The Democrats' Dullard Dynasty

As the pendulum swings against the GOP, an exhausted opposition looks to nothingburgers like Chelsea Clinton.

- Matt Welch

FUNDAMENTALS SUGGEST THAT this should be a golden moment for the Democratic Party. The first special congressional elections since President Donald Trump settled into the Oval Office have provided an evidentiary taste: In Kansas on April 11, Republican Ron Estes won by seven percentage points in a district Trump carried by 27. In Georgia on April 18, Democratic newcomer Jon Ossoff stomped his nearest Republican rival, Karen Handel, 48.1–19.8 percent, in a district Trump won by a single percentage point. That race now graduates to a June 20 runoff, which is projected to be close, but Ossoff has already over performed expectations.

The generic congressional ballot average—that is, who voters favor between a standard-issue Republican or a typical Democrat—was as of mid-April underwater for the gop by six percentage points. If that number holds, it will mark the worst recorded January-to-June showing in the year before a midterm election for the party that controls the House of Representatives. Republicans previously polled at minus-four points in 2005 (a year before losing the House) and in 1997 (a year before Democrats gained five seats in a historic reversal of the presidential “six year itch”).