THE TUCHFARBER REPORT

Accurate Facts, Analysis, and Forecasts

In-Brief

1. Trump cancels summit with Kim because of N Korean provocations. Kim blinks.
2. Will it be OK for the Trump FBI to spy on the 2020 Democratic nominee?
3. Primaries in TX, GA, AR, and KY provided more evidence that a Democratic Establishment versus Progressives civil war is underway. Both sides are winning primaries and fighting for ascendance.
4. Switching from being a swing/battleground state, Ohio now should be counted as “leans” Republican…a “red” state.
5. PREDICTION: The Democrats will gain 5 to 15 US House seats this fall, almost all in coastal, metropolitan districts.
6. PREDICTION: The Republicans will gain 4 to 7 US Senate seats, almost all in “heartland” states.

In-Depth

What’s Important

Gamesmanship over Korean negotiations

President Trump was asked if N Korea’s Kim was playing games with the Korean negotiations. He said something very simple, but very profound and important for all to understand.

Trump said, “Everyone plays games.”

Think about that statement. It is true in business negotiations, diplomacy, and life.

Many have called Trump inexperienced, even a “rube”, one who was going to get his comeuppance from Putin, the Europeans, the Ayatollahs, and others.

So far, the opposite has been the case.

In Korea, Kim launched a charm campaign early this year and unexpectedly offered to meet directly with Trump.

Trump immediately accepted.

Kim decided to bluster and play hardball…to play games… after engaging in a couple weeks of sweetness and light.

Trump said, in effect, “meeting off… if you want to be serious let us know.” Kim appears to be blinking.

The implicit and quite serious message from the US is that Kim has two options. The first is to completely de-nuclearize the North and the entire peninsula so as to stay alive, keep his luxuries, and the family dynasty. The second option is the Libyan option…end up dead or in prison for the rest of your life. I’m not being hyperbolic here. Those are Kim’s choices.

The June 12 meeting may or may not occur, but the status quo on the Korean peninsula will not persist as it has during the Clinton, G W Bush, and Obama presidencies.

OK for trump to order the FBI to have “operatives” inside the 2020 Democratic nominee’s organization?

Let’s address a simple question to Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the dozens of other Democrats running for the 2020 nomination.

“Is it OK for the Trump administration to infiltrate your campaigns with operatives?”

That is what the Obama administration did to the Trump campaign. There is absolute proof such is the case…names and payment records have been reported widely.

President Trump has labelled it “spy-gate.” But, let’s stick to the words infiltration and operative.

A little history for perspective…

In 1972, President Nixon approved a burglary at the DNC offices in the Watergate. That and the subsequent cover-up cost him the presidency. He resigned rather than be the first US president to be both impeached and removed.

Eight years earlier, President Lyndon Johnson ordered the FBI and CIA to infiltrate and spy on the Goldwater campaign. That allowed the Johnson campaign to always stay a step ahead of the doomed Goldwater folks. Johnson got away with the illegality.

The demise of Nixon set a standard of non-interference by the FBI and CIA in any aspect of US elections. During the Obama watch that standard was breached. How extensively we don’t know yet, but we will find out before the November elections.

Back to the question we started with…

Bernie, Joe, and Kamala… “OK to infiltrate your campaigns 2020?” That is what your Democratic colleagues and the mainstream media are now defending.

Long-term

Ohio Now a Red State

For generations, Ohio has been the quintessential bellwether state—the state that voted most like the rest of the country and almost always for the ultimate winner.

Much has been written about this status for the state. In a 1987 article, I wrote, “…in many ways it [Ohio] is also a social and political microcosm of the nation. The state’s electorate seems to evaluate and respond to presidential candidates very much as does the nation as a whole.”

If you knew how Ohio was going to vote, you knew how the nation was going to go within a point or two.

THAT IS NO LONGER THE CASE!

Consider the dramatic shift since the 2^nd term Obama victory in 2012, when he won Ohio by 3%, while winning the nation by 4%.

In 2016, Trump walloped Clinton by more than 8%.

