Stubborn Clinton Scandals Could Bring 2018 Democrat Rout

Even if Hillary Clinton wins the presidential election in November, the hangover from her multiple scandals could complicate her party’s efforts in the 2018 midterm contests.

The terrain already looks to be less favorable to Democrats. They will have a large number of Senate seats to defend, including several in Republican-leaning states. In addition, the party in the White House typically has trouble holding on to seats in off-year elections.

“Clinton and the Democrats are going to have a difficult time. She walks in wounded. She doesn’t walk in with any kind of mandate.”

But some experts said Clinton may face a special problem if she cannot shake lingering concerns over her handling of classified information as secretary of state, her response to the terrorist attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, during her tenure and “pay-to-play” allegations involving the family-run Clinton Foundation.

Tom Sutton, a political science professor at Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio, said Clinton’s victory — if it occurs — likely would have more to do with voters’ dislike of Donald Trump than love for her.

“Clinton and the Democrats are going to have a difficult time. She walks in wounded. She doesn’t walk in with any kind of mandate,” he said. “There are certainly concerns about her she cannot shake … If anything, it’s deepening.”

Sutton said even if Democrats take control of the Senate in November, Republicans will still likely control the gavel in the House of Representatives. That will allow them to hold hearings and keep up the pressure on Clinton even after she moves into the White House.

“Frankly, it is a fairly successful strategy,” he said.

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Others said the 2018 impact of today’s scandals depends greatly on whether there are new revelations over the next couple of years. Clinton’s careless email practices might be old news by then, said Steven Smith, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

“It’s a long way away, and there’s a lot of ifs there,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine an issue like the emails, unless there’s something new, remaining a live issue for that period.”

Smith said math might be a bigger factor. The Democrats control 23 Senate seats up for election — plus two seats held by Democratic-leaning independents — compared with just eight for Republicans. Seven Democratic seats up for grabs in 2018 are in states that the Cook Political Report rates as Republican-leaning in its 2014 “partisan voting index” ratings. It rated a 10th state, Virginia, as even.

By contrast, only one state held by a Republican up for re-election, Nevada’s Dean Heller, was rated Democratic leaning.

[lz_table title=”Democrats’ Tough 2018 Road” source=””]Potentially vulnerable Democrats
|Incumbent,2012 vote
Joe Donnelly (Ind.),50%
Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.),50.2%
Sherrod Brown (Ohio),50.7%
Tim Kaine (Va.),52.9%
Joe Manchin (W.Va.),60.6%
Tammy Baldwin (Wis.),51.4%
Jon Tester (Mont.),48.6%
Claire McCaskill (Mo.),54.8%
[/lz_table]

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) would appear headed for a particularly strong challenge given how quickly his state has been trending Republican and the likelihood that the GOP will recruit a top-tier candidate. Three other Democratic-held seats are in heavily Republican states — Montana, Missouri and Indiana.

“Twenty-eighteen poses a special issue for Senate Democrats because they have so many more seats to defend,” Smith said. “It’s pretty one-sided.”

He said one reason why the party in the White House usually struggles in midterm elections is that the party typically has to defend gains from the previous election. If Clinton wins in November and pulls a number of fellow Democrats to victory in marginal House districts, those freshly minted incumbents could struggle come the next election “when the president is no longer on the ballot,” he said.

Long-running legal battles involving fights for Clinton’s email records figure to continue beyond Election Day, which holds the potential that she could face more damaging revelations even if she wins the election.

A federal judge last month ordered Clinton to answer questions in writing from Judicial Watch and laid out a timeline that could allow her to delay proceedings until after the election. William Weiss, an administrative assistant for Judicial Watch, said his organization would prefer to receive Clinton’s answers and the additional emails it is seeking before the election.

“We’re trying,” he said. “There are too many unknown variables …  It’s something we will continue on.”

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Weiss noted that Judicial Watch has been fighting its FOIA case for some time.

“This has been a couple-year process already … It’s a long legal battle we’re not going to give up on,” he said.

Weiss said there is ample reason to believe more damaging material remains to be uncovered given how hard Clinton’s lawyers have tried to keep additional emails away from the public eye. He said he could not predict what political impact they might have.

“It depends on the nature of the information,” he said. “If we get all the emails and they really don’t reveal anything, it’s not much of a story.”

But more likely than not, Weiss says, there will be something damaging contained in the yet to be released emails.

“There have been many and long efforts to hide the current emails that we’re trying to get … There’s probably a good reason they don’t want them ever getting out and made public.”

Sutton, the Baldwin Wallace professor, said the political damage Clinton has sustained is likely to persist even if there are not more revelations.

“When you’re in a situation where people assume the worst even when that’s not the case, you’re in a bad situation,” he said.