Republicans Are On Track to Lose 50 Seats

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.

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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