The political map has migrated since the days of president Reagan to the point where Democrats have a very weak position in the 2018 mid-term elections. Its not just that Donald Trump won the White House despite losing the popular vote.
The Senate hasn’t had such a strong pro-GOP bias since the ratification of direct Senate elections in 1913. Even if Democrats were to win every single 2018 House and Senate race for seats representing places that Hillary Clinton won or that Trump won by less than 3 percentage points — a pretty good midterm by historical standards — they could still fall short of the House majority plus lose five Senate seats. While the GOP has a powerful way of manipulating the electorate to their advantage, one of the key problems is that Democratic voters’ have clustered in the urban districts, which has moved the median House seat solidly to the right. Part of it is bad timing. In 2018 Democrats must defend 25 of their 48 seats while Republicans must defend just eight of their 52.
But there’s a larger, long-term trend at work too. In the last few decades, Democrats have expanded their advantages in California and New York — states with huge urban centers that combined to give Clinton a 6 million vote edge, more than twice her national margin. But those two states elect only 4 percent of the Senate. Meanwhile, Republicans have made huge advances in small rural states like Arkansas, North and South Dakota, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana and West Virginia. These states individually hold as much power as California or New York in the Senate because each state, no matter how large, sends two representatives to the Senate. Today, the pro-GOP biases in both chambers of Congress are at historic highs: In 2016, Trump lost the national popular vote by 2.1 percentage points, but Republicans won the median House seat by 3.4 points and the median Senate seat by 3.6 points — that’s the widest Senate gap in at least a century and tied with 2012 for the widest House disparity in the last half-century.
That doesn’t mean Democrats can’t win the House and Senate back — they won control of both chambers in 2006, despite a Republican-bias that year, for example — but they’re starting from a truly historic geographic disadvantage, even with the political wind at their back. Over the last three successive election cycles, all either party needed to do to win a Senate majority was win all 36 of the seats in the friendly states plus at least 15 of the 28 swing-state seats. Today, however, Republicans don’t even need to win any “swing states” to win a Senate majority: 52 seats are in states where the 2016 presidential margin was at least 5 percentage points more Republican than the national outcome. By contrast, there are just 28 seats in states where the margin was at least 5 points more Democratic, and only 20 seats in swing states.
The GOP’s current 52-seat majority makes the Senate look tantalizingly competitive. But a look at the map reveals that the Democrats hold far more seats on borrowed time than Republicans do. The GOP doesn’t hold a single Senate seat in those 14 states that are more Democratic-leaning than the country overall. Meanwhile, Democrats hold six seats in the 26 more-Republican-than-average states, and all six are at risk in 2018.
Republicans could be headed for a supermajority. All they have to do in 2018 is win every seat in the 30 states that President Trump won in 2016. No Clinton States needed. The Democrats not only have to hold on to their six seats that are in Jeopardy, but win four more to get a simple majority. That would take an alignment of cataclysmic events that would radically change the direction of voters thinking, such as a stock market crash, a huge natural disaster, or some other massive event. Of course that is possible. And the balance of power is what often holds prophetic things in check. Without that balance, the nation will drift with the political party that is in power. If Republicans get a supermajority – which is a plausible outcome if the basic contours of the nation’s political geography don’t drastically change in the next decade – what will they do, especially under pressure from evangelicals?
The implications beyond Congress, especially for the Supreme Court, are likely keeping the democrats awake at night. Even if there’s a Democrat in the White House in 2021, the Senate majority that is so critical to confirming his or her nominee could be much harder to come by than it has been in decades past.
What are the prophetic implications? The Republican congressional bias could significantly move the nation seriously to the right, to the religious right, in fact, particularly if evangelical leaders increase their hold on Congress and the executive branch. A supermajority in the Senate could give the GOP almost unlimited potential to confirm Supreme Court nominations, pass any law they want with impunity, including worship laws, and even orchestrate a constitutional convention (though not likely). The bottom line is that they could control the direction of the country for many years to come. This could be very hard on those emotionally tied to the progressive agenda that has made such progress over the last 50 years and more aggressively in the last ten or fifteen. No wonder the left is so desperate to overthrow the right, including the current administration if they can.
Once the Republican Party has solidified its power, it can do anything it wants. And if the religious right is involved in the political takeover, they could pressure Congress to impose the prophesied worship laws found in Revelation 13, especially if powerful natural disasters make them think God is punishing the nation for its moral decline. All the efforts of President Obama and a democratically controlled Congress to push the nation to the left may well have created a monster on the right in reaction. President Obama’s agenda could be undone by the demographics alone.
All of this power, should the supermajority eventuate, will likely be used to increase America’s power so much that it will be able to impose the universal worship laws predicted in Revelation 13:12. The United States is already working with the Vatican. When circumstances are right, Sunday worship laws will be imposed. Pay attention.
“And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.”
Source References
The Congressional Map Has A Record-Setting Bias Against Democrats