynolds is one of four “successor incumbents” who took over governorships in 2017-2018 when the previous governor stepped down and now hope to win four more years this November (among that group, only Colyer has yet to win renomination — Kansas’ primary is on Aug. 7). In the general election, Reynolds will face businessman Fred Hubbell (D), who handily won the Democratic nomination.
Some fundamental factors play a role in our ratings change in Iowa. First, the overall environment continues to lean in Democrats’ direction, with Morning Consult finding the president’s approval underwater in Iowa in June (46% approved, 50% disapproved), which squares with other polling. A recent congressional poll, albeit a Democratic campaign internal, found incumbent Rep. David Young (R, IA-3) trailing Cindy Axne (D). While we always look at internals with great skepticism, the lack of GOP pushback in IA-3 and elsewhere may be another indicator of a favorable environment for Democrats. If the Democratic candidate might be ahead in a district Trump carried by 3.5 points, statewide races may be more competitive than in 2016, when the president carried Iowa by nine points against Hillary Clinton. Additionally, as mentioned above, Reynolds is a “successor incumbent,” a group that has a mixed record of electoral success in the post-World War II era. Of the 62 successor incumbents who sought elections for governor in that time, 39 went on to win the general election, a success rate of 63%, which is worse than the 74% reelection rate for elected incumbent governors since the Second World War. More specifically as it relates to Reynolds, successor incumbents who were not directly elected to their previous statewide post before becoming governor — Reynolds was on a ticket in Iowa as lieutenant governor, not elected separately from the governor — have performed worse than those who did have a prior statewide election track record. Whereas 69% of successor incumbents who had previously won a statewide office in their own right went on to win in November, just 54% of those who came by the gubernatorial office without winning in their own right eventually found success in the general election.
There is little horserace polling to go on in the Hawkeye State, though a January Des Moines Register/Mediacom survey conducted by noted Iowa pollster Ann Selzer found Reynolds ahead of Hubbell 42%-37% well before the June primary. As for her job performance numbers, Morning Consult data for the first quarter of 2018 showed Reynolds had a net positive approval (42% approved, 35% disapprove). While not spectacular, Reynolds’ numbers suggest that she will not be easy to beat. Moreover, she had $4 million cash on hand just prior to the June 5 primary compared to Hubbell’s $115,000. Still, Hubbell is personally wealthy, and he has given his campaign millions of dollars while raising a total of almost $7 million prior to the primary. Assuming Hubbell continues to spend his own money at a rate similar to how he did during the primary, Reynolds’ cash advantage may shrink or even cease to exist. All in all, we feel there is sufficient uncertainty in Iowa to make Toss-up a more appropriate rating for the gubernatorial contest.
To the east, the Illinois gubernatorial contest appears increasingly uncompetitive. Gov. Bruce Rauner (R-IL) began the 2018 cycle as the most endangered incumbent Republican in the country and his position has really only worsened since then. Rauner only narrowly won renomination in the March primary against state Rep. Jeanne Ives (R), indicating the GOP base’s frustration with the incumbent. Following the primary, the Crystal Ball shifted its rating in Illinois from Toss-up to Leans Democratic. Since the primary, every general election poll has found billionaire businessman J.B. Pritzker (D) comfortably ahead of Rauner. While Rauner has a great deal of personal wealth, Pritzker’s bank account has an extra zero in it, and the Democratic nominee outspent Rauner $20.1 million to $7.8 million in the second quarter of 2018. What’s more, because many Republicans are displeased with Rauner, political space has opened for the third-party bid by state Sen. Sam McCann (R). As the Conservative Party nominee, the state senator is running to the right of Rauner on fiscal and social issues, though McCann has a pro-union record. McCann seems likely to peel at least a few Republican votes away from the incumbent, making Rauner’s reelection path even more difficult. The Crystal Ball typically gives incumbents the benefit of the doubt, but there has been no good news for Rauner in 2018. The Land of Lincoln contest is now rated as Likely Democratic.
With the three ratings changes in Arizona, Illinois, and Iowa, the Crystal Ball now rates nine gubernatorial races as Toss-ups, with 18 others favoring Republicans to some degree and nine more favoring Democrats to some extent. We now view Illinois as the likeliest party flip among the 36 gubernatorial contests in 2018.
Despite the bad news for the GOP in our ratings, we will add an important caveat to close: The RGA continues to have a substantial money edge on its rival, the Democratic Governors Association. Granted, the RGA is defending a lot of ground — Republicans already control 26 of the 36 governorships on the ballot this year — but the committee has the financial wherewithal to move the needle and potentially snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in some close races. The RGA’s deep pockets are always a factor to consider in close gubernatorial races.
