Nate Silver's Blog, page 84

Who Are The Most Important Swing Voters In This Year’s Midterms?

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): Everyone ready for a helluva debate about politics?

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): Hell yeah.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): Yup.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): I’m gonna be mediocre.

natesilver: I’m ravenously hungry and was up until 5 a.m. working on the statistical model that will spit out our House forecasts. Other than that, I’m gonna be in tip-top shape for this chat.

micah: Here’s our question: Who are the important swing voters in 2018?

The nominal spark for this question was this article by friend-of-the-site Nate Cohn. Here’s the top:

“The battleground in the fight for control of the House is starting to come into focus with 99 days to go until the November election. It’s not exactly the battleground that analysts expected.

It’s not dominated by well-educated, suburban districts that voted for Hillary Clinton. Instead, the battleground is broad, and it includes a long list of working-class and rural districts that voted for Donald J. Trump in 2016.”

micah: But I want to talk about voters more than districts, though obviously we can get into both.

So … opening bids?

nrakich: Well, I think Nate (Cohn — I have to be specific when there are three Nates on the table) is right that the battleground is pretty broad this year, covering all sorts of districts and voters.

clare.malone: Why are you all named Nate?

A topic for another chat

micah: For realz.

It’s annoying.

nrakich: Speaking broadly, I think the main question is whether 2018’s swing voters are 2012’s swing voters or 2016’s swing voters.

In other words, the white working-class voters who voted for Obama but also Trump? Or the affluent former GOP suburbanites who are maybe now Democrats in the Trump era?

My guess is they’re both on the table in 2018.

clare.malone: One point that I think was interesting was Nate COHN’s about candidate quality:

“The Democrats have succeeded in recruiting well-funded and strong candidates in many of the battlegrounds, which has tended to lessen the advantage of incumbency even in the districts where Republicans are running for re-election.”

micah: Also, not to quibble and/or self-horn-toot, but not every analyst — cough … us … cough — expected the 2018 battleground to be in well-educated suburban districts. We’ve been saying “broad map” for a while.

natesilver: I mean … I suppose I have a hard time reducing it down to one group. You might say: (i) Who are the most important swing voters? (ii) Who are the most important voters in the Democratic base? (iii) Who are the most important voters in the Republican base?

Midterm elections are, to a large extent, about clawing back territory from the other party, rather than necessarily forging new ground.

So I lean toward thinking it’s those Obama-Trump voters who matter in category (i), which means a tilt toward the white, working class.

micah: What’s our evidence for that?

clare.malone: Cohn pointed to Democrats doing well in special elections in Obama-Trump areas (Conor Lamb, for example) but having a harder time in places that were more traditionally Republican until the last election (i.e., ’burbs filled with those college-educated white voters).

nrakich: Yeah, a few months ago, I looked at Democratic special-election overperformance by state in state and federal special elections. Democrats overperformed by the most in red states, including newly red ones in the Midwest like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa, where there was plenty of room to revert to the mean. Here’s the table from that piece:

How Democrats have fared in special elections

Difference between Democratic vote margins in each state’s special elections vs. those districts’ partisan leans,* since Jan. 20, 2017

In districts with special elections …


State
Num. of special elections
Avg. district partisan lean
Avg. dem. margin
Dem. swing




Kentucky
2
-55.2
+1.7
+56.9


Oklahoma
8
-38.7
-6.6
+32.1


Tennessee
2
-47.0
-14.9
+32.0


Alabama
1
-29.1
+1.6
+30.7


Pennsylvania
2
+14.2
+43.2
+28.9


Wisconsin
2
-28.6
-1.4
+27.2


Iowa
4
-17.7
+8.4
+26.2


Kansas
1
-29.3
-6.2
+23.1


Missouri
9
-30.1
-9.1
+21.0


California
1
+69.3
+87.2
+17.9


New Hampshire
11
-2.1
+15.6
+17.7


South Carolina
7
+2.7
+20.2
+17.6


Montana
1
-21.3
-5.6
+15.7


Louisiana
3
-16.9
-1.3
+15.6


New York
3
+44.5
+57.7
+13.2


Minnesota
3
-17.6
-7.4
+10.2


Michigan
2
+22.9
+30.5
+7.7


Delaware
1
+12.2
+17.4
+5.2


Utah
1
-35.2
-32.4
+2.7


Maine
1
-17.9
-15.2
+2.7


Massachusetts
4
+15.8
+14.6
-1.2


Georgia
11
-11.5
-14.1
-2.6


Connecticut
5
+7.5
+2.4
-5.0


Washington
5
-11.7
-18.1
-6.4


Rhode Island
1
+32.2
+25.0
-7.2


Florida
4
-1.7
-10.3
-8.5

*A district’s “partisan lean” is the average difference between how the district voted and how the country voted overall in the last two presidential elections, with 2016 weighted 75 percent and 2012 weighted 25 percent.

Sources: Ballotpedia, secretaries of state, Daily Kos Elections, Matthew Isbell

Again, those include state-level races, but they’re consistent with what we’re seeing in federal specials.

natesilver: Well, Micah, we’ll have the midterm forecast up at some point later this month, at which point I’ll be able to cite a lot more evidence!

nrakich: Plus, Micah, in that article you linked to a moment ago, we compared Democratic overperformance in special elections to demographic factors like education levels and income. The relationship was rough, but we found that Democrats overperformed more in working-class areas.

natesilver: I’ve become somewhat convinced, though, that the Sun Belt path — e.g., picking up a ton of districts in states like Georgia and Texas — is a little overrated for Democrats.

