2024 Forecast – The Election
This land is your land, this land is my land,
From California, to the New York island,
From the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters.
This land was made for you and me.
When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling.
As the fog was lifting, a voice was chanting,
This land was made for you and me.
Nobody living, can ever stop me.
As I go walking, that freedom highway.
Nobody living can make me turn back,
This land was made for you and me.
This Land is Your Land - Woodie Guthrie (1944) Covered by The Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary, the Seekers and Bruce Springsteen amongst others.
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This is the first of four missives that will contain my forecasts for different aspects of politics, the economy and culture in 2024 and in some cases into 2025. These are my best calculations of what I think will happen. These are not what I want to happen nor are they influenced by my own preferences. We must live and prosper in the world as it is, not as we might want it to be. With that, here are my prognostications for the upcoming November election:
U.S. Senate – The easiest of these forecasts is that Republicans will take control of the Senate and have either 51 or 52 seats instead of the 49 they have now. This conclusion can be reached because of which seats in which states are up for election in 2024. The most potentially competitive states where a Republican seat is up this year are Texas and Florida. The others are safer than that. Enough said. On the other side though, Democrats will almost certainly lose West Virginia, which Trump won in 2020 by 39 points. The other most likely GOP pickup is Ohio, which is a red state now. Montana, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Nevada are other states that Democrats must defend and could possibly lose. If you assume Rs take WV and OH and one other state, that would bring you to 52 seats in the Senate. Democrats would need a massive blue wave to retain their one seat Senate majority. A huge Republican wave could bring as many as 56 seats.
That said, let me state now that I think that a big wave for either party is extremely unlikely. The policy gaps between the parties are so massive and so many people’s voting patterns are now automatic, that I just don’t see either party taking all the independents and maybe 25% of the other party’s voters as has happened in past presidential elections like 2008, 1984 and 1972.
U.S. House – Absent the above-described wave, Republicans will lose the House in 2024. Republicans lost their best fundraiser when Kevin McCarthy was kicked out of the Speakership last year. Additionally, a lot of what Republican money remains, is being spent on primaries such as those to retain or defeat the 8 members who voted to kick McCarthy out. Those are generally safe Republican seats, so they are unlikely to go blue. But a great deal of money will be spent in the primaries. So, the Democrats will have a substantial fundraising advantage nationally. Money is extremely important in House races because the candidates are often unfamiliar to voters, unlike Senators.
Also, Democrat turnout, particularly in blue states, is likely to be very high. This will be driven by their animus for the likely Republican standard bearer, Donald Trump, as well as by the abortion issue which will be on the ballot in a number of states for the specific purpose of driving turnout on the left. Much of the current slim Republican majority in the House is because of seats held by Rs in California, New York and Illinois. It only takes the loss of a few of those seats to flip the majority. I think the Democrat’s new House majority will be slim, likely under 10 seats, but I believe they will achieve it.
What Congressional Split means: If the above forecasts are correct, then we will continue to have a divided government, regardless of the presidential outcome. A Republican senate would interfere with appointments should a Democrat win the White House. A Democratic House would likely launch investigations and perhaps impeachment of a Republican president. Harmony and togetherness will not be the order of the day. If the president elected is either the current or former president, there will be no traditional honeymoon period. They will be at odds with the body controlled by the other party from the outset. And it will be nasty.
The White House: This is the hardest to predict. So, hard, that I will not make a firm prediction but will instead just give odds.
First of all, Donald Trump is the overwhelming favorite to be the GOP nominee. As I write this today, Senator Tom Cotton and Majority Leader Steve Scalise have just endorsed Trump. The only chance I see to beat Trump is if all the other candidates except Nikki Haley get out very soon and endorse her. Even then, Trump seems to have over 50% support most places so that even a one-on-one matchup is unlikely to prevail.
So, with that, I give a 50% chance that Donald Trump will be elected as president, becoming the second U.S. president to serve two non-consecutive terms (Grover Cleveland having been the first in the 19th century). This certainly is what the current polling shows, and Trump has an unshakeable large base of support that will be with him through thick and thin. The attacks on Trump, such as are now going on in Maine and Colorado, serve only to strengthen him. His supporters are the proverbial “forgotten men.” They see Trump as the only person in national politics who truly understands their plight and is fighting for them. When Trump experiences injustice, they see it as a mirror of the injustices they experience in a society governed by elites. And for a substantial majority of Americans, life and the world were better when Trump was president than they are now, in spite of his personal failings.
I give Joe Biden a 30% chance on winning. He will be the Democratic nominee unless he is replaced at the convention in August. When Trump is confirmed as the GOP nominee, the media, tech, entertainment, and corporate onslaught against him will be like nothing we have ever seen. We should not underestimate how that onslaught will affect moderate voters, suburban college educated women and others. In spite of Bidens’ poor record and feeble nature, he can absolutely win as the alternative to fascism or whatever else we are told Trump will bring.
And finally, I think there is a 20% chance that “someone else” wins. That “someone else” could be Nikki Haley if she were to perform a miracle and get the GOP nod. More likely, it would be some replacement that the Dem Superdelegates put on the ballot to replace Joe Biden who, either has health issues or who they believe is destined to lose. The new “No Labels” party has not named candidates and the Democratic establishment is doing their best to keep them off the ballot in many states. Did you know, for example, that the Secretary of State in Maine wants to remove not only Trump but also No Labels so that Biden is the only choice? That is what Democrats call democracy. It is similar to that in communist China – you get one choice, which is chosen for you. Vote for it or go to jail.
But, I digress. RFK, jr. will be on almost all state ballots as a place for voters who can’t bring themselves to vote for either Trump or Biden. He will get some votes and may swing the result as Ross Perot did in 1992. But he will not win. If he won a state or two, preventing either other candidate from getting to 270, then the decision would go to the House, which would elect Trump because of the way the constitution calls for that choice with each state getting a vote regardless of population.
So, there you have it. It’s a mess. How much of a mess? That will be the subject of next week’s blog.
Until then, I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
Drive Fast & Live Free