Let’s look at the numbers:

• Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by 2.1% by piling up huge wins in “blue” states like CA, NY, and IL. Trump won Ohio by 8.3%, a net deviation from the national total of over 10%.
• If you count the votes of the three conservatives in Ohio [Trump, Johnson, and McMullin] they defeated the two liberals [Clinton and Stein] by over 10%.
• All the state-level Ohio elected officials are Republicans and have been since 2010.Those offices have also been held by Rs for a large majority of the time since the late 1990s.
• If you aggregate the two-party vote for all of Ohio’s 16 US House districts in 2016, the vote split was 58.4% R to 41.6% D. The 2018 and 2020 margins are virtually certain to be similar.
• Ohio elects its judges, and six of the seven elected Supreme Court justices were Republican-endorsed.
• Republicans enjoy very large majorities in the Ohio House and Senate and have for years.

Those facts do not mislead in any way or to any degree. They are not due to partisan gerrymandering. They are due both to the choices of the voters and a seismic shift in the partisan coalitions in Ohio and many other states.

This does not mean Ohio is impossible to win by Democratic presidential candidates. Nor does it mean Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown is an underdog in this year’s Senate race. He is an entrenched and skillful candidate. But, he does face a different partisan reality than he has ever faced before.

What caused the shift? It was not Donald Trump. In fact, the shift pre-dated him, starting in the early 2000s. The shift in the party coalitions was the main cause of him being nominated. And, it was winning the heartland states, with their millions of white, working-class voters, who gave him the Electoral College victory.

The main cause of the shift was the abandonment of the white working-class voters by the Democrats starting about 15 years ago. These are Hillary’s “deplorables” and the folks Obama derided for their love of bibles, guns, and flags. They gradually drifted to the Rs. Trump understands them and speaks their language drawing them in, but they were already well on the way to escaping the Democratic party.

As recently as 1996, the white working-class/labor vote was a major cause of Bill Clinton’s defeat of Bob Dole in Ohio. Since then, many millions across the nation have trended to the Republicans. The successes of Obama in 2008 and 2012 hid this shift because of his widespread appeal and his huge wins among minority voters. But, the shift has been large and inexorable. Trump has now firmly locked the white, working-class in the Republican Party base, especially as progressive Democrats deride almost everything they stand for.

Because of these changes, political pundits and analysts would be wise to consider Ohio a “red” state.

Elections

What are the Primaries Telling Us?

We have had primaries in over a dozen states so far, including four last Tuesday. They included contests in six of the 10 most-populous states.  Collectively and individually across the states, no evidence of a Democratic Blue Wave has emerged.

In the states voting last week, Republicans nominated no sure losers in a major race where they had a notably stronger candidate. Such was not true for the Democrats, as “progressives” out-polled more likely winners in several important fall races.

In GA, Stacy Adams, an African-American, female progressive, easily defeated a mainstream Democrat for the gubernatorial nomination for the Democrats. Adams believes she can create a huge minority turn-out with large pro D majorities, thus defeating the much larger white Republican and Independent vote. Count me and most experts, Rs or Ds, as skeptics.

In Texas, progressive Ds and establishment Ds both won primaries. That is likely to continue to be the pattern across the country.

In contrast to the Democrats, there are not widespread factional battles in the Republican Party between the Establishment Rs and the Tea Party movement. There have been fierce and ugly primary battles, including ones over ideology, but they are isolated. That is unlike the 2010-2014 period when there was a Republican civil war. For now, the Republican Party is owned by Trump.

Because of the Memorial Day holiday, the next primaries fall on June 5.

Polls and Media

Gallup—Now is a Good Time to Find a Quality Job

A Gallup Report last week showed 67% of Americans now believe it is a good time to find a quality job.

The Gallup folks began asking this question in 2001. Positive responses peaked at 48% during the George W Bush years. It never got over 50% in the Obama era, spending most of the time in the teens or twenties.

Every age, gender, education, and income group reported by Gallup now has a clear majority agreeing that quality jobs are available. Especially noteworthy is that a majority of those with incomes under $30,000 agrees.

Do your own observations on this issue as you travel around your community. Almost everywhere in America there are help-wanted signs posted.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports there are now more job openings than there are unemployed Americans looking for work.

Farmers and employers in the leisure industry are begging the Trump administration to let in more temporary, seasonal workers.

It’s hard to imagine a more potent political or economic indicator.

Don’t forget the Tuchfarber 30 Day test — when you get upset about something in the news, ask if it is likely to be IMPORTANT in 30 days or so. Only seldom will it be relevant then. So, ignore it and lower your blood pressure.

