U.S. Midterms and the Disappearing “Middle”
The potential outcomes and impacts of next week’s midterm election in the United States are perplexing both the public and political pundits across the country.
To help shed light on some of the key factors at play, Principia’s Alumni & Field Relations Office invited the College’s Political Science Department faculty to hold a panel discussion on the School campus in late October. More than 100 people attended the event, while more logged in online to watch the livestream of the popular trio of professors—Dr. Julie Blase, John Williams (C’76), and Dr. Brian Roberts (C'88), pictured above, from left.
Right off the bat, the panel answered the question posed in the talk’s title: “Midterms 2018: Referendum on the President?” Yes, this election is indeed a referendum on President Donald Trump, they agreed. Beyond that, they acknowledged, it is difficult to predict how prevalent political dynamics will affect the balance of power in the House and the Senate or the president’s agenda in the second half of his term.
Roberts examined the current make-up of Congress—where Republicans hold the majority in both the House and Senate—and then shared comparative data from midterm elections over the last 80 years. On average, statistics show, midterms produce a 27-seat drop in House numbers for the incumbent president’s party and a smaller (four-seat) decrease in the Senate. (The only exceptions were in 1934, during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first term; 1998, during Bill Clinton’s second term; and 2002, in George W. Bush’s first term.) Based on these numbers, the Democrats would seem to have a reasonable chance of gaining control of the House, while the Republicans seem likely to retain (or increase) their majority in the Senate.
Williams explored what’s happening with political ideology—in a word, polarization. Once primaries are over, Williams observed, “the classical model of voting and campaigning has been about rejecting extremes and gravitating to the middle.” But statistical snapshots from 1994, 2004, and 2014 indicate clearly that “there is a shift to the extremes, [and] there is less and less of a middle,” both within and between the Republican and Democratic parties, he noted. This, in turn, is prompting candidates to appeal more to their base rather than to the broader public during general elections.
Blase rounded out the presentation with insights into the politics of identity and geography—specifically the connections and correlations among factors such as rural/urban locations, income and education levels, and race, ethnicity, and gender. On the last point, she shared statistics that might help explain the appeal that Trump holds for rural and suburban white, male voters, a demographic that is under increasing socioeconomic stress.
During the Q&A session, audience members wondered whether a centrist candidate can win in today’s climate, what a “flipping” of the House might mean for the direction of the national government and prospects for cooperation with the White House, and how voter turnout can be increased. (Among developed countries, the U.S. ranked 26 out of 32 countries, with only about 56 percent of the voting age population casting a ballot in the 2016 elections, according to the Pew Research Center.)
Overall, the information and perspectives shared made for a fascinating and informative evening of civil discourse about politics. And audience members left with more lenses through which to evaluate midterm election results.