Congress

Congress’ approval rating continues at a subterranean level.

  Approve Disapprove
Real Clear Politics 6/5 16.6% 70.6%
Real Clear Politics 5/1 16.6% 72.6%
Real Clear Politics 4/2 13.6% 75%
Real Clear Politics 3/2 15.8% 72.6%
Real Clear Politics 2/4 16.2% 73.9%
Real Clear Politics 1/4 15.8% 72.6%

32% of Americans say that their member of Congress deserves to be re-elected but 53% would prefer to give a new person a chance.

In general, 50% of us would prefer that Congress be controlled by Democrats while 40% prefer Republican control. [NBC/WSJ poll, 6/4/18]

The House of Representatives

[WW uses David Wasserman and the Cook Political Report for the House chart below.]

  • Democrats 195
  • Republicans 240
  Democrats Republicans
Safe in 2018 180 157
Likely 12 29
Lean 9 26
Tossup 2 21

The current consensus seems to be that the Democrats are “likely” to take over the House. Estimates by people or entities on which WW relies, range from 50/50 to 65/35.

Part of the Democratic optimism is based on the fact that so far 59 congressional districts – 39 held by Republicans and 20 held by Democrats – will not have an incumbent running for re-election.


The Senate

[WW used a combination of the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections to create the Senate chart below.]

There have been a few changes since the last issue of the Watch. Likely Dem grew from 2 to 4; Lean Democrat dropped from 3 to 1. On the Republican side, Safe seats moved from 4 to 5; Likely Republican moved from 2 to 1.

At the moment the best that the Democrats can hope to do is get to 50/50. In order for that to happen, the Democrats would have to hold four of the five seats in the Democratic toss-ups below and the Republicans would have to lose two of the three seats they have in the toss-up column.

  • Republicans 51
  • Democrats 47
  • Independents 2
  Democrats Republicans
Seats not up in 2018 23 42
Safe in 2018 16 5
Likely 4
Casey
Baldwin
Tester
Smith
1
Cruz
Lean 1
Brown
0
Toss-Ups 5
Donnelly
McCaskill
Manchin
Heitkamp
Nelson
3
Heller
Arizona (open)
Tennessee (open)

More than 1,900 men have been U.S. senators. Only 52 women have had that distinction in the history of the country – 23 are serving today. [Senator Amy Klobuchar in Axios, 5/29/18]