How bad is it for Republicans out there?
There were four special elections in very Republican state legislative districts on Tuesday. Voting shifted an average of 21 percentage points toward the Democrats from their 2016 presidential election numbers. I doubt that's going to be typical of Democratic gains in November--21 percentage points is much higher than the already impressive shifts toward the Democrats in 2017's elections--but those kinds of gains don't need to happen everywhere to have massive effects.
Republican strategists are telling reporters they now expect to lose their House majority. I wouldn't put too much stock in what two nameless party operatives have to say (and "strategist" can include people who may be far removed from in-depth knowledge of the playing field). Still, it's not nothing.
The big picture for Republicans ahead of the 2018 elections continues to deteriorate. The Cook Political Report ratings tell the tale. Only a handful of seats held by Democrats appear to be vulnerable now; dozens of Republican-held seats are vulnerable, with 19 of them tossups or worse. Almost all the recent shifts have been in the Democrats' direction, and there's still plenty of time in most states for more retirements, which could put even more Republican seats in jeopardy.
There's at least some good news for Republicans in that the gap in the generic ballot question (which asks people which party they would support in a congressional election) has closed over the last few weeks; now the Democratic advantage is down to around 8 percentage points. Perhaps it will close more.
Voter opinion closer to the election will matter, too, and it's too early to predict beyond saying that Republicans are starting from a deep hole. If they stay in that hole, then the midterms are going to be a massive wipe-out, probably similar to what happened to Democrats in 1994 and 2010. If they dig out enough, then they'll only lose some of the large gains they retained from that 2010 landslide and a very strong 2014 election; in fact, they're vulnerable to big losses in part because those previous wins left them with plenty to lose.
But if I were preparing to lobby Congress or state legislatures in 2019, I'd be getting ready for at least the possibility of Democratic control in an awful lot of chambers they haven't held for a while, certainly including the U.S. House and perhaps even the Senate.
Editorial on 01/20/2018