For one thing, those aren’t the districts where they’ve performed all that well in special elections, as Nathaniel noted. But for another, they’re a bit redder than you’d gather from looking at presidential elections — both states are very red in state elections, for instance.

clare.malone: OK, so WHY are Democrats doing better, relatively, in these places with non-college voters and/or lower-income voters?

Is it because they have more history there?

Is it because candidate message about inequality is resonating?

Is it because Trump is unpopular?

natesilver: I mean, it’s like — what baseline are we using? Hillary Clinton already really overperformed in rich, suburban areas, so it’s hard for Democrats to overperform relative to her in those places.

nrakich: Yeah, Nate, that’s an important point.

natesilver: They might roughly match her performance there, though, and then overperform relative to Clinton in a lot of places where Obama did better or where voters will give Democrats a longer look for Congress than they would for the presidency.

nrakich: Democrats in special elections have generally exceeded Obama’s marks in districts where Trump overperformed more than they have exceeded Clinton’s marks in districts where she overperformed.

natesilver: Yeah.

nrakich: That could be because Clinton vs. Trump was just about the best possible matchup for Democrats in affluent suburban areas. But in working-class districts, it’s easy to imagine a populist Democrat doing a LOT better than Obama did in 2012.

micah: Better than Obama? Not Clinton?

nrakich: Right, Micah.

micah: So — just to put a bow on this — these Obama-Trump voters voted for Obama, then voted for Trump, and now they’re voting for Democrats in larger numbers than they did originally?

That’s remarkable!

nrakich: Based on special election results, yes. For example, in a high-profile special election in Wisconsin’s 1st Senate District in June, the Democratic candidate won by 3 percentage points. That was an improvement not only on Clinton’s 18-point loss in the district but also Obama’s 5-point loss.

But, granted, special elections are “special.”

clare.malone: So to bring it back to the race and gender thing: Are Democrats running more white men in these places and they make for better candidates in these particular areas?

nrakich: That’s interesting. I don’t know.

natesilver: I’m not sure it’s necessarily about the candidates so much as places that don’t have all that much loyalty to the Republican Party.

clare.malone: I don’t know … I wouldn’t discount race and gender in voters’ instincts, Nates.

nrakich: Do white men make for better candidates? There’s plenty of evidence that female candidates do well when they run (they just don’t run as often).

On the other hand, white men are likelier to already be elected officials, and elected officials do perform better than political novices, generally speaking.

And in places like Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District, which went 54-38 for Trump, a lot of the downballot elected officials are Democrats because the area is so ancestrally Democratic. So Democrats have a better pool of candidates to recruit from in those districts than in affluent suburbia/Sun Belt ones.

natesilver: I mean, I think the Democrats’ gains are likely to be concentrated in (i) the Midwest, (ii) California, (iii) New York/New Jersey. Those three places, specifically.

clare.malone: So moving off gender to Nate’s point about lack of loyalty to the Republican Party. Are the Democrats making a more concerted effort to return to some of their original party branding — i.e., populist, of the people? Are they trying to shake identity politics in certain places?

I’m just trying to add a little hypothesis meat to the bones of these numbers that we’re seeing. What are they doing in these places that’s resonating?

micah: hypo-meat

thesis-meat

clare.malone: FLESHing it out.

nrakich: Yeah, Clare, maybe it’s more natural for Democrats in those traditionally Democratic areas to go back to the party’s working-class roots. Look at Richard Ojeda in West Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District. He’s running as an unabashed Trump-voting, Coal Country Democrat.

natesilver: I guess I just think that there’s almost always a backlash against the president’s party at the midterms, and this president is more unpopular than average. So the Democrats have a lot of wind at their backs from “the fundamentals.” They don’t necessarily have to have terribly clever messaging. It does help that they’ve nominated viable candidates almost everywhere — that’s a big deal. And that Republicans have retired in a lot of places, as we’ve written.

nrakich: But, Nate, that doesn’t explain why there are variations from place to place in how hard the political wind seems to be blowing.

natesilver: I think most of those variations can be explained by creating a better baseline of what our expectations are than “just” 2016.

Looking at longer-term voting patterns, voting in statewide elections, in past elections to Congress. And maybe at which areas have demographics that would lend themselves to higher or lower midterm turnout.

nrakich: Oh, totally. In fact, I think 2012 is probably a better baseline than 2016. So you just think that, if we find the proper baseline, Democrats would be doing uniformly better over that baseline?

natesilver: Maybe, yeah.

I mean, in our House model, we’re also going to incorporate state legislative elections into our version of PVI, which is a good measure of overall partisanship.

micah: Wouldn’t stuff like elasticity — how many swing voters, as opposed to committed partisans, a place has — make a difference?

natesilver: That too — there don’t tend to be as many swing voters in the South.

micah: In how strongly places/voters react to the politics winds.

nrakich: I was just going to mention that, Micah!

micah: Too slow.

nrakich: We should really do elasticity for congressional districts.

natesilver: To be clear: I’m NOT saying there won’t be variation at the race-by-race level.

But I don’t think the region-by-region variation should be surprising.

micah: I’m confused. So you think there will be region-by-region variation?

natesilver: There could be, Micah. But we won’t necessarily know it in advance. The patterns we’re seeing so far shouldn’t surprise people all that much, IMO. I certainly don’t think people should be surprised that the wave (if there is one) won’t necessarily be concentrated in rich-ass suburbs.

clare.malone: Can I look forward to 2020 for a second? Let’s assume that the Democrats are doing better on a district-by-district level with Obama-Trump voters. What does that mean for their strategy for who they nominate in 2020?

