Expectations and Realities: the 2018 Election

So, the Democrats win the House, don't get the Senate, get heaps of Governors but not FL/GA.  Is this a wave?  Should we be happy? (A good thread for saying hells yeah)  Depends on what you were expecting.  The polls seem to be mostly right, although they had the governor races tighter than they were in FL/GA.  Did we expect Beto to lose?  Well, if we kept realistic, then yeah, we did.  Sad, but there it is.

On the other hand, I am surprised that a heap of referendums passed that will have lasting impacts on future elections: Florida had to get 60% to return the right to vote to those convicted of felonies; measures to de-partisanize the drawing of districts (and thus reduce, hopefully, gerrymandering), etc.

These results are mixed--that the Senate didn't flip means that the courts are going to be awful for a generation or two, and I get that.  Some states passed referenda banning abortion, so Kavanaugh will get to kill Roe soon.  But flipping statehouses means that less bad legislation will need to be addressed by the courts, and might lead to better future candidates at all levels. 

So, where you stand on this depends on where you set your expectations.  Prospect theory asserts that people evaluate things not on their own but relative to some reference point.  So, did people consider a potential future with heaps of gains and now see the election as a loss or do people look at how things were and how they have changed for the better? 

This time, I had relatively reasonable expectations: Dem House, GOP Senate, Cruz in Texas.  I didn't think Abrams would win in Georgia because the game was so rigged, but I thought Gillum would win.  I didn't think Amendment 4 in Florida was going to win.  So, I am mostly upbeat.  9% margin is a wave even it is mediated by unfriendly institutions such as, well, the design of the Senate but the reality that the class of 2018 was always going to be hard for the Dems, and that gerrymandering and clustering (we live separately) distort outcomes in the House.

Texas ain't blue or purple, but Beto mobilized a lot of people and may have helped flip some Texas seats.  The GOP will have to panic about Texas in 2020 and beyond.  Expect more #voterfraudfaud.

This was also a time when one party owns the most popular news network, when unemployment is low and the effects of Trump's mercantilism are only starting to come to roost, when the wars are not so visible with few casualties.  We are due for a recession--which will be painful since this President and this Senate will not allow the government to absorb the shocks (remember when Obama saved the car industry, not going to happen next time...).  The GOP will blame the Democratic Congress, but the President and Senate will still be GOP dominated, so expect them to pay a higher price. Plus there will be a lot of Trump fatigue.

Sure, things could have gone far better, but they could have also gone worse.  Democracy was on the ballot, and I think it survived.  I call that a win.  And, yes, the age of Trump means we set our standards low.