Theory: Pandemic and economic depression are bad for the incumbent party
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Obviously, one would like the odds to be better than this, but given what the 2020 Senate map looks like this is very bad news for Donald Trump:
Whoever is the president next year may have the ability to appoint one or more justices to the US Supreme Court. But to get those justices confirmed, the president will need the US Senate behind him.To gain Senate control from Republicans in November’s elections, Democrats will need a net gain of three seats (if former Vice President Joe Biden holds onto his lead over President Donald Trump and claims victory) or four seats (if Trump wins).An early look at the data finds that Democrats are the slightest of favorites to take back the Senate. The chance Democrats net gain at least 3 seats is about 3-in-5 (60%), while the chance they net gain at least 4 seats is about 1-in-2 (50%).There is still a lot of uncertainty. Democrats could realistically end up anywhere from a net loss of 4 seats to a net gain of 11 seats, though a few more times than not, they’ll end up in the majority.
Several polling firms released surveys of Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in April. Former President Barack Obama carried all four states in 2012. Trump flipped all four in 2016 (as well as Ohio and Iowa, neither of which has much recent polling.) And Biden appears to lead in all four now. (North Carolina, which has gone Republican in both of the last two cycles, was also polled pretty often in April, with Trump and Biden looking basically tied there.)
Obviously, a lot can happen over the next six months and Republicans are helped by various non-democratic features of American constitutionalism, but the in-party that was getting consistently getting routed in elections for two years when the economy was in pretty good shape doesn’t figure to be very well-positioned to compete in the worst economy in the last eight decades.
This is pretty surprising to me. The pattern looks to be mostly a product of how blue the election-day map is projected to be. In the most recent update, WI leans about 2 points to the right of the national D vote & Texas about 5. So if Biden is at 54% of the vote, TX is closer.— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) May 3, 2020