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To discuss and analyze the trajectory of the midterms, host Jason Altmire sits down with David Wasserman, Senior Editor, U.S. House of Representatives for The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire (00:05):
I'm Jason Altmire and this is Career Education Report where we discuss politics, business, and current events generally impacting higher education and public policy. This is an interesting episode because as we start 2022, a lot of the people are thinking about congressional redistricting, the elections coming up, the control of the Congress. We have a guest today, David Wasserman, from The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, who knows more about those subjects than anyone else in the country. I think I'm not alone in saying that. He has since 2006 been immersed in congressional redistricting in campaigns and elections.
Jason Altmire (00:48):
The Cook Political Report is the gold standard for anyone who's interested in those topics, and we are just so grateful to have Dave Wasserman with us. I would just say as we start 2022, Dave, I think the question most people would be thinking about, at least from the 30,000-foot level, is with regard to the midterm elections and control of Congress. We've seen how difficult legislating has been in the current Congress, which is nearly equally divided. What would you say is the most likely outcome, understanding that the election is still several months away, but looking at the midterm elections, how would you forecast who will be in control?
Dave Wasserman (01:30):
Well first of all, it's an honor to be on, and it's been fun to cover your races when I was first starting in this job covering the House for The Cook Political Report. It's rare to see someone who has survived a really big political wave, but you are one of those people. What we're looking at in 2022 looks similar to 2010 in several ways. We have a first term Democratic president whose approval rating is quite low. Now Biden's is actually a bit lower than Barack Obama's was at this point in the 2010 cycle.
Dave Wasserman (02:07):
We also have a redistricting cycle underway, and that's different from 2010, which was the cycle before redistricting. That year Republicans managed to pick up 63 House seats, and district lines in the subsequent election locked in those gains. Of course, Republicans started out from a place that year where they needed to pick up 40 seats to win back control of the House and they picked up 63. Today Republicans only need to pick up five seats for a House majority. They could get all five of those seats from redistricting gains alone. But the leading driver of why Republicans are the favorites for control next year is Biden's approval rating, which is a lot lower than it was in the summer.
Jason Altmire (02:52):
In history the midterms elections almost always result in double-digit or greater losses for the incumbent party. So how much of what you expect in 2022 is just based on the historical trend that that's usually what always happens versus the underwater approval for the president, congressional unhappiness, and what's happening in Congress, things like that?
Dave Wasserman (03:17):
Well, the historical average is for a midterm election that the president's party, at least in the post World War II era, has lost 26 seats. That's probably the middle of our range of outcomes. We're keeping a wide outlook of possibilities next year because after all, look, most of us based on the polls in 2020 thought the Democrats were going to pick up House seats. Instead, it was Republicans who picked up House seats. So we could still be in for a surprise. But I think based on not only history, but where Democrats stand in the polls right now, and redistricting, throw it all together and Republicans could net somewhere between 15 and 45 seats.
Jason Altmire (04:00):
How much of the outcome of the midterm elections do you think is going to be driven by policy? By that I mean, how much does the public pay attention to legislating and the outcomes of bills? As you know, in Washington there's so much written and said every day about what individual senators or House members are saying. You know, the horse race of legislation. Is it going to pass? Is it not? Individual issues. But I don't think the public really pays that much attention to that. I think these races are driven more by the historical trend that we just talked about and the general unease with Congress. You do this every day. What do you think the importance of legislation is for the outcomes of campaigns on the national level?
Dave Wasserman (04:45):
I don't buy that there is a big segment of voters out there who are saying, "Well I was going to vote for Democrats except they didn't pass Build Back Better," or "They didn't pass this or that piece of legislation I really wanted, so I'm going to go the other way." Or vice versa. I don't think there are a lot of Republicans out there who are saying, "Well, I'd vote for Democrats but they passed this bill that I don't like." Instead, midterm elections are about what kind of mood are voters in about the direction of the country under the current leadership.
