The 2016 presidential election gave Democrats a painful reminder that the path to the White House runs through the rough terrain of the Electoral College. Despite enjoying a popular vote margin of nearly 3 million, the Democratic ticket won only 20 states with 232 electoral votes, compared to the 30 states and 306 electoral votes won by Donald Trump and Mike Pence. …
Midterm elections often provide misleading signals about the subsequent presidential election. Republicans suffered significant losses in 1982, but Ronald Reagan was re-elected two years later in one of the greatest landslides in American history. Although Newt Gingrich’s insurgency routed the Democrats in 1994, Bill Clinton won re-election in 1996 with an enhanced margin of the popular vote. The Tea Party revolt repeated the Gingrich success in 2010, but Barack Obama nonetheless won re-election comfortably, stunning Republican nominee Mitt Romney and his senior political advisors.
But the 2018 midterm election was different, and its results shed important light on the choice that Democrats face. CONT.
William A. Galston & Clara Hendrickson, Brookings Institution