Do they pay greater attention to those red(ish) districts they’ve been winning, or is it a whole new ballgame and they’re back to square one?

nrakich: By reddish, do you mean the districts with lots of Obama-Trump voters, Clare?

clare.malone: Yes, Nathaniel.

micah: I think it’s a whole new ballgame, but because of the way voters are distributed and the Electoral College, Democrats need to go after Obama-Trump voters to some extent. Right?

nrakich: I don’t think it’s a whole new ballgame.

micah:

Politics Podcast: Four Theories About The Trump-Russia Connection

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News about the relationship between President Trump’s campaign and Russia has been trickling out since the election. In order to take stock of the evidence so far, the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast team reviews and debates four theories about what happened. Let us know which one you think is the most compelling.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen .

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Politics Podcast: The Far Left And The Democratic Party

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Since New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, upset the Democratic incumbent in a primary for the House last month, the tension between the DSA and the Democratic Party has been in the spotlight. In this episode, the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast team debates the role of the far left in the Democratic Party going forward. The crew also takes stock of public opinion and lawmaker responses to the Trump-Putin summit in the week since it happened.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen .

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes . Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

Would Republicans Be Better Off If Clinton Were President?

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): Hey, everybody! It’s Slack chat time!

We’re in the middle of another media cycle involving questions about the positioning of congressional Republicans vis-a-vis Trump. Basically, after his press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, people are asking why the GOP doesn’t do more to restrain Trump. So … here’s the question for today:

If you’re an elected Republican serving in Congress, is the Trump presidency worth it to you? You get wins on policy right now but you’re staring down likely losses in 2018 and maybe beyond. OR would you rather we have a President Hillary Clinton right now? You’re presumably not getting the policy outcomes you want but would likely be looking forward to gains in 2018 and perhaps 2020.

(We’re also asking this from the Democrats’ POV, but let’s start with Republicans.)

FWIW, I’ve gone back and forth on this in my head since we decided on this topic yesterday. At first I thought the answer was obvious. Now …

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): I would rather have a President Hillary Clinton.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): #actually

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): I’d rather have Trump.

natesilver: I don’t have enough information to answer the question.

micah: OMG

natesilver: Am I in a swing district?

micah: You’re the collective congressional GOP.

clare.malone: Hmm.

Now I’m waffling.

micah: So, my first thought was that the answer was OBVIOUSLY Trump.

natesilver: Just to complicate things … for me, the answer to this question is narrower if you’re asking me as a member of Congress as opposed to, say, a Democratic or Republican voter.

clare.malone: It depends on what you think the ultimate goal of Congress is.

To get elected again, to live another day?

Or, to accomplish something ideological?

natesilver: If you’re a member of Congress, you’re probably very concerned about re-election. And clearly you have much safer chances of re-election as a swing-seat Republican under Clinton than under Trump.

clare.malone: So. What’s the ultimate goal of a party’s caucus in Congress?

micah: OK, if it’s ideological/policy, it’s 100 percent Trump, right? The Supreme Court alone suggests that. Or, look at Trump’s effect on the judiciary more generally:

clare.malone: Right.

But if it’s about getting re-elected, then they want Clinton.

So I guess I don’t know the answer because I don’t know the goal of the Republican congressional caucus.

nrakich: You guys aren’t looking at the big picture! It’s not just Congress. State governments are important too — maybe even more important than the federal government, since it’s where much of the policy that affects people’s lives is made.

As you’ve written, Clare, the Obama years really weren’t too shabby for Republicans. They earned a stranglehold on 26 state-government trifectas (full control of the governorship and state legislature) and have used them to pass stricter laws on abortion, labor, etc. than they would have in Congress.

And if we’re focusing on Congress, that state government control is going to let the GOP continue to draw congressional district lines in 2021 unless something changes.

The Trump presidency threatens to effect that change.

natesilver: Can I ask for a redirect, Micah? Maybe we should be saying, “Are Republicans better off with Trump than with Clinton?”

And obviously there are a lot of subheadings under “Republican.”

micah: Yeah, but I don’t want to pick one subheading because then the answer is obvious.

Let’s disentangle all the subheadings!

natesilver: Ezra Klein argued recently that it was obvious that Republicans had made a good bet to stand behind Trump in 2016, because it had paid off with the SCOTUS picks. But I think it’s way too early to conclude that.

nrakich: I agree.

micah: This is actually kinda making my brain hurt …

I think Ezra is right …

natesilver: CONTRARIAN NATE SAYS RAWWWWWR

micah: In the short term, it’s paid off huge. And likely in the long term with the Supreme Court.

But if Trump sparks a wave of progressive activism — that’s obviously bad for the GOP.

But but politics always goes in cycles — back and forth, back and forth. From Clare’s piece:

So if your argument is that a backlash makes winning not worth it, then winning would never be worth it.

clare.malone: Why is it too early to conclude that, Nate? Because he might fuck up the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation?

natesilver: Because what if Republicans lose elections for the next 20 years as a result of a backlash to Trump? And, also, the public turns against every policy Trump once liked? ICE is abolished and single-payer medicine is established.

nrakich: That ^^

I also think Supreme Court picks are overrated. In the long run, they balance out — the next Democratic president will probably get a couple too. And it’s unpredictable what a justice does once he or she joins the court. Plenty of Republican-appointed justices have turned more liberal over the years.

micah: If there’s a backlash to Trump, eventually there will be a backlash to that backlash, no?

nrakich: If I were congressional Republicans/Republican voters/Republican squirrels/whatever, I would also be worried about Trump’s long-term effect on Hispanic voters.

clare.malone: I don’t know if I agree on that Supreme Court point, Nathaniel. This conservative majority could be a pretty powerful influence on judicial policy for decades. But yes, I do think it’s right to look at how growing demographic groups react to a political party.

