Hey everyone, the Jackal is back from its August recess. It was filled with lots of fun, family visits, and ended with a vacation in Michigan. #PureMichigan doesn’t describe the half of it:
A truly underrated state, and I was sad when our time there came to an end. Speaking of endings, let’s talk about the Jackal.
I started this Substack in 2020, in the midst of COVID and had originally planned to do it up until the pandemic was officially over and life returned to normal. But the response was great, and I kept it going throughout the Biden Administration. It has since shifted into more legal territory and away from politics (this post notwithstanding), and I feel that my original Mission Statement™ of making politics simple and easy to understand is a little disingenuous now.
That is one of the reasons I am making the decision to end the Jackal. Another reason is that I am currently undergoing an elder candidacy with my church, and it doesn’t sit right with me to have a political blog (even one that is heavily concentrated on law) up and running while that process is ongoing. I should be clear: No one from my church has made a single demand or made so much as a reference to the Jackal, even in passing. No one from my church is asking me to end it, and I have plenty of friends from my church who read it.
I am choosing to end it of my own accord. But this isn’t the last one; I’ll put together two more pieces:
One on Donal Trump and his effect on American politics (duh).
SCOTUS.
Then, the Jackal will shut down. It is sad, but at the very least it will shut down before the midterm elections, which will save me any embarrassment from this post, where I am probably going to get 20 different things wrong.
I’m sad, but fine. Tell me who is going to win the midterms.
I wanted to write a thing about the midterms because I think lots of people are approaching this coming election season with a casual attitude. I think the assumption is: “The Democrats are going to win like they did in 2018, where there will be some good outcomes for Republicans mixed in.”
I really can’t overstate this: That is not the environment we are currently in. One of the benefits of me having access to lots of paywalled journalism is that I can share that knowledge with you guys. Based on polls, early turnout (yes, people are currently voting!), and results from earlier this year, we aren’t just looking at a typical incumbent Party loss, or even a “blue wave.” This is beginning to look like a seismic, generational event.
If you are a Democrat, that probably sounds good. If you are a Republican, you at least get to live through history (sorry).
Here is what the House and Senate looked like around the same time in 2022:
2022 was the year where the infamous Red Wave failed to show up, and Joe Biden came close to acing his midterms. This is going further back, but here are the results from 2018:
In 2018, Republicans were heavily favored to keep the Senate, which also ended up happening. Before we jump into what the narrative about this year is, let’s just look at the predictions as they stand right now. And her’s a fun little bonus: FiveThirtyEight no longer exists, but both its founder (Nate Silver) and the guy who took it over (G. Elliott Morris) have their own websites now. Here is Morris’s prediction:
And here’s the Senate:
Pretty crazy. Before I give you Silver’s predictions, I’m going to warn you that his polling data are paywalled and you should subscribe to his Substack if you want full access. But as of this writing, he is giving Democrats a 69% chance of gaining control of the Senate and a 91% chance of winning the House.
I think including Silver’s prediction here is important, because in the past he has been (correctly) more bullish on the GOP’s chances than Morris. But suffice it to say, these current predictions were unthinkable a year ago.
All you have to do is go back and look at the articles that were being written in 2025. It’s lots of, “Few Opportunities for Democrats to Claw Back Majority,” and “Senate Democrats face a tough map.” Not only are Democrats now favored to win the Senate, they’re pushing the GOP in places like Iowa and Nebraska. And that’s before you even get to Texas.
We’ve seen this movie before. Polls don’t capture Trump’s support. And Beto got smoked.
I want to spend a quick moment on Texas before I jump into the reliability of the polls. Years ago, lots of Democrats were hyped about Beto O’Rourke, the dude who brought Youth Pastor Energy™ to the Senate race in Texas. He ultimately lost to Ted Cruz, and people felt cheated by their misplaced hope. But here are the polling results from 2018:
Beto never led Cruz, even once. Here are the polls now between James Talarico and Ken Paxton:
It’s almost completely reversed. Right now, Republicans are basically in the same position as Democrats were in 2018: Hoping that the polls are failing to capture shy Paxton/Beto support.
