My prediction. The Democrtas gain two Senate seats and 35 - 45 House seats.
I hate to say it, but the more success Trump has, the more energized the Democrat base gets.
We can’t do much to suppress the Dem vote. What we can do is motivate our own base. The GOP needs to get itself motivated. I don’t see that happening.
Wrong, it’s not the base which is energized by Trump success. It is the media which grows more hate filled and desperate with his successes.
Won’t doubt you, sadly.
R’s are not emotionally stoked with such things as “They cheated!” “F the 1%!” “Family killers!” “Save the Earth!” and “Free college!”
Will R’s put effective ads out here? Can they develop effective countermeasures? Is it all on Trump?
That energized part of the Democrat base of which you speak is only made up of about half of all Democrats - about 20% of the voters. The blue-collar, union, and other such Democrats - you know, the ones who actually work in the private sector rather than either working for the government or just receiving benefits - these are the same kind of folks many of whom turned out for Trump in 2016, and while I think you’re right about their base getting even more energized by Trump’s successes to vote against him, I believe that will be more than offset by these new “Reagan” Democrats, who won’t want to do anything in 2018 to stop the Trump train, and therefore will not be pulling the lever for any Democrat who is vocally against Trump - which is basically all of them.
And on top of that, you can bet that the Dems are really going to screw themselves by making the midterm a mandate about Trump and campaign on getting elected so that the Dems can impeach him. That is going to backfire bigtime, and if they really are banging that drum, then I wouldn’t be surprised if we picked up seats in both the House and the Senate!
I agree they get more energized with Trump’s success, but they also get SMALLER. There is a lot less base to energize.