Why the Democrats should temper their 2018 optimism

The GOP is in bad shape. That doesn't mean Democrats have the 2018 midterms in the bag.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
(Image credit: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

The latest revelations about the Trump campaign's possible collusion with Russia, including the arrest of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the plea deal agreed to by former foreign policy adviser George Papadopolous, are big stories on their own terms. But the worsening scandal also threatens to collapse the GOP's political position heading into this week's elections, as well as the 2018 midterms.

A party that can't seem to get much of anything done and just released a tax plan it clearly doesn't have the votes for can ill afford an endless series of news cycles dominated by questions about whether the president and his associates secretly worked with Russia to throw a national election. With Republican morale plummeting into previously unimagined subterranean caverns, the latest crisis could be serious trouble for Virginia's Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie — who already trails Democrat Ralph Northam — and the GOP's chances of holding onto the House and Senate next year.

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David Faris

David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. He is a frequent contributor to Informed Comment, and his work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Indy Week.