BY MARTIN KICH

As Big Data begins to define our obsessive discussion of politics and our universities respond to the demand for specialists by developing graduate programs in the discipline, it is easy to feel as if we are swimming or, rather, drowning in data—that there is so much data that instead of providing clarity, it makes clarity impossible.

Nowhere was this phenomenon more clearly evident than ahead of and then after the 2016 presidential election and, again, around this year’s midterm elections. The fact that President Trump’s election victory went against almost every statistical probability made commentators more cautious in predicting the outcomes of the 2018 midterms, but it did not simplify the commentary. Instead, it added just another layer to the discussion, as detailed explanations of the probable outcomes were followed inevitably by equally detailed explanations of why the specific probabilities were not certainties. And, clearly, most of those providing the commentaries (Steve Kornacki excepted) were no more experts in data analysis than I am.

But, as often as not, things are not nearly as complicated as they seem, and this is a truism that applies as often to issues in higher education as in politics. As the title of this post indicates, quite by accident, I noticed a fairly consistent correlation between President Trump’s approval rating after he had been in office for about half a year and the results of the midterms.

Here is a map showing President Trump’s job approval rating, by state, almost six months into his term:

If one puts aside some persistent issues with gerrymandering and voter suppression in some states in the Midwest and the South, it appears to me that whether his approval rating was at/above or below 45% after his first six months in office was a fairly consistent indicator of the 2018 results. In particular, it seems to have been predictive of the results in the statewide gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. Even in states such as Florida, Georgia, and Texas where the key races were won by Republicans, the very tight margins of victory seem to reflect the pattern.

Here is a map showing the results of the 2018 gubernatorial races:

Here is a map showing the results of the 2018 U.S. Senate races:

Here is a map showing the results of the 2018 U.S. House races:

Just to be clear, I am not trying to suggest that everything done by activists over the year and ahead of the midterm elections was unnecessary. Rather, it seems clear that the potential political pay-off for expending that effort was very evident, if not already fixed in place by President Trump’s political rigidity, by mid-2017.

So, if the idea that “almost anything can happen” to change the result of an election seems to have acquired new significance after the 2016 election, the take-away from the 2018 midterm elections might very well be to reconfirm that, yes, anything can happen, but in some instances, no matter what happens, it does not have all that much impact on the end result.

The real measure of political acumen is in the ability to distinguish real “game-changers” from distractions before their relative significance is apparent to everyone else. And having such acumen is important in all campaigns, from the national to the local—and from campaigns for governmental offices to the exercise of shared governance and collective bargaining rights.

As I have indicated in a large number of posts to this blog, our chapter at Wright State has been involved in an almost two-year impasse in negotiating our “new” contract (which, unless we somehow manage to negotiate some sort of extended contract, will become our “current” contract when we start negotiating our “next” contract in January 2020; just typing that sentence, makes my brain seize up for a moment). The process of galvanizing and sustaining the support of our members and of others in our university and in the local communities has, in effect, been a political campaign. And I think that our executive committee has gradually gotten better at distinguishing significant developments from distractions—and, more importantly, at convincing our members that we can be relied upon to make such distinctions.