You know, when the Toddler in Chief jackbooted his way into the White House, the GOP was exuberant. Not only did they have a rubber stamp in the White House, they had the delicious prospect of 23 Democrats running for reelection in the Senate in 2018, 10 of them in districts that The Orange Julius won in 2016. Funny how 6 months of scandal, protests and generally unconscionably stupid behavior can change attitudes, huh?
Democrats were stressing about how they were going to attract any talent to run, and the GOP was crowing about the “deep bench” of talent they had to challenge all of those one foot in the grave Democrats in the Senate (We all saw how well that 2016 Presidential “deep bench” worked out). Now the Democrats are having primaries in districts where the GOP used to run unopposed, and GOP Senate recruitment efforts seem to be leaving a lot of messages on voicemail that don’t tend to get returned, at least not yet.
Now to state the obvious, it’s mondo too early to predict, November of 2018 is 18 months away. But it’s not too early to start noticing what’s there, and what’s missing. Roll Call has a new article that goes a bit deeper behind the scenes into a bit of early strategy. It found that since 2006, in elections where candidates were running against incumbent Senators or for open seats, the average declaration time ahead of election day was 12-16 months. This allows them to fundraise, get their platform out there, and prepare for a possible primary. The article also noted that filing can also be motivated by such things as filing deadlines in the state, or fundraising deadlines. Candidates will normally announce early in a fundraising cycle to give themselves more fundraising time in that quarter.
A perfect example of enthusiasm in a party is participation. This is apparent in the Democratic party right now, both is the special elections for House seats as well as the off year elections coming up, especially in Virginia. As I stated previously, in Virginia you have Democratic primary elections in districts where GOP incumbents have previously run unopposed. Not only does this mean that Republican incumbents will have to raise money and defend unpopular and in some cases immoral positions, but a good primary helps to keep Democratic enthusiasm up for the general election.
On the GOP side, obviously, when you are already an incumbent, there’s no rush to file. But the Senate is a different matter. At least so far this year, no Senators from either party have announced retirement, so all of the seats will require a challenger to defeat an incumbent. Right now the Democrats are deep into the game of coming up with legitimate challengers for the two weakest GOP incumbents in the Senate, Dean Heller in my own Nevada, and Jeff Flake in the neighboring state of Arizona.
But what seems to be striking on the GOP side, at least in this early stage is the decided lack of enthusiasm for the fight for these “vulnerable” Democratic Senate seats. One wold think that a party on its uppers, with control of both chambers of Congress, and the White House would have people climbing on top of each other to oust those weak ass Democrats in states that Trump won. Not so, as the article noted;
Republicans have seen some of their higher-profile prospects decline to challenge Democratic senators. GOP House members in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin have passed on Senate runs. Other House lawmakers in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and North Dakota are still weighing bids, and have yet to announce their campaigns.
This does not sound like a party dealing from a position of strength. What good is having an experience “ladder” if none of the experienced, recognized guys and gals on the ladder want to climb the next rung? If you can’t get a powerhouse GOP House member in a deep Red state like Indiana to risk his safe House seat to move up to the Senate, especially against what was once considered a “vulnerable” opponent, in reality how confident is the party? But the GOP is not worried, at least not publicly;
Tillis, who is now vice chairman for the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, said the party has a “good pipeline” of potential candidates who are exploring runs, and the timing depends on each state, the prospective candidates, and fundraising considerations.
I’m sorry, but I’m a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan, and I spent 55 years hearing that kind of shit. In Chicago it was “We have some good talent in Triple A, who we’ll be bringing up once they get a few more games under their belt”, which in English really means; “Our only hope is a couple of kids who just started shaving last year, and who we picked up in the third round of the draft”. If the talent is ready, you don’t have to build them up, you bring them up and let their actions speak for themselves.
But there is one more, not quite so unspoken 800 lb gorilla in the room for the GOP in recruiting top talent to run for all of those juicy, low hanging fruit Democratic Senate seats. And this particular gorilla is actually a noisy, clumsy orange orangutan, the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the Republicans are very carefully trying to avoid that subject. Senator Thom Tillis,in charge of ;Senate recruitment sums it up this way;
“I wouldn’t discount that some of the unknown could influence some of their decisions, but I don’t think [it does] for the most part,” the North Carolina senator said. “I think the more fundamental issue, I should say, is that in an off-year election, the party that runs the White House tends not to fare well, outside of a national crisis.”
I notice a couple of things right off of the bat here. First, Tillis doesn’t directly refer to Trump, or any of his disruptive, destructive antics by name, he falls back on the old saw. Second, on November 9th Republicans were already gleefully predicting their sure and certain expansion of their slim Senate majority in 2018. Now, 18 months before election day they’re already trotting out the old “midterms for the party controlling the White House suck” mantra. Where in the hell is all that gung ho, storm the beaches confidence of November 9th? Kind of funny what 4 months of 0 legislative victories and almost constant chatter about impeachment can do for your ego, huh gang?
So yes, we are a long way away from November of 2018. But tempus does fugit, and we are quickly approaching time to shit or get off of the pot to make a realistic run next November. Six months from now, it we see a whole bunch of House members who should have been naturals choosing to run for their current seats rather than challenge for the Senate, that will be an indicator of trouble in GOP Paradise. And if between now and say November of this year, we see a bunch of state Senators and other down ladder incumbents running for Senate seats, than that’s probably a pretty good indicator that the House members in that state are taking a pass, the statewide incumbents would be rather unlikely to challenge an already sitting national House member for the seat in a primary. Interesting times are ahead, and they’ll be here before we know it.