Some of these results are straight up candidate quality. Paxon, in particular, is well-known in Texas and what people know about him they don’t like. He is routinely called the most corrupt public official in America (outside of Trump himself), and most Texans dislike him. This also includes his fellow Republicans, who famously impeached him a few years ago.
Another big part of this is that Donald Trump is just super unpopular. His approval rating has never been lower:
But I think looking at all of this misses a bigger picture. If you go back and look at some of the writing after the 2024 Election, it noted the fragility of Trump’s coalition. Some dude wrote this:
I think people across the political spectrum are focused on how Trump won the election when they should be focused on why Trump won the election.
How: He built a coalition of MAGA supporters (who would not turn on him even if he shot a person on 5th Avenue) and traditional Republicans who will not vote for Democrats.
Why: He picked up support from low-propensity voters who were angry about inflation and blamed the Biden Administration.
Trump won the election by 1.5%. The margin in some of the swing states was even less than that. It was not a resounding victory, so you can bet that the why voters did not sign up for January 6th pardons or the end of birthright citizenship. They certainly didn’t sign up for one of Trump’s nominees saying they were going to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. They didn’t even sign up for the end of DEI initiatives!
They signed up for cheaper eggs. And when it becomes clear that Trump will not be able to deliver on those promises, those voters will either turn on him outright or stay home in 2026.
Spoiler alert: I am the “some dude,” and what I described in early 2025 is what is happening right now. The most important lesson you can learn about politics from 2008 until now is that there is no such thing as a permanent coalition. Politics is fundamentally about change, and in a country of 330 million people, the times they are a-changin’.
Democrats seriously thought that they were leaving the Obama years with an unbeatable coalition. There is a great SNL skit from a couple a few ten years ago that highlights this point:
It’s laughable, looking back at it: “Republicans might never win another election.” But lots of people assumed that following 2024, Democrats were in a similar spot. They had lost a significant number of hispanic voters, and young men were turning away from them in droves.
Polls now show Trump with an 18% approval rating with voters aged 18-29, and they prefer Democrats in polls 64% to 29%. And the GOP is now hemorrhaging hispanic support so severely that there are alarm bells in Florida going off. Folks, the Oklahoma City Thunder used to be the Seattle Supersonics; things change!
I really cannot overstate how bad of a trade this was for Republicans. Back in 2010ish, it was clear that Obama had a coalition of lower propensity voters, and that more reliable, well-educated voters preferred the GOP.
Following gains in the 2010 and 2014 midterms, Republicans were in such a dominant position that they were only a few state houses away from being in a position to amend the Constitution. By the time 2016 rolled around, they controlled the government in 32 states. While they were a few away from the actual number needed to amend the Constitution (38), they were only two away from forcing an Article V convention, which would allow them to propose amendments and have the states vote on them.1
Since Trump was elected in 2016, the 2018 midterms and the 2020 election (and a decent hold in 2022) have wiped out all of those gains, and it is because the GOP traded lower propensity voters for higher propensity and educated voters. Once Trump is out of the picture, they will have to find some way to lure those lower propensity voters back and they are fresh-out of celebrities with fake hair.
Maybe the GOP is happy with the trade since they now “control” the Supreme Court, but as we saw last term, SCOTUS doesn’t reflexively rule for Republicans, and two of the Court’s most senior members are from the conservative bloc. If Democrats take control of the Senate, they will be in a position to replace Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas once they leave their posts (by retirement or the Lord taking them). Trump has given the GOP some wins, but man were they fragile in hindsight.
TL;DR, the GOP is going to get walloped this election season and it is because they have continually made the failing bet that Trump can rescue them from their broader unpopularity. This time, he’s the albatross around their neck.
See you for the last two Jackals soon.
In a convention, the states still have to approve by 2/3, but the point is that they had a solid foundation to build on, and might have succeeded if it was Jeb Bush instead of Donald Trump who won the GOP primary. Don’t look at me like I’m crazy.