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Election Post-Mortem for GOP

The prevailing opinion within political analyst circles is that the GOP should be worried for the 2018 midterms. Voters rejected the Republican tickets up and down the ballot box in Virginia. From the State House to the Governorship, the GOP took heavy losses. Forty-seven percent of Virginia voters disapprove of Trump. Ninety-five percent of them voted for the Northam, the Democrat governor-elect. Furthermore, Democrats might be tied with Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates. College-educated whites voted in favor of Trump by four points in 2016. This time, they went with Northam by three points. That marks a significant voting bloc that was willing to switch sides over their anger towards the President.

Voters Punish Republicans for Trump

“Voters are taking their anger out at the president, and the only way they can do that is by going after Republicans on the ballot,” said Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA). Democrats also made serious gains in Washington State and in Nassau and Westchester Counties in New York. They have total control of governance on the west coast of the country. Their gains outside of New York City were had been leaning red just months ago. Furthermore, the warning signs continued into the south. Democrats won to Georgia state house seats, including one in an affluent Atlanta suburb. Chris Vance, the former chair of the Washington state GOP, lamented that "among college-educated suburbanites, he [Trump] is a pariah.”

Turnover Continues in the House

Twenty-nine House Republicans have announced that they will not seek reelection. This is compared to just seven Democrats. The most recent departures are Representatives Frank A. LoBiondo of New Jersey and Ted Poe of Texas. The White House's reaction to the Democratic wins has shifted. On Tuesday, President Trump took to Twitter is ordinary fashion and criticized Ed Gillespie, who fell to Northam in Virginia. "Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for," Trump wrote. White House aides, however, were quick to dismiss the importance of Virginia and New Jersey in the 2018 and 2020 elections. It still remains to be seen if the Senate will truly be in play in 2018. Democrats certainly have more cause to optimistic after Tuesday. The question is how far and long in the future this suburban anti-Trump wave will last. In the meantime, the President has been bogged down by poor approval ratings and the weight of the Russia investigation.