Hiyo, Sliver

On Friday, a Washington Post article had an interesting headline about last Tuesday's Tennessee 7th District Special election where, in a very safe, deeply Red strict that Trump had won by 22 points in 2024, the party held onto the House seat, but by only 9 points.  The headline and sub-head read –

“The GOP’s midterm prospects just caught a sliver of light

A comfortable Tennessee special election win points to gloomy midterms, probably not a historic rout."

My immediate thought was that finding a "sliver" of light in the middle of a disaster is a backwards way of reporting on a disaster, unless your intent is to bring comfort to those struggling to find some hope after a disaster.  Which is kindly and understandable.  Just not as fully accurate as the news of the disaster is.  It's more like, "Some survivors of the Titanic are believed to have been found."

I most disagree with their sub-headline though – saying that the Tennessee result doesn’t point to a historic rout in the Midterms, just gloomy results.  After all, Democrats gained almost 14 POINTS in a deep Red district – where (importantly) there were no other races, meaning that MAGOPs could pour resources into it that they won’t be able to do when defending 220 races, and VP was sent there to campaign, and Trump even got involved, as well.  And Democrats still picked up almost 14 points!!!  In – a DEEP…RED…district.  Now, imagine in the Midterms with 435 races at the same time.  Less than a year from now.  With Trump’s poll approval likely lower, his dementia worsening, and the party trying to defend more scandals.  As inflation worsens, prices rise, tariffs kick in, the Epstein files continue.  Leading to my prediction (for whatever that’s worth – though more on that in a moment) of Democrats picking up 30-40 seats

And that’s with what WaPo calls “gloomy” results being the positive news for the party!  Well…for the sake of argument, if that’s the case, I’m happy to take that, mind you.  I just think that they’re being conservative this early and playing their predictions safe, because (as the Washington Post) they understandably have a reputation and massive reader trust to uphold, unlike me.  And therefore are, understandably, more reticent to leap far out on a limb…unlike me.

On the other hand, I guess it depends on your definition of “historic rout” compared to “gloomy”.  After all, even the Post writes –

“A 13-point swing [BobNote: it was 13.7 points, closer to a 14-point swing] from 2024 would still, if replicated across the country next year, result in a blue wave likely to produce a gain of 30 or more seats for Democrats in the House.”  Which fits exactly in my far-out-on-a-limb prediction of 30-40 seats swings!  Which certainly seems like a “rout” to me!  The only thing I can figure is that maybe by “historic” rout they mean 70 seats.  And even I won’t predict that.  Yet.  (Though it’s unlikely because with such a closely divided House there aren’t that many seats available to flip.)  That said, though, let’s hold off until we know what conditions are in September, when early voting starts.  Still, they do add “It might even be enough for them to recapture the Senate” which is what I wrote in my prediction article a month ago.  “Might” being the operative word.  We’ll have to wait and see.

If I have any other quibble with the article (and it’s really not much more than a quibble), it’s when they wrote --

“Van Epps’s 7th Congressional District win was larger than a shocking pre-election Emerson College poll had foreseen. That poll gave Van Epps just a two-point lead, within the margin of error, in a district that President Donald Trump carried by 22 percentage points in 2024. Many pundits also forecast a close race, noting that Democrats had outperformed the presidential margin by an average of 20 points in other congressional special elections this year.”

First, they’re looking at just one poll that said two points.  Others did say less than the 8.9 points final result, but more than just two points.  And even looking at this Emerson’s poll of two points, the margin-of-error was 3.9 points.  Which means they were saying it could be a six point margin.  And it was 8.9 – which is very close.  Second, Trump carried the district in 2024 by 22.6 points, which is closer to 23.  Third, it was a fairly close race – just not a razor thin race.  Helped, I’m sure, by MAGOPs pouring money in at the end (which they now can’t spend elsewhere), and at the end Trump getting involved and VP going down to the district.  Which won’t be duplicated in 435 Midterm races.  Or even the 220 races the part holds and wants to protect.  And also – when they write:

“That’s why the final margin was actually reassuring for Republicans. The party was able to turn out its base, leading to a vote total almost as high as 2022’s midterms. Skittish GOP members of Congress can feel more confident that they aren’t likely to fall victim next year to an upset on the scale of Democrat Conor Lamb’s surprise capture of a normally safe GOP seat in Pennsylvania in 2018” --

-- Reassuring??!  I think they are just flat-out wrong.  At the very least, they are bending over backwards SO far to be conservative (not in the political sense) in predicting results a year from now.  There was nothing “actually reassuring” to “Republicans” as a party by this result.  It was only reassuring to those few MAGOPs in Congress who live in districts that are so incredibly safe that they’re up by 25-30 points or more.  To those who have margins in their districts by “just” 15-25 points, it was comforting that they’re not at guaranteed risk and have a bit of a buffer, but not reassuring that they’re absolutely safe.  And all the other MAGOPs running, who have margins of 15 points or less, which I’m sure is a massive number of their candidates (I’ve read that something like 70 MAGOP candidates are in districts with margins of 10 points or less), if not most of them, are likely terrified.  That’s far from “actually reassuring for Republicans.”

Moreover, in the 2018 example they use, Conor Lamb picked up about 20 points from Trump’s win in his district two years before.  This race last week was a gain of about 14 points.  That’s hardly a massive difference.  Given that Trump has only been in office for 10 months, and already has an approval of only 33% and dropping, if over the next year a Democratic candidate in a race similar to Lamb picks up just 3 points, and the opponent loses 3 points – for any number of reasons, including discouraged members of the MAGOP just don’t show up – that “20-point lead” is a tie.  In a DEEP RED district!!  I can’t imagine this difference bringing any “reassurance” to “skittish” MAGOP candidates anywhere.  Unless, as I said, they’re up by 25-30 points…but if candidates of either party are up by that much, they are never “skittish” about their elections.  “Skittish” MAGOP candidates – those with margins under 10 points, maybe even those with 15 point margins -- are likely terrified.  And those with margins 15-25 are the ones who are now “skittish.”

Again, and to be clear, I don’t remotely disagree with the article saying that the MAGOP situation for the Midterms is “bad” and that they could lose “30 or more” seats.  And that even the Senate is in play.  And they are right that MAGOPs have fewer seats to lose next year because they are holding fewer seats than a majority party usually does.  But what a “rout” is considered to be (and to me, losing “30 or more seats” is a rout – but, no, not a “historic rout”) and that this result is supposedly “actually reassuring” to any “skittish” MAGOPs in Congress???  I think they’re bending so far backwards to be fair this early in the race that they can touch their nose to the ground.

Because that's just what a political party wants.  To find that the good news is nothing more than just a "sliver of light".

Especially when, as far as slivers go, it's really more like finding a dot in the darkness using a microscope and a tweezer.