What will really happen in the U.S. midterms...

Lots of predictions, but not a lot of certainty south of the border.

When it comes to the midterm elections south of the border it seems everyone is an expert. The conventional wisdom is that the Democrats are going to sweep both the House and the Senate.

Lots of Canadians are cheering this even though it will have zero impact on us, including when it comes to tariffs.

As I will show below, if the current polling if off by just a little, the outcome could be dramatically different from the current media consensus.

One man who is an expert on this issue is Frank Luntz, a veteran pollster who used to work closely with Republicans but has moved to a less partisan stance of late. He doesn’t see November 3 being great for the Republicans, but he thinks there are too many unknown variables to call it all for the Democrats at this point.

Here he is talking with Major Garrett at CBS News.

Luntz may have started out as a partisan and may still generally support the ideas of the Republican Party, but generally speaking today, he tries to look at the evidence dispassionately and assess the polling and the feeling on the ground. He doesn’t see a clear answer at this point, maybe by the time we get to November 3, we will have a clearer picture.

Democrat pollster worries about overexcited Democrat voters…

Not to lean too heavily on CBS, but Major Garrett also interviewed Democratic pollster Charlotte Swasey about the possibility that pollsters are oversampling Democrats.

It relates back to what Luntz said about the exit polling in 2016, but has now moved into wider polling.

Does that mean pollsters are off?

CNN’s polling guy runs the numbers…

I have to say that Harry Enten, CNN’s Chief Data Analyst, is highly entertaining. He makes breaking down the polls fun.

Before joining CNN, Enten worked at FiveThirtyEight with Nate Silver. That was one of the media outlets stating that Hillary Clinton had a strong likelihood of winning in 2016, though they weren’t claiming the 95% likelihood of winning.

That wasn’t based on polling, it was based on a bad read of the polls.

I remember interviewing Darrell Bricker from Ipsos just ahead of the 2016 vote and predicting on air that Trump would win. Bricker was just there to talk about the numbers, he didn’t disagree, I just had a different interpretation of the polling than most analysts.

I point that out because I think Enten is careful to note that as much as he relies on data, the data could be off. In this video clip, he points out what that would mean if the polls were off by just a bit.

The 218 seats in the House that he mentions, that is the current majority for the Republicans.

Steve Bannon still thinks the Republicans can win…

Personally, I see a path to the Republicans holding the Senate, but holding the House of Representatives will be tougher for them. Not impossible but tougher.

You have redistricting that has happened and so people are running under new boundaries and we don’t know how that will change things.

The Democrats are motivated against Trump, but are they motivated for their side? That’s unclear, there is no Obama type personality drawing everyone in and the Democratic Socialists will turn some Dem voters off.

Trump, whatever you think of him, clearly motivates his base when he campaigns, which he is doing now.

In the weekend interview with Ted Koppel on CBS, Bannon laid out how he can see his side winning.

It’s not an easy road but…

For both sides, turnout matters…

A truism in politics is that the side that shows up wins.

Voter turnout in American presidential elections isn’t great. In 2020 the 66.4% turnout rate was the highest since 1908.

Strangely in the 2022 midterms, turnout dropped down to 46.1%.

In 2024, 64% of voters showed up to cast a ballot, the second highest tied with 1964. Don’t expect 64% turnout on November 3, the question is will it be as high as 50% like in 2018 or drop closer to 40% which would likely favour Republicans.

So what does all of this mean for the midterms this year?

Trump clearly has problems with some in his own party and independents due to issues like the war with Iran. The Democrats have problems with not having a clear leader or message other than being against Trump.

Just like Republicans can’t just scream “Socialist!” and expect to beat the Democrats, they can’t expect to yell”Trump!” and beat the Republicans.

It’s not clear either side has positive motivation to get their side out to the polls.

What’s the point here…

I’m not pointing to this possibility of the Republicans doing better than expected because I’m cheering for it. You can listen to my comments going back nearly a decade that when it comes to how Canada is treated, I don’t think Republicans or Democrats are good for us.

Once upon a time, Democrats were antagonistic against us on trade and Republicans were our friends. Not that you would ever know this from our media portrayals of the two parties - in Canada’s MSM Republicans are always the devil and Democrats are always the saints.

My point is, this feels like 2016 again where people are going overboard in saying that a Blue Wave for the Democrats is certain. That could very well happen, but I still think it is still too close.

The reality is, neither party is popular with the leadership of both parties according to Real Clear Politics.

A final thought for Canada…

I know for most of you reading this, you understand at this point that even if the Democrats do take the House and the Senate, it won’t matter for Canada and trade. There are a remarkable number of Canadians, including smart people, who think that Trump losing in the midterms changes the tariff issue for Canada.

The tariffs having the biggest impact on Canada are Section 232 tariffs under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.

Those will not be touched by the midterms.

The Democrats could win every seat up for grabs in both houses and they would still have trouble peeling back the power Congress gave the President decades ago.