The Economy Didn’t Save Republicans After All

Democrats dominated prosperous districts, winning at least 57 of 87, by an average of nearly 25 points.

For some candidates, the tax law was an impediment

When Republicans passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut late last year, they envisioned it as a centerpiece of their sales pitch for the midterms. But they may have miscalculated how potent an electoral weapon the tax law would become — against them.

Despite giving at least a modest tax cut to most households, the tax law has struggled to win majority support from voters. Several of its biggest champions lost their seats on Tuesday. They included four members of the House Ways and Means Committee, which wrote the law, most notably Peter Roskam of Illinois, the chairman of the tax policy subcommittee, and Erik Paulsen of Minnesota, the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee.

On average, Republican candidates did no better in districts where residents got larger tax cuts, as measured by estimates from the Tax Foundation, a conservative research group.

The law appears to have hurt Republicans in some high-income, high-tax districts, where many residents were angry about the law’s $10,000 cap on the deduction for state and local taxes. In Virginia’s 10th Congressional District — where the largest share of residents took the so-called SALT deduction in 2016, according to an analysis of Internal Revenue Service data — the Republican incumbent, Barbara Comstock, lost her seat. Her Democratic challenger, Jennifer Wexton, called the law the “Comstock-Trump tax scam.”

More broadly, Republican incumbents fared modestly worse than expected, relative to past elections, in districts where a large share of residents take that deduction.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/business/economy/economy-election-trump.html?partner=rss&emc=rss