But what are our parameters now?

micah: Republican squirrels.

clare.malone: jek;atw’ljrt

micah: Inequality these days is nuts.

Politics Podcast: The Trump And Putin Show

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The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast team reacts to the Monday press conference of President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which Trump sided with Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies on the question of whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election. The crew debates why Trump was so publicly warm to a longtime U.S. adversary and how it could affect him politically.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen .

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes . Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

Emergency Politics Podcast: Mueller’s Latest Indictment Comes At A Charged Moment

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In an emergency installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew breaks down what is new and notable in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Friday indictment of 12 Russian intelligence agents. The charges lay out detailed accounts of how investigators believe Russian government agents conspired to hack Democratic campaign infrastructure and attempted to break into state elections systems. The news also comes days before President Trump is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen .

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes . Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

How Should Democrats And Republicans Approach The Kavanaugh Nomination?

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

cwick (Chadwick Matlin, features editor): We’re back! President Trump started the week off with the announcement of a Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. We’ve covered Kavanaugh and the Supreme Court quite a bit elsewhere on the site, so today I think we should focus on the politics of the selection. The next two or three months are going to be packed with political maneuvering, and surely those politicians are looking to us for advice on what to do. So let’s run through each of the power players (Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, moderate Democrats, moderate Republicans, and, to make Nate happy, Rand Paul) and talk about what their strategy should be.

Let’s start with what I think is the easiest one: Mitch McConnell. What’s his play?

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): Do that little turtle grin because you’re probably going to get a second Supreme Court justice nominated in the span of 18 months. But apart from that, I think his goals are (i) to make sure there are no surprises in the hearings and (ii) to make sure he knows where his caucus stands. You could also say (iii) to turn the screws on red-state Democratic senators, but I think that will be harder than the conventional wisdom seems to assume.

So if I’m McConnell, I’m taking a little bit more of a risk-minimizing approach.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): Yeah, I mean to Nate’s point, first things first: Make sure Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Paul are in line for the confirmation vote. And they’ve got pretty different concerns on the nominee.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): I think an interesting question will be how fast do they hold the hearing and vote. They may delay a bit with the idea that a vote closer to Election Day squeezes red-state Democrats. Ed Whelan, a conservative lawyer who is supportive of Kavanaugh and pretty plugged into GOP politics, thinks they are they are aiming for a vote by Sept. 21, which would mean the Republicans are moving fairly quickly and not trying to push the confirmation vote off until the eve of the election.

Look for Senate confirmation of Kavanaugh by Friday, September 21.

— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) July 10, 2018

natesilver: To Clare’s point, I think the key for McConnell is that he’s not fighting a multifront war. With just one axis of conflict, he’s likely got enough control of his caucus to win that argument. If Kavanaugh is taking hits from multiple sides, maybe not.

cwick: A wild-card question: If you’re McConnell, are you secretly happy if the Kavanaugh nomination falls through in September or October so that voters have to show up to ensure a GOP nominee gets seated after the midterms?

perry: No. There is a real, if small, possibility that Democrats win the Senate. So not voting on Kavanaugh before the election is way too risky for Republicans.

natesilver: We talked about that on the podcast and my answer is “no,” Chadwick. Because if things get pushed past the midterms, that means something has gone wrong. And the “something,” whatever it is, could make Trump and McConnell look ineffectual. Or trigger a lot of internecine fights within the GOP.

cwick: This is the purported mastermind who blocked Obama nominee Merrick Garland from getting a confirmation vote! Machinations are his life force.

clare.malone: I mean, I know you’re joking, but also that was really smart of him.

cwick: I think you’re underestimating Republicans’ ability to blame the nomination falling through on Democrats and use it as a get-out-the-vote mechanism.

natesilver: See, I think that establishment Republicans care a lot about Supreme Court nominations. And that influences the discourse and leads the conventional wisdom to overrate how much rank-and-file voters care. I’m not saying it’s a trivial issue, but if you ask voters what their most important concerns are, the Supreme Court doesn’t register at all.

cwick: I think with Roe v. Wade potentially on the line, you’re underestimating rank-and-file Republicans’ ability to be activated.

ANYWAY: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says he’s going to oppose Kavanaugh “with everything I’ve got.” But … aside from guile, what does he have?

clare.malone: Not that much, to be honest.

natesilver: He’s got … 49 votes. That and five bucks will get you a ham sandwich.

clare.malone: I think he can basically do the parallel of what McConnell is doing, which is basically try to keep his moderates in line (Sens. Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Donnelly, Doug Jones). But beyond that … I guess take Collins out to a fancy lunch and beg her to vote against confirmation?

natesilver: Schumer has to decide whether there’s a real chance that his party can torpedo the nomination or if everything they’re doing is just Kabuki to try to play the right way to his base.

clare.malone: Do some opposition research that finds Kavanaugh wanting?

natesilver: Sure. I mean, the guy has a paper trail. And Schumer doesn’t have to decide that today, and maybe not even for a couple of weeks. But I don’t think he wants to get stuck in between the two strategies.

perry: Forty-nine votes isn’t nothing. It’s probably not enough. I think Schumer’s goal is likely to make sure that Collins in particular declares her vote before Manchin, Donnelly, etc., have to say how they’re voting. That would keep the pressure on Collins and force her to be the 50th vote either way. Being the 50th “yes” is not ideal for her, as she will be up for re-election in 2020 in a blue state. And I think Schumer would be smart to broaden this debate from Roe to other issues, like health care.

