Nate Silver’s political forecasting site FiveThirtyEight.com recently reviewed all six contested Alabama Congressional races and has determined that all of the Alabama Republican incumbents are virtually certain to be re-elected.
Silver analyzed Alabama’ Fifth Congressional District race and gave retired Huntsville attorney Peter Joffrion only a two-tenths of a one percent chance of actually beating incumbent Congressman Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) in the general election.
According to Silver, Congressman Mo Brooks has a 99.8 percent chance of winning the election. The site is predicting that Congressman Brooks will win with 63.5 percent of the vote over Peter Joffrion’s 36.5 percent.
FiveThirtyEight’s analysis is consistent with general election results in 2010, 2012, and 2016, wherein Congressman Brooks defeated Democrat challengers with an average of 63.3 percent of the vote. The Democrats did not even field a candidate in 2014.
Rep. Brooks’ campaign said in a statement that, past presidential election results portray the 5th Congressional District as a deeply conservative district that keeps getting redder and redder. John McCain received 61 percent of the vote in the 5th District in 2008, Mitt Romney received 64 percent in 2012, and Donald J. Trump received 65 percent in 2016.
“In effect, Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight.com give Socialist Peter Joffrion only a two-tenths of 1% chance of being able to persuade 5th District voters that Socialism, open borders, illegal alien amnesty, national defense cuts, higher taxes, more welfare, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are good for America and the Tennessee Valley,” Congressman Brooks said. “Peter Joffrion is by far the most extreme candidate Democrats have offered in Alabama’s 5th District. If less extreme Democrats can’t come close to winning, what chance does Socialist Peter Joffrion have? The answer: 2 tenths of 1% according to highly-respected political forecasting site FiveThirtyEight.com.”
It is similar in the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Sixth Congressional Districts where Silver predicts that Congress members: Bradley Byrne, Martha Roby, Mike Rogers, Robert Aderholt, and Gary Palmer will all easily trounce their Democratic challengers.
According to Silver’s analysis, Tabitha Isner (D) has the best chance of scoring the upset with a one in sixty chance of defeating incumbent Martha Roby (R-Montgomery) in the general election. That is the closest race in the state according to Silver and that is still less than a two percent chance of victory. National resources from both political parties appear to be going to states where there are competitive races.
Congresswoman Terri Sewell (D-Selma) has no general election opponent.
Similarly, the Real Clear Politics website ranks all the congressional districts in the country. According to their analysis all six GOP House seats are ranked as “Strong GOP” even in a year where Democrats have a strong chance of taking the U.S. House of Representatives back after eight years of Republican control.
The options are safe Dem, likely Dem, leans Dem, tossup, leans GOP, likely GOP, and Safe GOP. They have essentially called these six races as over.
Real Clear Politics has also analyzed the governor’s race and ranked it as basically over, with a “Safe GOP” rating. Incumbent Governor Kay Ivey (R) is presiding over one of the strongest economies the state has ever experienced and she is one of the most personally popular governors in the country. The Alabama Democratic Party candidate, Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter “Walt” Maddox, has never run a statewide campaign before and lacks statewide name recognition. The 2018 election appears to be closely paralleling the 2014 election which was an across the board sweep for the Alabama Republican Party.
“With the exception of Democrats’ 2017 Senate win in a low voter turnout special election shortly before the Christmas and New Years holidays, over the last eight years Tennessee Valley voters have rejected 5th District-wide Democrat candidates by large, double digit margins,” Congressman Brooks said. “Now Democrats offer up Socialist Peter Joffrion, who was motivated to run to ‘Stop Donald Trump.’ Quite frankly, Tennessee Valley voters do not want the next two years to be all about gridlock and unfounded, partisan efforts to impeach President Donald Trump. With such an extremist candidate, the so-called Alabama ‘Blue Wave’ won’t amount to more than a ripple in the Tennessee Valley in November. As long as Republicans turn out in November, we will keep this seat, continue to implement America First policies, and reap the benefit of the explosive economic growth, higher wages, lower taxes, and more jobs America has enjoyed since the 2016 elections!”
While Republicans like the polls at this point, the only poll that really matters is what the voters who actually show up do on election day.
