We asked our panelists to come with their choice
of a topic to watch for 2018.
Bill McCoshen asked, "Can the GOP maintain a, quote,
"Red Wall" in order to keep the governorship,
attorney general, and majorities in both
houses of the legislature?
So that's what you wanna ask.
- So the question is, can we maintain
majorities in both houses, large majorities,
and the governorship, the attorney general
while there could potentially be a wave
against Republicans nationally?
And I don't think New Jersey and Virginia
are very good signals of what could happen here,
but there does, there are some seeds planted
out there that it looks like it'll
be a decent year for Democrats in 2018.
And some of that is historic.
It's baked into the cake.
Over the course of time, 93 percent of elections
in off years, the party in charge of the White House
has lost seats in the Congress,
and 73 percent of the times
they've lost seats in the Senate.
So it's inevitable that Republicans
are likely to lose some seats.
Does one house flip or the other?
Hard to say at this point, but Democrats
have a lot to be encouraged about.
For Wisconsin Republicans, I think they have
to continue to send their message,
sell their message of results, getting things done.
Time after time after time that's been proven
to be a successful formula for Scott Walker,
it's proven to be a successful formula
for Republicans on the ground either
for the state senate or the state assembly.
They get stuff done and voters respond to that.
- Scot, do you think that Republicans
can maintain what Bill calls a Red Wall?
- I think the Republicans have done a lot
to try and maintain that Red Wall.
I think there's been a lot of rigging
when it comes to voting rights, when it comes to redistricting,
when it comes to some of the policies
they have enacted in terms of ethics and such.
What I think, though, is Wisconsin,
we haven't had a wave election in an off year since 2006
and in 2006, Jim Doyle won huge.
The state assembly picked up seven or eight seats,
the state senate was flipping all from Republican
to Democratic, so in a wave election year,
you know, anything can happen.
- Is this as much about kind of what might have happened
in other states and Democrats feeling positive,
or does it come down to the individual candidates?
- It has a lot to do with it.
I mean, at the end of the day,
if there are any Republicans at risk
in Wisconsin in 2018, the most at risk
would be the congressional delegation.
They did get the tax thing done.
It does have a piece of the Obamacare repeal.
They got rid of the individual mandate,
but they have to continue to put their foot
on the gas and get things done in 2018
if they want to solidify their position for re-election.
- I was gonna say, how do the--
here's the question, how do Republicans
decouple themselves from Donald Trump,
who's incredibly unpopular?
They can't do that, I mean Scott Walker
has embraced him, Leah Vukmir's embraced him,
Kevin Nicholson's embraced him,
the stage legis aren't gonna suddenly come
out and say he's terrible,
and as on Friday we saw a CNN poll that said
really to Congress that generic Democrat
is up 18 points to the Republicans.
Those are historic numbers.
Now, that's where we're at right now.
Can things change? I don't know.
Donald Trump's not going to suddenly become more tolerable,
he's not going to become less animated on Twitter,
and so how do they overcome that?
- Do you feel like any of the really low
favorability numbers for Donald Trump
translate all the way down to legislative races?
- It does, yeah, history has shown that
if the president's approval numbers,
whether it's Obama or Bush or the previous Bush,
are low heading into a midterm election,
they lose a lot of seats.
- What about Scott Walker?
I mean, what an interesting place he's in.
First he very much opposed Donald Trump,
as we saw when he made his speech dropping out,
then he's supportive; where is he now?
- I think he and Paul Ryan have been able
to find the sweet spot.
They don't respond to everything the president does.
They don't defend every Tweet he puts out.
They don't defend every statement he makes.
Everything he does that's provocative,
they sort of walk the other way,
and I think that's a smart strategy on their part.
- [Frederica] What do you think?
- I think that once there's more scrutiny
on the day-to-day operations of the campaigns
that they're going to have a problem with it
because they're just not really getting
asked about it all the time,
but every time Donald Trump does something bad
once we're firmly in 2018 campaign season,
Scott Walker whether he wants to or not
is going to have to respond to it,
and if he doesn't respond to it,
the Republican Party, because there are reporters
all across the state that are gonna demand answers.
- Where he can be most helpful, actually,
is on the fundraising side, whether it's for
Leah Vukmir if I'm right about that Senate primary
or Scott Walker, he can come and raise five million
dollars in one lunch.