cwick: I have a more general question: What’s the mechanism to stop a Supreme Court nomination? What do Robert Bork and Harriet Miers tell us about what takes a nominee down? Is it public pressure? (The fact that Garland didn’t even get a hearing suggests otherwise.) Scandal? (Clarence Thomas suggests otherwise.) A concern about legislating from the bench? (Three Democratic votes for Gorsuch suggest otherwise.) What would actually sink Kavanaugh?

clare.malone: Something in his record that would suggest to Collins that he leans toward overturning Roe.

perry: A personal scandal would be a problem — like sexual harassment or something like that. With Miers, it was a lack of conservative credentials, so this is not analogous to her nomination. No one doubts Kavanaugh’s experience or that he is a conservative. I think actual video of him saying, “I will vote to strike down Roe for sure, yes, sir,” would be a problem too.

clare.malone: Collins does hold a lot of power. I think she’s probably inclined to vote for Kavanaugh, though.

natesilver: To say something that’s perhaps pretty obvious, the nominations that have failed — or been unexpectedly difficult — have generally reflected either a lack of preparation or a “surprising” development.

cwick: At first glance, Kavanaugh does not strike me as that kind of nominee. It’s hard to be in D.C. that long and still have a skeleton in the closet.

natesilver: Probably not? But there’s a long paper trail, the White House apparently took a long time to decide (so preparation may not have been as good as it was for Gorsuch?) and Trump is not exactly known for having all his contingencies covered.

clare.malone: Whaaaa?

natesilver: Plus, McConnell hinted that Trump should pick someone else, which is interesting.

perry: But if Kavanaugh’s nomination sinks, I think it’s not likely to be a vote on the Senate floor where a Republican or two votes against him. Instead, I would expect it would be three or four GOP senators coming together and saying no and forcing Trump to withdraw Kavanaugh’s name. The other thing, of course, would be if he is on tape somewhere saying, “I will vote to uphold Roe,” or “Obamacare is good,” and then Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee (the more conservative wing of the Senate) and the base could turn against him.

The big unknown is that Kavanagh was staff secretary under Bush. The papers he wrote in that era are likely to come out. And there could be explosive stuff there. He was a fairly senior official in an administration that, among other things, took us to war.

cwick: I think I am already regretting what I said about people in D.C. not having skeletons in the closet. D.C. creates skeletons (or at least the perception of them)!

clare.malone: FYI, from Schumer, just now:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Brett Kavanaugh is someone who would "overturn women's reproductive rights and strike down healthcare protections for millions of Americans." pic.twitter.com/03fNJwxT7f

— POLITICO (@politico) July 10, 2018

cwick: Yeah, Schumer has said the opposition is going to be about health care and abortion, at least half of which are big issues for Democratic voters, and both of which are big issues for the Democratic base.

perry: I think it’s worth separating out opposition that is really mobilization of the Democratic base (so abortion and health care) versus opposition that could tank him. I think the latter is more like, as Nate said, not policy issues but surprising revelations about his work at the White House.

cwick: OK, let’s move on to moderate Republican senators, who came up earlier. Collins and Murkowski are both noncommittal thus far and say they’re looking forward to talking to Kavanaugh one-on-one. What’s the smartest political play for them? Is it to go along with their fellow Republicans after appearing to be nervous for a bit?

perry: Collins should wait as long as possible for the moderate Democrats (Manchin, Donnelly, etc.) to decide. Ideally, those Democrats say they will vote “yes.” Then she can vote “no” and and appeal to voters in Maine who may want her to not be aligned with Trump too often. But if it’s 49-49 (assuming McCain is unable to vote), she has to vote “yes” (being the 50th “no” invites a primary challenge and likely a well-funded one) and argue that she doesn’t know how Kavanaugh would vote on Roe because he will not say so during the hearing.

natesilver: I don’t think Collins will get away with waiting out the Democrats.

It’s a GOP president and (just barely) a GOP Senate. And she’s the swing vote — there’s still a pretty big gap between the Republicans who vote with Trump least often and the Democrats who vote with Trump most often.

perry: And Schumer, Manchin, etc., know that Collins gets an advantage if they break ranks. I was just saying what Collins should try to do, if she can.

clare.malone: I tend to think that Collins votes “yes” because she can point to his talking about judicial precedent, which might lead her to reason that he won’t vote to overturn Roe.

According to NBC News:

In his confirmation hearing in May 2006, Kavanaugh was asked by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., if he considered Roe v. Wade to be an “abomination.”

“If confirmed to the D.C. Circuit, I would follow Roe v. Wade faithfully and fully. That would be binding precedent of the court,” Kavanaugh said, referring to the legal principle of stare decisis. “It’s been decided by the Supreme Court.”

natesilver: Yeah, that seemed like the sort of language she was looking for.

perry: The things she has been saying, that Roberts and Gorsuch won’t vote to overturn Roe, are not going to last two months of scrutiny. I’m not sure Gorsuch or Roberts are totally unwilling overturn Roe, and I’m not sure where Collins’s certainty comes from. I think she needs new talking points.

cwick: It’s a remarkable system we have in which there is no incentive for a Supreme Court nominee to do anything but play to the swing senators, as there is little chance of accountability later if a nominee rules differently than he or she promised to in public hearings or one-on-one meetings. Which is to say, this doesn’t seem like that hard of a strategy to follow if you’re Kavanaugh.

perry: Murkowski is in a conservative state — Alaska. I actually think maybe Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado is a more interesting vote than Murkowski. Do others agree?

clare.malone: Why do you think that, Perry?

natesilver: I mean, you could make that case for Nevada’s Dean Heller too. But they’ve both gone pretty all-in on Trump, having voted with the president 92 percent of the time.

