By Tanya Metaksa
The most positive outcome of the 2018 election is that the US Senate remains controlled by Republicans, due primarily to the efforts of President Donald Trump campaigning in “battle-ground” states. He held numerous rallies where he endorsed both incumbent Republicans running for re-election as well as those running against incumbent Democrats. According to pollster Frank Luntz, “People said he would turn off more voters, but [Trump-backed] Mike Braun in Indiana did much better than the polling had suggested. All the states that Trump went to, the numbers were better on polling day.”
However, after this election the Republicans are not in the same position that they were ten years ago when they held majorities in a plurality of states. In the American political system the population census that occurs every ten years determines election district boundaries. The party in the majority in each state draws the district boundaries. Political partisanship in arranging those district lines goes back to 1788 when Patrick Henry, a member of the anti-Federalists party, tried to keep James Madison from becoming a US representative by attempting to draw a boundary excluding his house to keep Madison out of Virginia’s 5th Congressional District. This type of political redistricting is commonly called gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering is named after former governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts who signed a bill that created a district shaped like a salamander.
The courts were rarely the arbiter of such political redistricting until Davis v. Bandemer (1986) in which the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) held that partisan gerrymandering violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. However, SCOTUS could not agree on the definition of a gerrymandered district. As a result state courts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have mandated that districts be redrawn if they appear to be gerrymandered.
As a result of this practice all political parties who control state legislatures in the period between the new census and when the districts are redrawn work to give their party an advantage by drawing districts that are numerically favorable to their party. This can easily lead to districts that are considered “safe” districts for one party or another. In the 2018 election for the House of Representatives there were approximately 300 safe districts.
That leads to the phenomena of so-called battle-ground districts, those districts in which either the Republican or the Democrat can win. Such districts become the focal point every election. A district with no incumbent is much more likely to be a battle-ground district than one in which the incumbent is running for re-election. In 2018 because a large number of Republicans decided to retire, there were more battle-ground districts than in the preceding election cycles. But there is another important ingredient to winning elections.
Jesse Unruth, former Democratic Speaker of the California House, stated that, “money is the mother’s milk of politics”. And in the 2018 election money flowed like water. On election night former Gov. John Sununu summed it up when he said, “What really made a big difference in the House races around the country last night is…the Republicans were out funded tremendously.”
Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg donated approximately $70 million dollars to campaigns and PACs in the 2017-2018 cycle. He didn’t give to many individual candidates but he gave to Political Action Committees that supported Democrat candidates. Among the PACS were: ActBlue, House Majority PAC, Keystone Victory Fund, Leaders in Education, Pennsylvania Democratic Party, VoteVets, Rhode Island Democratic Party, LCV Victory Fund, Women Vote! and Independence USA. Approximately $2 million each went to the Independence USA, Women Vote! and the LCV Victory Fund. The latter was an independent expenditures fund for the League of Conservation Voters, a radical anti-hunting political committee.
The Giffords PAC, a political action committee run by former Rep. Gabby Giffords and her astronaut husband, Mark Kelley, has become a big contributor to anti-gun candidates. In the 2017-2018 campaign cycle this PAC raised $15.5 million dollars. They donated to over 110 Congressional candidates during both the primary and general elections, but the total donations directly to candidates only totaled $257,358. They spent the bulk of their contributions, over $6 million in independent expenditures. An independent expenditure by a non-affiliated political action committee (PAC) cannot be spent in coordination with any candidate and can be spent either supporting or opposing a candidate. Giffords PAC spent approximately 90% of their independent expenditure dollars in opposition to pro-gun candidates. Thus over $5 million was spent creating and running advertising against pro-gun candidates, primarily incumbent senators and representatives, by just one PAC.
Unfortunately for gun owners all that money effectively changed the makeup of the House of Representatives. The Democratic Party will now be the majority party with Rep. Nancy Pelosi recapturing the leadership position as Speaker of the House. The Wall St Journal summed it up on Nov. 8, 2018,
“Democrats say they will pass the most aggressive gun-control legislation in decades when they become the House majority in January, plans they renewed this week in the aftermath of a mass killing in a California bar. Their efforts will be spurred by an incoming class of pro-gun-control lawmakers who scored big in Tuesday’s midterm elections, although any measure would likely meet stiff resistance in the GOP-controlled Senate.”
In the House pro-gun Republican members, especially in California, Colorado and Virginia, were defeated and replaced by candidates who campaigned vigorously for more gun control laws. In California 3 out 4 districts that had been held by pro-gun Republicans were won by anti-gun Democrats who were endorsed by Bloomberg’s “Moms.” In Minnesota the same thing happened in US House Districts 2 and 3. In Ohio and Texas the results were different: pro-gun incumbents were able to beat their anti-gun opponents.
Two US Senate elections are still undecided. As of the middle of November the Florida election is undergoing a recount between incumbent anti-gun Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Bill Scott, the state’s term-limited governor. In Mississippi a run-off election between NRA A-rated candidate Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith and former US Secretary of Agriculture under Barack Obama, Mike Espy, was scheduled to be held on Nov. 27. The winner will have to run again in the 2020 election.
The Republican candidates for US Senate who defeated incumbent Democrats are pro-gun, pro-freedom candidates: Senator-elect Josh Haley in Missouri defeating Sen. Claire McCaskill, Senator-elect Kevin Cramer defeating Sen. Heidi Heidekamp in North Dakota, and Senator-elect Mike Braun defeating Sen. Joe Donnelly in Indiana. In Tennessee where Sen. Bob Corker is retiring Senator-elect Marsha Blackburn, who received big financial support from the NRA Political Victory Fund, defeated former Gov. Phil Bredesen, who had tried to camouflage his anti-gun positions. In Wyoming Sen. Barasso was easily reelected. Republican Senator-elect Mitt Romney held onto a safe Utah Senate seat as did Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer and Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker. Unfortunately Republican Sen. Dean Heller was defeated in Nevada and the Arizona seat held by retiring Sen. Jeff Flake went to anti-gun Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. Thus at the time when this report was written the make-up of the US Senate was 51 Republicans to 47 Democrats.
If another Supreme Court vacancy occurs in the next two years, the fight over any nominee proposed by President Trump will be as fierce as and possibly even nastier than the Kavanaugh nomination. A Republican Senate will not only be the key to getting any new Trump SCOTUS nominee confirmed, but will also be the key to stopping any more federal restrictions on the Second Amendment. For gun owners the 2018 mid-term elections were both negative and positive. It’s time to work on getting more pro-gun candidates ready for 2020.
