HORIST: Time for the GOP surge

Larry Horist

8 years ago

&nbsp&semi;We are now approximately one month away from the midterm election&period;&nbsp&semi; I liken this period in our election cycle to the Peanuts comic strip where Lucy always pulls the teed-up ball away and has Charlie Brown landing on his butt&period;&nbsp&semi; In my analogy, the Republicans are Lucy, and the Democrats are Charlie Brown&period;&NewLine;If you have followed my writing over the years &ndash&semi; something even my family does not do &ndash&semi; you would have seen many references to the traditional GOP surge in the last days of an election&period;&nbsp&semi; Just a year ago, I did a commentary suggesting that Democrats not get too giddy about their prospects in 2018 despite the tradition that the party in the White House always loses seats in midterm elections&period;&nbsp&semi; It is usually the case, but not always&period;&NewLine;The Republican surge usually begins within the last 30 days of an election&period;&nbsp&semi; In just the past few days, we are seeing the leading edge of a possible Republican win in November&period;&nbsp&semi; The so-called generic ballot &ndash&semi; which measures the general Republican/Democrat preference in Congress &ndash&semi; had the Democrats up by double digits for months&period;&nbsp&semi; Ergo, all that talk about a blue tide &ndash&semi; even a political tsunami&period;&NewLine;Suddenly &ndash&semi; at least in the minds of all those Democrats and their captive pundits in the press &ndash&semi; the numbers are merging&period;&nbsp&semi; What was once as much as a 17-point lead for Democrats has shrunk to a five point lead or less&period;&NewLine;In terms of real races, the Democrats recent hope &ndash&semi; and even optimism &ndash&semi; of taking control of both the House and the Senate is fading as Republican candidates are taking leads in those toss-up battleground states&period;&nbsp&semi; In North Dakota, Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer has forged ahead to a 53/41 lead over incumbent Democrat Heidi Heitkamp&period; In Tennessee, Republican Marsha Blackburn is now up over Phil Bredesen 49 to 43&period; Incumbent Democrat Claire Mccaskill&rsquo&semi;s, encouraging lead has dropped to a statistical tie in Missouri&period;&nbsp&semi; A temporary lead by Democrat Beto O&rsquo&semi;Rouke over incumbent Republican Ted Cruz has vanished, and Cruz has cruised to a small lead&period;&nbsp&semi; In Arizona, Florida and Indiana, Democrats maintain a lead &ndash&semi; but a lead that has been declining or fluctuating within the margin of error&period;&nbsp&semi; Too close to call&period;&NewLine;Both the numbers and the trend lines are favorable for the GOP&period;&nbsp&semi; But why&quest;&nbsp&semi; If you listen to the smarty pants on television, it is because of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings &ndash&semi; a backlash against Democrat excesses&period;&nbsp&semi; This sentiment was expressed by the co-hosts of MSNBC&rsquo&semi;s Morning Joe &ndash&semi; Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;In an unusual departure from the prosecution of President Trump and the GOP, the Romeo and Juliet of talk television blamed the GOP&nbsp&semi; surge on &hellip&semi; get ready for this one &hellip&semi; on the Media and its knee-jerk habit of reporting from Democrat scripts &ndash&semi; more commonly known as talking points&period; They specifically criticized excessive coverage of teenage drinking and a rash of unsubstantiated petty stories&period;&NewLine;To some extent, Mika and Joe are correct&period;&nbsp&semi; The bias of the media is a constant irritation and motivation for those on the right side of the political spectrum&period;&nbsp&semi; Ironically, Morning Joe is one of the programs that enrages the right as much as any&period;&nbsp&semi; They are what they now criticize&period;&NewLine;Make no mistake, Mika&rsquo&semi;s and Joe&rsquo&semi;s admonitions were not fairness for fairness sake&period;&nbsp&semi; It was because they have come to realize that all that biased reporting, and all those sycophantic bobble-headed panelists&rsquo&semi; predictions, are now hurting the Democrats and their left-wing constituency&period;&NewLine;The movement toward Republican candidates has to be