perry: Gardner is a Republican up in 2020 in a blue state. His vote is not really in play, but he should be more worried about this vote than Murkowski. I just think health care was a different issue than the Supreme Court, and I will be surprised if Murkowski is very wishy-washy on the confirmation vote even though she opposed the GOP health care bill.

natesilver:

LOL. Collins says she won't support a judge who is opposed to Roe; also thinks it's wrong to ask whether judge is opposed to Roe. https://t.co/dddpePobVt

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 10, 2018

clare.malone: So basically Collins favors plausible deniability.

perry: I don’t think there is much she can do. Her move could have been to ask Trump not to pick someone from the list of potential nominees the White House put out last year. Anyone from the list, I would argue, is a potential vote to overturn Roe, as that potential opposition to Roe is, I suspect, in part how these judges, including Kavanaugh, got on the list in the first place.

natesilver: Again, my view is that “something else” has to come out for the nomination to go down. That something else could be that someone discovers other statements about Roe or that he screws up an answer in the hearing. Based on what we know right now, I think Collins votes to confirm.

perry: I’m sure Rand Paul will do something to get attention in this process. But he is a “yes” vote when it comes down to it.

cwick: Let’s save Rand so that Nate can make a snarky comment about him as the kicker.

natesilver: Rand has actually voted with Trump less often than any other Republican senator.

And McConnell knows him pretty well, so when McConnell tried to steer Trump away from Kavanaugh, maybe that was the reason why.

cwick: OK, let’s make sense of the predicament that moderate Democratic senators face. It seems to me that there’s pressure on each side: They need to make sure Democratic voters show up at the polls for them (which suggests that they should vote against Kavanaugh) and that anti-Trump independents/Republicans will join an anti-Trump wave, should one exist. What do they do?

natesilver: They vote the same way they voted on Gorsuch.

clare.malone: I would say that’s correct. They won’t get rewarded by the Democratic base for voting against the nominee. They do have a risk of being dinged by independents/swayable Republican voters if they vote against the nominee.

cwick: Three Democratic senators voted “yes” on Gorsuch: Donnelly, Heitkamp and Manchin (although there are a couple of new senators since then).

clare.malone: Doug Jones of Alabama was not yet in the Senate, but he’s in basically the same boat as the others.

natesilver: Incidentally (and small sample size alert), there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between how the Democrats voted on Gorsuch and how they’re doing in the polls. Heitkamp looks quite vulnerable right now, for instance, whereas Manchin doesn’t.

clare.malone: We should note that this vote and the Gorsuch vote are different. Gorsuch was an ideological replacement for conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, while the confirmation of Kavanaugh will shift the court to the right.

natesilver: And Kavanaugh has more baggage. There are more reasons to oppose him than there were to oppose Gorsuch. But why get cute and split the difference, unless your vote would actually be decisive?

perry: As a prediction, I think the votes will be similar to what they were for Gorsuch. If I were advising Democrats in red-state races, I might suggest they vote against Kavanaugh. I think Trump is going to campaign against them anyway. I think people know they are Democrats. And I think even in West Virginia, there is a base of Democrats who you want to be actively campaigning for you and be excited about you, and that is not helped by backing Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. I don’t think there is a really strong downside to voting against. Manchin is already trying to say his vote is about protecting the Affordable Care Act, which I think is smart (as opposed to focusing on abortion).

clare.malone: Though to Perry’s point above, maybe that’s exactly the reason to vote against Kavanaugh — gin up that base since they already know you’re a Democrat in a red state.

natesilver: The other thing is that there haven’t really been a lot of viable primary challenges to Democrats in red states. The energy has all been in already-blue states and districts.

cwick: Clare, did you and Jones talk about this sorta thing when you were profiling him?

clare.malone: Yes. I think he knew that he was going to have some of these “tough votes” coming down the line that would spoil the honeymoon period. He voted for Mike Pompeo to be secretary of state and against Gina Haspel to be the CIA director, but that’s his only big/controversial nomination paper trail. I tend to think that he would vote to confirm, given the really, really slim path to victory he faces in 2020, when he’s up for re-election, given the heavily Republican lean of the state.

perry: Interesting. Jones is a case where I think it’s clear that he should vote against Kavanaugh. He needs the base to be strongly with him to have any chance in 2020, and I think if the civil rights/black communities make a clear case against Kavanaugh, as I expect they will, it will be tough for him to vote “yes.”

perry: But these politicians know their states better than I do, so I will be curious how they act. McCaskill, Donnelly and in particular Jones, for example, have sizable black communities to appeal to. Manchin and Heitkamp don’t. I will be curious if that affects these votes.

clare.malone: There are precedents for this with Bork. Bork had been against provisions of the Civil Rights Act initially, and Southern Democrats were against him, in part because they had to appeal to a broader racial coalition.

cwick: OK, I think let’s leave it there on the Democrats. Since Nate stepped on our planned Rand Paul kicker, let’s end with some probabilistic predictions: Given all that we’ve discussed, what do you think the chances are that Kavanaugh is confirmed?

clare.malone: “Good chances.”

natesilver: PredictIt says there’s about an 85 percent chance that he’ll be confirmed by Oct. 31.

perry: I would say extremely high right now. I would put him at something like 52 votes right now. (I think Donnelly and Heitkamp are pretty likely to vote “yes.” I am not as sure about Manchin.)

natesilver: I suppose I’d bet against it given almost 6:1 odds, but I wouldn’t lay down a lot of money. Nominating Supreme Court justices is one of the things that really unifies different Republican constituencies, and so far, there haven’t been any red flags for Collins/Murkowski. But their margin of error is almost nonexistent, and the confirmation hearing will likely be longer and nastier than it was for Gorsuch.

cwick: Bookies, Nate is standing by to give you not a lot of money.