Dave Wasserman (05:16):
We saw that in 2010. It worked against Obama in 2018. It worked against Trump. Now it's working against Biden, at least from this vantage point. Elections these days tend to be more about fear of what the other side will do if they get into power. So it's possible Democrats could be successful in motivating their voters based on what the other side is up to later this year. However, presidents face a penalty because anger is a stronger motivator than love in politics. So that's kind of a built-in midterm advantage for the party out of power. They're the ones whose foot soldiers are riled up.
Jason Altmire (05:53):
You are the House expert for The Cook Political Report, and I want to drill down on a couple of states and ask your opinion on maybe some individual races that might be a surprise. What do you think about, obviously California the largest state, but they also have now an independent redistricting process. A lot of people are watching what's happening there. They've lost a seat for the first time in the population decennial census which occurs. So what do you think is going to happen in California with regard to their process?
Dave Wasserman (06:24):
California has a 14-member citizen commission that works collaboratively, and they are five Democrats, five Republicans, four unaffiliated. And you've got a prohibition on using partisan and incumbent data, which is unique from other states. And California's probably done as good a job as possible of removing partisan considerations from the process. But that doesn't mean it's fully insulated from it. In the product that the California commission came up with, you could tell as the iterations of drafts went on, they tended to get a bit friendlier to incumbents of both parties.
Dave Wasserman (07:06):
That's the result of sustained campaigns from incumbents to call into the commission and have their supporters say, "Well, we want X, Y, and Z towns to be linked together because we believe they're a community of interest." So I don't believe it's entirely possible to remove politics from redistricting unless you were to have an algorithm or computer program drawn maps. But more states would probably be better served to adopt a style or a process similar to California's.
Jason Altmire (07:38):
What number of states have independent redistricting commissions that are truly nonpartisan, and then what's the breakdown of the other states for the Democrats and the Republicans controlling the process?
Dave Wasserman (07:51):
Well, I don't think there are any states where commissions are truly nonpartisan. In many cases they're bipartisan but they have a tie-breaking member or they have an unaffiliated contingent. I actually think that's necessary to make the process work. There are three states that adopted commissions for the first time for congressional lines this cycle, Colorado, Michigan, and Virginia. What we saw in Virginia was the commission deadlocked because it was eight Democrats and eight Republicans, and there was no incentive to deal. There was no grease, no tiebreaker. Whereas in California, and Colorado, and Michigan, you have very citizen-driven processes.
Dave Wasserman (08:32):
Then in states like New Jersey, Arizona, Washington, you have commissions where legislative leaders have selected partisans, and they deal back and forth, and in some cases end up protecting incumbents. So not all commissions are created equal. But a big reason why Republicans have an advantage in drawing seats this time around, 187 seats are under Republican control of maps and only 75 are under Democratic control, is that a lot of blue states have embraced redistricting reform more than red states. So you've got some of these big blue states, California, Washington, New Jersey, Colorado, Virginia, that have passed redistricting commissions and as a result are seeing fairly neutral maps.
Dave Wasserman (09:24):
Now, California's commission map actually looks pretty good for the Democrats. But you could end up with a situation where these neutral maps prevent Democrats from gerrymandering up to 10 to 15 more seats for their own advantage. Whereas Republicans in places like Texas, and Ohio, and North Carolina, and Florida, they can gerrymander to their hearts content. Now, the main constraint we're seeing in Republican states is courts, and just how much can Republicans get away with. Ohio and North Carolina have state supreme courts with anti-gerrymandering majorities. We'll see whether those maps survive court scrutiny. That's really the big question that's going to determine how many seats each party is up or down at the end of this process.
Jason Altmire (10:15):
Give us an example. Absent a court overturning a map in a state like Florida or Texas that you've talked about, what is the current partisan breakdown of the congressional delegation versus what could it look like in a new map for 2022?
Dave Wasserman (10:31):
Yeah. In Texas the current breakdown is 23 Republicans and 13 Democrats. But out of those 23 Republicans, it's interesting, nine of those seats Joe Biden won 47% of the vote or more. And what happened is, in the past decade we've seen Texas's suburbs become a whole lot bluer or more purple at least, and that has caused a lot of stress on Republican prospects in those districts even though they still hold them. So Republicans' gambit this time around was instead of splitting Austin in six different directions, rather than cracking they decided to pack Austin into one new Democratic district. The end result was, it made all of those surrounding Republican seats a whole lot redder.
