What I want from the US mid terms

If I lived in the US I’d be very depressed about a choice between the corrupt and the crazy. The Democrats seem to be sliding more to the extreme left, and the Republicans are so terrified of Trump they acquiesce and ignore stuff that they would be outraged about normally.

Trump is hugely unpopular. He is -21% approval overall. On the economy he is -32% and on inflation -43%. He is even -11% on immigration which before the election was a huge strength for him. On Iran he is at -31%. Inflation is the No 1 issue and he is at -43% where 70% of voters disapprove of his record.

And they are right to disapprove. His tariff obsessions has not just been terrible for the world economy, but also terrible for US consumers. A recent Fed estimate is that 2.9 percentage points of US inflation is due to the tariffs.

And the war with Iran has been a debacle. In the early stages there was definitely an optimistic scenario where you could get regime change, or at least the nuclear threat gone and their offensive capacity wiped out. But his lack of strategy and over reliance on bluster has led to global oil and diesel prices skyrocketing.

So what do I want to happen? Well the House is going to fall to the Democrats beyond reasonable doubt, and this is a good thing. House Republicans have shown no interest in standing up for traditional Republican values like free trade, NATO, rule of law, democratic values. I want them to lose so badly that they learn a lesson (yeah I know they won’t). I hope that in 2030, if the GOP is in a post Trump era, they can come back.

In the Senate, I’m more mixed on what I want as an outcome. In Trump’s first term I loved most of his judicial appointments, as they were good principled originalists. Trump basically rubber stamped nominees from the Federalist Society, and we got three excellent Supreme Court Justices and many excellent lower court judges.

This term, Trump has taken a far far keener interest in judicial nominations. While there are still many fine appointments, a significant proportion are just hacks whose only criteria is personal loyalty to Trump and a high probability they would always rule for him. I would like vacant judicial roles to be filled, which a GOP held Senate would allow. Would also allow Alito or Thomas to be replaced by someone younger, but I am concerned that Trump’s nominee would be a Judge Aileen Cannon, not a Brett Cavanagh.

Losing the Senate also means Trump can’t get any cabinet and sub cabinet appointments ratified. But as he is basically ignoring them anyway and relying on Acting appointments, that isn’t a big factor.

Trump has personally endorsed challengers to sitting Senators that he say as no sycophantic enough, and their successors are looking likely to lose those seats. So losing the Senate will be down to Trump personally, if it happens. A year ago it was almost unthinkable as it was such a favourable map.

So in the Senate I’m sort of agnostic on overall control. But I do have preferences based on candidate quality in individual races. Here are the marginal Senate seats with the probability from Nate Silver.

1. Alaska: Pelota (D) 56%: Want Pelota to lose as she is lying about her cheat strategy, and also seems a very unpleasant person
2. Iowa: Turek (D) 58%: Want Hinson (R) to win as she seems normal. To be fair Turek seems pretty normal also, and is a relatively moderate Democrats.
3. Kansas: Hamilton (D) 61%: Want Marshall (incumbent R) to lose as he tried to steal the 2020 election.
4. South Carolina: Graham (R) 67%. Graham is uninspiring and only there as the sister of the deceased Lindsay. But her opponent Annie Andrews appears to be a radical pretending to be moderate. So Graham the lesser evil.
5. Nebraska: Ricketts (R) 67%. Ricketts is a pretty typical conservative politician and his opponent is a Democrat pretending to be an Independent. Prefer Ricketts.
6. Ohio: Brown (D) 71%. Brown is on the left of the Democratic Party and Husted is sort off normal. So prefer Husted.
7. Maine: Jackson (D) 73%. Jackson is hard left pretending not to be. Collins is a great advocate for her state, and one of the few GOP Senators who will stand u to Trump. Team Collins.
8. Texas: Talarico (D) 74%. I think Talarico is weird and will be pretty terrible. But Ken Paxton is corrupt (his own Deputy AGs reported him to the FBI) and has no redeeming qualities. I want Paxton to lose more than anyone else.
9. Florida: Moody (R) 83%. Nixon (D) is terrible and Moody is not. Easy.
10. Michigan: El-Sayed (D) 84%. El-Sayed is the one I second most want to lose. His anti-semitism is a huge threat, if he gets into the Senate.
11. Minnesota: Flanagan (D) 94%. She’s going to win. But she will be terrible. Prefer Tafoya (R)
12. New Hampshire: Pappas 94%. I prefer Sununu, but he will lose to Pappas who to be fair is one of the better Democrats
13. North Carolina: Cooper 96%. Trump faced out Tillis so this will be karma as Cooper wins against Whatley. Whatley support’s Trump’s tariffs so I’m with Cooper