Republicans Are On Track to Lose 50 Seats

Test Ticker

Monika Bauerlein,
CEO

Dear Reader,

December is make-or-break for Mother Jones’ fundraising. We have a $350,000 goal that we simply cannot afford to miss. And in "No Cute Headlines or Manipulative BS," we explain, as matter-of-fact as we can, how being a nonprofit means everything to us. Bottom line: Donations big and small make up 74 percent of our budget this year and are urgently needed this month, and all online gifts will be matched and go twice as far until we hit our goal. Please pitch in if you can right now.

December is make-or-break for Mother Jones’ fundraising, and in "No Cute Headlines or Manipulative BS," we hope that giving it to you as matter-of-fact as we can will work to raise the $350,000 we need to raise this month. Donations make up 74 percent of our budget this year, and all online gifts will be matched and go twice as far until we hit our goal.

So how’s the election going to shake out in November? Beats me, but in February Seth Masket put up a chart showing what we could expect based solely on two fundamentals: the president’s popularity and the growth in real per-capita disposable income since last year. Those two numbers now look pretty well set in stone: Trump is consistently polling between 35-40 percent, and income growth since last year was 1.9 percent. That means we just have to plug them into Masket’s chart from February:

It looks like Republicans are going to lose about 50 seats. There are no guarantees, of course, and maybe Trump will annex Baja California and suddenly become the most popular president in history. At the moment, though, this is a fairly reliable model and it predicts a big loss for the GOP. All that’s left is for the Democratic Party not to blow it.