Dave Wasserman (11:15):
Now on the new map it's likely to be 25 Republicans and 13 Democrats with the upshot that those 25 Republicans are likely to be a lot safer for at least the next couple years until this demographic change begins to threaten them again, perhaps by 2030. So we're going to see a lawsuit in Texas over the map unfold in federal court. Republicans are trying to convert one of the districts in the Rio Grande Valley from blue to red. They did so by swapping out more Democratic leaning Hispanic precincts in exchange for more moderate Hispanic or at least more competitive Hispanic precincts. And Democrats may have work to do to convince courts that Hispanic voters in South Texas are still a cohesive voting block at a time when former President Trump made great strides with that demographic.
Jason Altmire (12:10):
What about a state like Pennsylvania? It's perceived to be at minimum purple, maybe trending blue state, with the exception of President Trump won it very close in 2016. What does the congressional map look like? They lost a seat. What's the delegation going to look like in 2022?
Dave Wasserman (12:30):
Yeah, so you know something about this. But it's nine-nine. And one fascinating fact is, Democrats would not be in the House majority today if it weren't for lawsuits that overturned Republican gerrymanders in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia in the last decade. Pennsylvania was Democrats' biggest. But in 2018 Democrats were able to leverage their majority on the state supreme court to overturn the Republican drawn map, which was 13 Republicans and five Democrats. Under the new lines and with the 2018 wave it became nine-nine.
Dave Wasserman (13:08):
But now Pennsylvania's losing a seat, and there is likely to be a stalemate because you've got a Republican legislature in Harrisburg and a Democratic governor. I had one consultant on the Democratic side liken the political climate in Harrisburg to Fallujah and said, "Look, there's no chance that the parties are going to come to agreement here." So I think the state supreme court is going to end up appointing another special master to draw another congressional map. The question is, which party ends up with the short straw here because there's 17 seats for 18 members and a nine-nine split.
Dave Wasserman (13:45):
So I think one of the seats in the middle of the state, presumably a deeply Republican district, is going to get the ax with the caveat that a number of Democratic seats that are very marginally blue will need to expand in population towards the middle of the state. So you could see Democrats like Matt Cartwright, or Susan Wild, or Conor Lamb's open seat, they could all get less Democratic, and as a result Republicans could make considerable gains in the midterm.
Jason Altmire (14:17):
What do you read into the retirements that have occurred? It's not unusual, especially after redistricting, to have a wave of incumbents announcing they're not going to seek reelection. Is there a trend that you have seen that might impact the results of the elections that we'll face this year?
Dave Wasserman (14:35):
A big difference between this year and 2010 was that in 2010 it wasn't apparent that Democrats were going to lose their majority until a couple months out from the election. Whereas this time around Democrats, I don't think we've ever seen a majority party be such underdogs to hold their majority in a midterm. It's just such a tenuous advantage that Democrats hold in the House. So I think the majority party understands this is a very short window to pass legislation, and to be powerful in committee chair roles or subcommittees, and there's not going to be that much done in '23 or '24. So I could see Democratic retirements going into the high 30s or even low 40s considering that many filing deadlines still haven't passed.
Jason Altmire (15:27):
You are famous for popularizing the term, "I've seen enough." And what that means is, on election night everyone follows you on Twitter, and social media, and on TV, you're with NBC too. And when you say you've seen enough, that the race is called. At what point in this election cycle will you have seen enough to make a informed guess on exactly how many seats are going to swing?
Dave Wasserman (15:55):
Look, I tend to save that for election night. I don't think it's our role to predetermine what the outcomes are going to be. Although we do our best to issue a forecast, and polls can be wrong. We saw that in 2016, in 2020, last cycle. Even Republican pollsters, even the House Republicans' campaign committee thought that they were going to lose seats in the House. So I like to wait until we see hard data.