Predictive Political & Economic Measures

2018 Election Prediction Summary

Below are several election and policy predictions that I present each week and change if my indicators change. Speaking only to the 2018 election predictions, my current evaluation is:

1. The Republicans will lose 5 to 15 net US House seats but maintain a small majority.
2. The Democrats will lose 4 to 7 US Senate seats with the Republicans adding to their current razor-thin 51-49 majority.

POLITICAL MEASURES

1. Right Direction-Wrong Track— “Wrong Track” is now at 53%, up 1% from last week. It has proven to be a good indicator if the party “in-power” was going to do well or badly. [ If the “wrong-track” reading is 62% or higher, it bodes ill for them. If 58% or lower, they do well.]  
2. Generic Congressional Ballot— The polls I’m averaging are at 43% D and 39% R, the D lead unchanged from last week. More important is that the Democratic lead has fallen from double-digits at the beginning of 2018 to 4% now. [Because D voters are so concentrated in urban cores, Democrats need to be ahead 4 to 6% on this measure to tie the Rs for the 435 US House seats spread across urban, suburban, small town, and rural districts.]
3. Presidential Approval—Trump’s approval rating is 46%, down 1% over the week.

ECONOMIC MEASURES

4. U-3 official unemployment rate—The current level is 3.9%, a 17-year low. Low or falling levels of this measure are a positive for the “in” party. It is low and falling now, down from 4.8% a year ago.
5. U-6 unemployment rate [broadest measure, including under-employment]—The current level is 7.8%. This is a very low level and fell from 9.4% a year ago.
6. GDP GROWTH—Growth last quarter was 2.3% which is significantly higher than the average growth over the last eight years.

WAR

7. The jobs and war issues are the 500-pound gorillas of American public opinion. If the economy is bad or there is a major unpopular war, the party in power is in trouble.

WEEKLY ANALYSIS

Last week’s important events were:

1. N Korea reverted to its typical bombast and rhetoric. It threatened to cancel the June 12 summit between Trump and Kim, but Trump cancelled it first. Many believe this is just posturing before critical negotiations. One way or another, N Korea will be denuclearized.
2. It appears the CIA had an informant/spy investigating and possibly “setting up” the Trump campaign before Trump was nominated. Expect a steady stream of additional information on this travesty.
3. Tuesday primaries in four states—TX, KY, AR, and GA—went mostly as expected. The Democrats nominated several candidates from their “progressive” wing that more establishment types don’t believe have as good a chance of winning as other rejected candidates.
4. Voting in many recent elections and in the recently completed Ohio primaries indicates that Ohio is no longer a swing or battleground state. Democrats can still win the state, but it now consistently leans Republican. It is a “red” state.
5. The political metrics I use to judge political trends continue to move in favor of the Republicans. The economic indicators continue to be strongly positive for them as well.

It is still six months to the key November mid-term elections, but momentum just now is clearly with the Republicans. Watch the upcoming primaries for evidence the Ds are regaining momentum.

Predictions

Election Predictions

• 80-90%: the probability the Rs will lose seats in the 2018 House elections
• 10-20%: the probability that the Rs will lose control of the House in 2018
• 90-95%: the probability that the Rs will still control the Senate in 2019
• 90-95%: the chance that the Ds will lose seats in the 2018 Senate elections
• 50%: the chance the Republicans will gain five or more Senate seats in the 2018 elections
• 80-85%: the chance that Trump will be re-elected in 2020

Policy & Legislative Predictions

• There is more than a 70% chance that pressure on the DACA–“Dreamer” — issue will force the Democrats to negotiate a deal with President Trump on the border wall and other immigration issues this year.
• The chance that Donald Trump will be impeached and removed from office by the Congress in the next three years is less than 1%. *

*NOTE: Remember that after being impeached by a Republican controlled House in 1998, not one Democratic Senator voted to remove Bill Clinton from office. It takes 67 votes and is more of a political process than a legal one. NO President has ever been impeached and removed. Richard Nixon resigned before the House and Senate could impeach and remove him from office.

Until next week…
Al Tuchfarber
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Cincinnati

Al.Tuchfarber@gmail.com
Tuchfarber Political-Economics LLC, Inc.

Dr. Tuchfarber founded the Ohio Poll, one of the nation’s most accurate, while directing the social science Institute for Policy Research from 1975 to 2004. He also founded and directed the Institute for Health Policy from 1996 to 2004. He is an engaging and dynamic speaker and has published over 100 articles and papers about politics, society, and research methods.