Hear more from Ted Morton tonight, on the Western Standard's live coverage of the US election. We start at 7:00pm.The polls are so close, only a fool would predict the results of Tuesday’s election. So, here’s my prediction.Kamala Harris is going to win a decisive majority in the Electoral College. And the Republicans are going to win clear majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Why and How?Why? Because many Independents but also many Republicans think that Trump is too crazy and too dangerous to be president. For them, character and judgment count, and Trump gets a grade of F on both. But these same voters clearly don’t like Harris either. Too extreme, too DEI, too woke. Since May, the more they have seen of her, the less they like her. For these kinds of voters — and they are probably a majority — it comes down to which is the least worst choice?How? Split-ticket voting. I predict that these kinds of centrist voters in seven key swing states are going to hedge their bets. They are going to vote Dem on their choice for president but then go GOP on their Senate and House votes. They are going to hedge their bets: keep Trump out of the White House but elect a GOP Congress to check Kamala and her woke comrades from dismantling America. In forty-three of the 50 states, the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential vote is all but guaranteed, but with both candidates well short of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win. It will come down to the seven “swing-states” and their 93 electoral college votes in which the polls are too close to call: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia. If Harris takes the first three — “the blue wall” — she wins. Two or three of the other five would give her a clear majority. A clear majority would have another positive effect. The predictable false claims from Trump and his MAGA supporters that he won will have no credibility.But in these same seven swing states, five have incumbent Democratic Senators who are either retiring or are up for election this year. In at least several of these, anyone-but-Trump Republicans and blue-collar Democrats who voted for Harris will then turn and vote for the Republican senate candidate. Irrational? No. Just hedging their bets.This would increase the GOP’s current 51-49 majority in the Senate. It is almost certain that the Dems will lose their two incumbent senators in West Virginia and Montana — both states that Trump will easily carry by more than 10 percent. If the GOP candidates win in just 2 or 3 of the Senate elections in these 7 swing states, the next Senate will have at lease a 55-45 GOP majority. Good luck President Harris!What about the House? The GOP currently enjoys a small majority — 220-212, with 3 vacancies. With all 435 seats up for election, pollsters predict another closely divided House but with about 70 House districts that are too close to call. But if the centrist voters that split their votes for president and senate do the same for their House vote — which would be logical — then the GOP majority in the House will grow — providing a second check on a Harris presidency.The result: divided government. Messy, but not uncommon. In 5 of the last 11 presidential elections — going back to Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory, the party that won the White House lost both chambers of Congress. Is this a recipe for policy gridlock? It can be. But it also creates an incentive for cooperation and compromise — something that has been sorely lacking in the last 8 years. Perhaps it is not by accident that two of the most popular ex-presidents — Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — both had to work with a Congress controlled by the other party.So that’s my prediction: a Harris presidency and a GOP Congress; two years of divided government. If I’m right, both political parties will be unhappy with the result, but a majority of American voters may not be. But before readers become too discouraged by this prospect, it merits re-calling Winston Churchill’s description of democracy: the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried from time to time.Ted Morton is an executive fellow at the School of Public Policy and professor emeritus at the University of Calgary. He was the MLA from Foothills-Rocky View from 2004-2012, and served as Alberta’s minister of Sustainable Resources Development, minister of Finance and minister of Energy. As as a Reform Party candidate, he was elected as a Senator-in-Waiting in Alberta’s 1998 Senate election.
Hear more from Ted Morton tonight, on the Western Standard's live coverage of the US election. We start at 7:00pm.The polls are so close, only a fool would predict the results of Tuesday’s election. So, here’s my prediction.Kamala Harris is going to win a decisive majority in the Electoral College. And the Republicans are going to win clear majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Why and How?Why? Because many Independents but also many Republicans think that Trump is too crazy and too dangerous to be president. For them, character and judgment count, and Trump gets a grade of F on both. But these same voters clearly don’t like Harris either. Too extreme, too DEI, too woke. Since May, the more they have seen of her, the less they like her. For these kinds of voters — and they are probably a majority — it comes down to which is the least worst choice?How? Split-ticket voting. I predict that these kinds of centrist voters in seven key swing states are going to hedge their bets. They are going to vote Dem on their choice for president but then go GOP on their Senate and House votes. They are going to hedge their bets: keep Trump out of the White House but elect a GOP Congress to check Kamala and her woke comrades from dismantling America. In forty-three of the 50 states, the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential vote is all but guaranteed, but with both candidates well short of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win. It will come down to the seven “swing-states” and their 93 electoral college votes in which the polls are too close to call: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia. If Harris takes the first three — “the blue wall” — she wins. Two or three of the other five would give her a clear majority. A clear majority would have another positive effect. The predictable false claims from Trump and his MAGA supporters that he won will have no credibility.But in these same seven swing states, five have incumbent Democratic Senators who are either retiring or are up for election this year. In at least several of these, anyone-but-Trump Republicans and blue-collar Democrats who voted for Harris will then turn and vote for the Republican senate candidate. Irrational? No. Just hedging their bets.This would increase the GOP’s current 51-49 majority in the Senate. It is almost certain that the Dems will lose their two incumbent senators in West Virginia and Montana — both states that Trump will easily carry by more than 10 percent. If the GOP candidates win in just 2 or 3 of the Senate elections in these 7 swing states, the next Senate will have at lease a 55-45 GOP majority. Good luck President Harris!What about the House? The GOP currently enjoys a small majority — 220-212, with 3 vacancies. With all 435 seats up for election, pollsters predict another closely divided House but with about 70 House districts that are too close to call. But if the centrist voters that split their votes for president and senate do the same for their House vote — which would be logical — then the GOP majority in the House will grow — providing a second check on a Harris presidency.The result: divided government. Messy, but not uncommon. In 5 of the last 11 presidential elections — going back to Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory, the party that won the White House lost both chambers of Congress. Is this a recipe for policy gridlock? It can be. But it also creates an incentive for cooperation and compromise — something that has been sorely lacking in the last 8 years. Perhaps it is not by accident that two of the most popular ex-presidents — Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — both had to work with a Congress controlled by the other party.So that’s my prediction: a Harris presidency and a GOP Congress; two years of divided government. If I’m right, both political parties will be unhappy with the result, but a majority of American voters may not be. But before readers become too discouraged by this prospect, it merits re-calling Winston Churchill’s description of democracy: the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried from time to time.Ted Morton is an executive fellow at the School of Public Policy and professor emeritus at the University of Calgary. He was the MLA from Foothills-Rocky View from 2004-2012, and served as Alberta’s minister of Sustainable Resources Development, minister of Finance and minister of Energy. As as a Reform Party candidate, he was elected as a Senator-in-Waiting in Alberta’s 1998 Senate election.