Dave Wasserman (16:26):
We have a good set of election results from 2021 in Virginia and New Jersey that suggest Republicans are doing really, really well down ballot. That their side's turnout is just stratospheric. That whatever challenge they had in demonizing Joe Biden in 2020 now they've really been able to motivate their base, and the intensity of that opposition to Biden is much higher. So the question really becomes, "How much are Democrats able to match that," and we won't know that until November.
Jason Altmire (17:00):
You are a House of Representatives expert. That's your responsibility with The Cook Report with Amy Walter. But I do want to ask you just generally with regard to the Senate, does the Senate have as much opportunity to flip to the Republicans or is it really just a toss-up?
Dave Wasserman (17:17):
Look, if the Senate election were held this week or next week, I think Republicans would sweep the competitive battlefield. Keep in mind that Republicans captured Virginia's governorship by two points in a state Biden carried by 10. They came within three points of beating Phil Murphy in New Jersey in a state Biden won by 16. But fortunately for Republicans, they don't need to win Biden plus 10 or Biden plus 13 states to win control of the Senate. We're talking about Pennsylvania, which was pretty much Biden by one.
Dave Wasserman (17:50):
And we're talking about North Carolina, which was a narrow Trump state. Wisconsin, again, Biden by less than one, Arizona and Georgia, Biden by less than one. So you've got a bunch of Senate seats that are 10 points to the right of Virginia. And at the time I just don't see how Democrats hang onto those seats unless they are able to disqualify the Republican nominee. And it's possible that Republicans will end up being their own worst enemies. We'll see how Dr. Oz plays out in Pennsylvania.
Dave Wasserman (18:24):
But Democrats have potentially more appealing or at least candidates with less liabilities than Republicans do in a number of these places, and to what extent will Donald Trump insert himself in Republican primaries on behalf of candidates who are personally loyal to him but don't necessarily have the broadest general election appeal. Senate races are different from the House because they tend to place more of a premium on candidate quality, and that's the test that Republicans will have to pass.
Jason Altmire (18:56):
Last question I think would be on everybody's mind, who's listening. The casual observer would think that if the Republicans win in a landslide in the midterm elections in 2022, that that automatically means that the president is vulnerable in 2024. But if you look at what happened the last two times, there were wave elections in the first term of a president that was running for reelection, Bill Clinton in 1994 and Barack Obama in 2010, both of those landslide midterm elections would have led anyone to believe that, "Wow, that's a really bad sign for the next presidential election for the reelect of the incumbent." But that's of course not what happened, that in fact both of those presidents won by sizable margins. So what would the tea leaves say about 2024 if the Republicans win as I think we expect in the House and perhaps in the Senate, what does that mean for the 2024 presidential election?
Dave Wasserman (19:59):
I think Republicans taking control of Congress is better for Joe Biden's prospects than Democrats keeping control of Congress based on history. That's true. But then you throw in that Joe Biden's victory in 2020 was a really narrow victory at a time when Republicans, based on President Trump's approval rating, should have lost by a lot more. And in 1996 and in 2012, both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had pretty big coalitions that they could reassemble. Both won by really big margins the first time around in the Electoral College, and so even though they had a dip, at least that coalition existed in the first place to reactivate.
Dave Wasserman (20:44):
Whereas in Joe Biden's case, yes, he won seven million more votes than Donald Trump. Yes, he won the Electoral College 306 to 232. But when you add up his cumulative margins in the states that put him over the top in the Electoral College, Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin, it was 42,915 votes against a president who was widely perceived to have mishandled the pandemic. So now the shoe's on the other foot and it's present Biden who's responsible for shepherding the country at a time when voters are frustrated with the cost of goods and frustrated that we haven't yet moved on from COVID. There's time for that to change certainly before 2024, but he doesn't start out with much room for error.
Jason Altmire (21:30):
That was David Wasserman, Senior Editor House of Representatives, for The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. David, thank you very much for being with us, and we'll look forward to following what you have to say throughout the year.
Dave Wasserman (21:44):
It was a pleasure. Thanks a lot, and it's great to be back with you.
Jason Altmire (21:49):
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information you can visit our website at career.org and follow us on Twitter @CECUed.