Politics Podcast: The Fight Over Kavanaugh Is Just Beginning

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President Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court. The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast team breaks down key questions surrounding the nomination, including how the Senate will respond and how his nomination could affect the midterms.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen .

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes . Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

Trump Says ‘Abolish ICE’ Is Bad Politics For Democrats. Is He Right?

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

cwick (Chadwick Matlin, features editor): Micah’s on vacation! So you’re stuck with me, the John to Micah’s Ringo. Today’s topic: Some Democrats have responded to President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policies by advocating for an end to ICE, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that has carried out the administration’s since-reversed policy to separate migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. Does that make for good politics?

Among the politicians who have recently said the agency should be dismantled is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who won the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District last week. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand supports it. Lots of signs at weekend rallies against Trump’s immigration policies supported it. Is this a new thread of Democratic ideology?

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political reporter): Well, it’s certainly picked up a lot of steam in the last couple of days! And given that Elizabeth Warren just called for it, I’m beginning to think we might be seeing a new 2020 Democratic presidential primary litmus test forming. And when we’re talking Democratic primary litmus tests, I think we’re mostly talking tests for the left wing of the party.

anna (Anna Maria Barry-Jester, lead health writer): It’s certainly got some steam among the more liberal wing of the party, though there are also plenty of Democrats who think that’s a dangerous direction to go.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): Gillibrand is interesting in that she’s one of the most blatant Democrats in calibrating her positions to set herself up for 2020. And also that she tends to get branded as a Clinton-esque establishment type by the left wing of the Democratic Party, and so is trying to shore up her credentials with that group.

clare.malone: I think you’re still going to get Democrats who will point out that if ICE hadn’t been enforcing Justice Department policy on family separations (which is when a lot of this “ban ICE” stuff kicked up), some other agency would have. It’s Trump administration policy. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal was saying that this weekend. Basically, the “ban ICE” thing is a great sound bite, and, sure, some ICE tactics are broken and toxic, but the White House can still enforce these policies other ways.

anna: Right, Clare — the current support for the abolish ICE movement is pretty clearly linked to what’s happening with family separations. But it also betrays a pretty big problem, which is that people, including a lot of politicians, don’t really know a lot about how immigration works.

natesilver: I’ve seen comparisons between “ban ICE” and “repeal Obamacare,” which I think makes sense. In neither case was there much consensus about what the replacement would be.

clare.malone: There are certainly a lot of incomplete policy thoughts about immigration. I think to the Obamacare point, immigration has become, basically, the battlefield upon which all partisan politics are poured out since Trump’s campaign. It’s a place where people do a lot of projection and not a lot of actual policy talk.

cwick: To that point, when Gillibrand is talking about getting rid of ICE, she’s really talking about separating its two functions. “I think you should separate the criminal justice from the immigration issues,” she said.

anna: It’s not just Democrats who see a problem with the way ICE currently functions. A group of criminal investigators for ICE, people who work on preventing and investigating violence from MS-13 and human traffickers, recently asked that their division be spun out of ICE, according to reporting by The Texas Observer. They say that their funds are being diverted to immigration enforcement efforts and that they are having a hard time getting local law-enforcement agencies to work with them because of the “the political nature” of immigration enforcement.

As you’re kind of alluding to, Chad, ICE sort of has competing functions under a Trump administration that’s putting so much emphasis on deportations. Some branches of ICE need the relationships with local governments and immigrant communities in order to work on terrorism and organized crime investigations. But those relationships have been harmed by the change in immigration enforcement, which is also being done through ICE.

clare.malone: Well, I also think not a whole lot of people knew about ICE before it started ramping up immigration arrests! That’s gotta affect views of it, and I’m betting not a lot of people know about the institutional split that exists — i.e., the deportations focus vs. criminal investigations focus.

natesilver: Until fairly recently, Google searches for Vanilla Ice exceeded searches for ICE.

clare.malone: lol

cwick: Let’s move on to the politics of this new push: Trump thinks Democrats are being real dumb, as you might expect:

The Liberal Left, also known as the Democrats, want to get rid of ICE, who do a fantastic job, and want Open Borders. Crime would be rampant and uncontrollable! Make America Great Again

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2018

He also said: “I think they’ll never win another election. So I’m actually quite happy about it.” Is he right that this is a losing proposition for Democrats?

anna: There are lots of people who don’t think it’s a good strategy.

natesilver: I don’t know. I don’t think people have particularly strong views on ICE. Of course, the fact that Trump is now weighing in on the issue, as are many prominent Democrats, will make views much stronger and more polarized in the very near future.

cwick: One data point: A Harvard-Harris poll conducted June 24 -25 found that about half of self-identified liberals said ICE should be disbanded; 41 percent of Democrats agreed. Republican support was 22 percent.

anna: Cecilia Muñoz, who worked on immigration policy (among other things) in the Obama administration, has been making the rounds to argue that the “abolish ICE” movement will let Republicans say that Democrats want open borders. If Republicans are successful with that messaging, Democrats could lose whatever support they have among people who want tough immigration enforcement, which includes a lot of independents. I mean, with all things immigration, aren’t we seeing that it’s a motivating factor for Republicans, but not so much for Democrats?

natesilver: The best argument against “abolish ICE” is probably that swing voters mostly side with Democrats on immigration, and this is a retreat from the middle ground.

clare.malone: Which is, per the Muñoz argument, obviously the worry among Democratic strategists.

