Trump slips in the WH2020 betting after his party’s midterms performance
It is now the nearly week since the US midterm elections and still we have to wait for a final outcome. There are two big state results to be completed both of which are on a knife edge.
There is a strong argument for saying that the midterm performances 2 years before a presidential election are not a good pointer to the outcome. There are certainly a number of precedents to support that position.
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What makes the 2018 elections different is the exceptionally high turnout getting closer to what would you’d expect from a presidential election. About 114m votes were cast this year, which is much closer to the WH2016 total of 137m than the 2014 midterm total of 82m
Thus on the figures we have at the moment it looks as though the overall turnout last Tuesday will be about 48.5%. This compares with the turnout of 35% at the 2014 midterm elections.
The reason of course is the presence of Mr Trump as president and the fact that he is an extraordinary polarising figure. The surveys showed that about two-thirds of voters last week said Trump played a big part in there choice both for the Republicans and against the party.
A real worry for the Republicans now is that the Democrats had significant victories in Wisconsin Michigan and Pennsylvania three big states that if 2018 can be replicated at WH2020 would see Trump lose.
As the chart shows the President has edged down in the betting but he’s still a 35% chance to win WH2020.