viewed in two ways&period;&nbsp&semi; Yes, the Kavanaugh hearing may have triggered the phenomenon, but it is not the root cause&period;&nbsp&semi; You have to look at many election cycles to see that it is a pattern, a tradition&period;&nbsp&semi; There you will see that in general, Republican numbers improve as the elections draw near &ndash&semi; usually breaking into a sprint in the last 30 days&period;&NewLine;As I have long advised, one should ignore all those early polls and the armchair analyses that accompany them&period;&nbsp&semi; They have no relevance to an election day outcome &ndash&semi; none&period;&nbsp&semi; It does nothing more than to fill the media pages and time slots&period;&nbsp&semi; Even polls taken within days of an election have to be viewed with some skepticism&period;&NewLine;The Republican takeover of the House in 2010 came as a shocker only because the press, pollsters and pundits were mistaken&period; &nbsp&semi;Same was true in 2014 when the GOP took control of the Senate&period;&nbsp&semi; Those in the media who are supposed to be following political events and trends closely seemed unaware that Republicans had taken over two-thirds of the governorships and state legislatures during the Obama years&period;&nbsp&semi; Their admiring focus on Obama reminded me of that line from a song, &ldquo&semi;can&rsquo&semi;t take my eyes off of you&period;&rdquo&semi;&NewLine;Then there was 2016&period;&nbsp&semi; The desire not to have Donald Trump become President of the United States trumped all objectivity&period;&nbsp&semi; The media mantra was that Trump had &ldquo&semi;no path to the presidency&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; The more the left and the media wanted the Democrats to win, the more the skewed the reporting and the polls&period;&nbsp&semi; The result was a national embarrassment for the partisan pundit community&period;&nbsp&semi; I never predicted the 2016 outcome, but I did argue that Trump did, indeed, have a path to the presidency&period;&NewLine;I have repeatedly written that Democrats tend to win elections every day except Election Day&period;&nbsp&semi; This year, it may be the Kavanaugh hearings that trigger the surge, but it has been and will always be something &ndash&semi; some event, some statement &ndash&semi; that will bring a majority of voters home to their right-of-center values&period;&nbsp&semi; In some ways, it is just the immediacy of the election&period;&NewLine;The best way to prognosticate elections is to not make predictions too early, and within the 30-day lead-up shift three or four percentage points from the Democrats to the Republicans and you will generally get closer to the final results&period;&nbsp&semi; That is not to suggest that the Republicans will always win, but that they will almost always do better than the pre-election media and pollsters reports&period;&NewLine;This year is unusual in one aspect&period;&nbsp&semi; It is very rare to have one party gain in one chamber and the opposition party gain in the other&period;&nbsp&semi; But that could be the case this year&period;&nbsp&semi; It would not surprise me to see the Republicans gain a few seats in the Senate and hang on to the House majority by a smaller margin&period;&nbsp&semi;&nbsp&semi; However, in handicapping political races and horse races, there are no certainties &ndash&semi; only odds&period;&nbsp&semi;&nbsp&semi;&NewLine;Larry Horist is a conservative activist with an extensive background in economics, public policy and political issues&period; Clients of his consulting firm have included such conservative icons as Steve Forbes and Milton Friedman, and he has served as a consultant to the White House under Presidents Nixon and Reagan&period; He has testified as an expert witness before numerous legislative bodies, including the U&period; S&period; Congress and lectured at Harvard University, Northwestern University, Florida Atlantic University, Knox College and Hope College&period; An award-winning debater, his insightful and sometimes controversial commentaries appear frequently on the editorial pages of newspapers across the nation&period; He can be reached at <a href="mailto&colon;lph&commat;thomasandjoyce&period;com">lph&commat;thomasandjoyce&period;com</a>&period;&NewLine;&nbsp&semi;&NewLine;