Ohio

For all the good news 2018’s midterms have given Democrats — a House majority, a Senate seat from Arizona, seven more governorships, and an all-blue congressional delegation from Orange County — they have also shown that President Trump has a clear path to re-election in 2020. Midterms historically maximize the relative turnout for the opposition party. More voters overall will go to the polls in 2020 than did so this year, just as more people voted in 2016 than did so this November. But the ratio of Democrats to Republicans will be narrower, if the past anything to go by.

One interpretation of the midterm election results in the Rust Belt, where Democrats made substantial gains (though not across the board), is that Trump’s unpopularity dragged down Republicans. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania propelled Trump to victory in 2016, and his inability to sustain a base of support there cost Republican candidates for state and federal office – or so the interpretation goes. There’s probably a measure of truth to this. Trump’s approval in Michigan, for instance, lags at 44 percent, according to CNN exit polls; the state re-elected a Democratic senator without much fanfare, as well as a new governor, and several well-established GOP House incumbents were ousted.