natesilver: Of course, that gets very fraught, very quickly. The notion that moderation wins elections more often than not isn’t going to persuade many people after 2016, even though it might happen to be true. The mostly young Democratic activists who are pushing to abolish ICE feel like the Democratic establishment totally misunderstands politics and are responsible for the Democrats’ electoral predicament.

clare.malone: I mean, this would endanger your play to get Obama-Trump voters in the much-talked-about Upper Midwest, for instance, right?

natesilver: Would it, though? I don’t know. It mostly feels like older, more centrist Democratic elites arguing against younger, more leftist ones.

cwick: Nate, you just described much of the digital news media.

clare.malone: Nate, are you saying that the push to abolish ICE rests on an argument that doesn’t matter to most voters and that it’s more a show for Democratic primary voters?

natesilver: I think most people had never thought much about ICE before last week. It’s not like IRS or the INS or the Department of Education. And, yeah, most of this is a prelude to the massive fights that will occur in 2020. It’s also people who feel that the Republican strategy of shifting the “Overton window” toward more radical positions has been successful and that Democrats should emulate it.

clare.malone: Yeah, I think that strategic point is interesting, and it’s where you get other Democrats pushing back. A discomfort with radicalism, basically.

anna: It seems like it will be pretty easy for Republicans to send the message that wanting to abolish ICE is equivalent to wanting open borders, even though that’s not the case (among the politicians at least).

cwick: Nate, do we know how wide a party should want its Overton window to be? I’d think that too wide means you run the risk of too big a tent and not standing for anything. Too narrow means your establishment is liable to get booted out in any election.

natesilver: For many, many years, the Democratic Party has been more of a coalition party — it’s had a bigger tent — whereas the Republican Party has been more uniform. These respective strategies have various electoral advantages and disadvantages. For Democrats, one of the advantages is that the broadness of the party shows up in the numbers — more people identify as Democrats than as Republicans — although Democrats also include a higher number of marginalized groups that may or may not turn out to vote.

All of that is just a predicate to say that it’s normal for Democrats to have a pretty wide tent and for there to be fights between the left and the center. To some extent, Obama unified those groups, but a lot of the politics in the Democratic Party reflect the aftermath of (and in some ways the backlash to) Obama’s politics.

cwick: Anna, what does the wellspring of support for “abolish ICE” tell us about the role that immigration is playing in U.S. politics right now? Is the back and forth over separating kids from their families at the border a rehashed version of the same old immigration fight Americans have been having for decades? Or is this something truly new?

anna: Oh, I think there’s definitely a lot that’s new. Obama made big changes to how deportations are carried out, which is often pointed out by groups of all political stripes. But Trump’s policy of separating children from their families, using such a large share of resources to work on deportations of people with little-to-no criminal background, at the expense of homeland security in some ways, is definitely new.

The Trump administration has essentially made the policy of reducing immigration its security strategy. That was the argument for the travel ban and for separating families at the border. You also see that in the constant talk about MS-13. That’s part of why it was so interesting to people who focus on this stuff that the ICE investigators said that focus is hurting their ability to do homeland security work.

clare.malone: Trump has made it a flash point in a way that Mitt Romney’s self-deportations never could. I mean, this all just goes back to Trump’s way of using immigration policy as a proxy to talk about race. (See: MS-13 rhetoric/travel ban.)

natesilver: We could use more polling on ICE. When I Googled for “ICE poll,” this was the top result:

cwick: Nate, order a case.

clare.malone: Can they advertise with us??

natesilver: They only ship to Belgium, France and Luxembourg unfortunately. Also it probably costs like $5,125,123,412 per case with the new tariff on effete European sparkling wines.

clare.malone: That sounds like a great Fourth of July party theme, tbh.

cwick: OK, everyone pop a bottle of Poll and offer up one last prediction: Is “abolish ICE” the platform of the 2020 Democratic nominee for president? Or is this a fad?

anna: Possibly neither? You’ll continue to see it on platforms in congressional races, but not necessarily official policy of the Democratic Party.

clare.malone: Gillibrand/Warren platforms for sure. Let’s see if other people glom on.

natesilver: I think you’ve heard me say before that 2020 is going to be a huge freakin’ fight, whereas Democratic infighting is mostly overrated as a 2018 storyline. And I think I’ll stick to that.

clare.malone: I think Warren is more influential, so there’s an interesting shot of it becoming mainstreamed more.

natesilver: What’s interesting about ICE, though, is that immigration was historically one of the issues on which the stereotypical, older, whiter Bernie Sanders-type left was actually more moderate. This is also true in Europe, where the left isn’t always so excited about immigration. There’s sort of the Scandinavian attitude where if you’re going to have a very generous welfare state, maybe it’s a problem to make it easy for outsiders to gain access to its benefits.

anna: Yeah, but the terms of the debate have changed pretty radically under Trump.

natesilver: I’m just saying that between “abolish ICE” and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, we sort of seem to be witnessing the birth of (dare I say it) intersectional leftism as a political force.

clare.malone: DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) is the shorter way to say it. I actually think they are an interesting new wing of the party. (Yes, I know they’re a different party technically, but a lot of them run as Democrats.)

cwick: Nate, getting in touch with the producers of Chapo Trap House for you now.

Politics Podcast: How Conservative Can Trump’s Supreme Court Pick Be?

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The political jockeying over the nomination of the next Supreme Court justice is underway. The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast team discusses how politicians are reacting and what the court will look like if, as seems likely, Chief Justice John Roberts winds up in the ideological middle. The team also checks in on how moderates like Doug Jones are faring in Congress today.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen .

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes . Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.