Good morning, Quartz readers!
Donald Trump has infused America with fear, outrage, fear of that outrage, outrage about that fear, and a generous glug of late-cycle fiscal stimulus. That cocktail was plenty explosive on its own. Over the past few months, midterm electioneering has injected it with money, media, and messaging—and the president keeps on shaking it.
It’s time, finally, to uncork the drama. Will Trump’s angsty formula work once more, summoning the tidal bore of Kavanaugh-loving caravan haters needed to keep the House under GOP control? Or will the dreaded Blue Wave subsume it? Whose emotions and energy will win out when voters head to the polls on Nov. 6? In these strange times, it’s impossible to know.
Except, not really.
Sure, poring over fundraising hauls and media buys to divine what this election is really about is fun in a Ouija board kind of way. But when it comes to House seats at least, results will probably swivel on the same things they have in past midterms: the balance of party power, presidential approval, and voters’ bank accounts. (Election-year math means the GOP will almost certainly hold the Senate.)
According to political scientist Seth Masket, voters typically punish the president’s party in the midterms. The degree depends on their economic wellbeing and whether they like the president. In fact, two variables—the president’s Gallup approval rating as of Labor Day and growth in second-quarter real disposable income per capita—explain nearly three-fifths of midterm House results since 1950, according to Masket’s nifty model.
Mind you, the president’s party doesn’t always lose House seats in the midterms. Twice—under Bill Clinton in 1998 and George W. Bush 2002—it picked up a few. Back then, income was growing 5% and 3%, respectively. Both presidents enjoyed approval ratings of over 60%.
And now? Despite headlines about the booming US economy, second-quarter income rose only 2.1%. As of Labor Day, a mere 41% of voters approved of Trump. That puts Republicans on track to lose 38 House seats, says Masket.
Maybe Trumpian tribalism will overpower the voter impulses that have usually prevailed in the past. But probably not. —Gwynn Guilford
Five things on Quartz we especially liked
Why everyone around the world is having the same nightmare. People who wake in the night and feel paralyzed with terror aren’t crazy or imagining things, Corinne Purtill writes. During the rapid eye movement stage of sleep, dreams are at their most intense, muscles relax to the point of immobilization, and, for many, a dark figure wearing a broad-brimmed hat appears.
The other half. For the final leg of How We’ll Win, Quartz’s year-long examination of the fight for gender equality at work, reporter Leah Fessler profiled 50 men around the world and in a variety of fields who opened up to us about Me Too, feminism, their biggest insecurities about being a man, and the biased behaviors they would take back if they could.
India’s confused cryptocurrency arrest. On paper, bitcoin and its ilk are not illegal in India. But when the virtual currency exchange Unocoin tried to set up a mall kiosk for cash deposits and dispensing, police arrested a company co-founder. Marketing the machine as an “ATM” was probably a mistake, but, as Nupur Anand writes, police ignorance about digital currencies also played a role.
The 1898 US Supreme Court case that’s suddenly in the spotlight. On Oct. 30, Donald Trump suggested that he could, with an executive order, bar children of foreign parents from becoming Americans by virtue of birth on US soil. But as Ephrat Livni explains, the country’s highest court confirmed birthright citizenship 120 years ago in US v. Wong Kim Ark—in a prevailing climate of racism.
We are all project managers now. Elon Musk ditched his titles at Tesla, and Quartz at Work’s Lila MacLellan thought he had a point. Maybe knowledge workers don’t have jobs anymore, but rather portfolios of projects. Maybe our addiction to titles is another example of humans operating in patterns based on habit, without responding to the world as it really is.
Five things elsewhere that made us smarter
The world’s recycling system is in crisis. At the end of 2017, China abruptly shut its doors to imports of recycled material, citing environmental concerns. That, write Leslie Hook and John Reed for the Financial Times (paywall), has led to unprecedented disruption in a global industry and thrown the very purpose of recycling into question.
Wisconsin’s Foxconn factory boondoggle. In July 2017, Republican governor Scott Walker and Foxconn chairman Terry Gou trumpeted a plan to create a TV manufacturing plant in Wisconsin that would create 13,000 jobs. But as Bruce Murphy writes for the Verge, the Taiwan company soon scaled back its plans, while the state upped its offered subsidies to, stunningly, over $4 billion.
How free and fair are US elections? Navajo make up 51% of southeastern Utah’s San Juan County (population 15,000), but thanks to gerrymandering and voter-suppression efforts, they have been governed by nearly all-white politicians for decades. Ahead of the US midterm elections, the county is a microcosm of the US struggle to elect representational government, as explained by Graham Lee Brewer and Anne Helen Petersen in a collaboration between High Country News and BuzzFeed News.
The secret rating behind how businesses treat you. Many US consumers keep a close watch on their credit score. But as Khadeeja Safdar writes for the Wall Street Journal (paywall), few know about their “customer lifetime value” rating, which companies use to decide who gets the best treatment, offers, and upgrades.
We know basically nothing about CBD. Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-psychoactive compound found in the cannabis plant. It’s cropping up in all manner of products, including lattes, ice cream, and dog treats—even Coca-Cola is reportedly working on a CBD-infused beverage. But as Dan Nosowitz explains for Vox, CBD is “about as poorly regulated and understood as a product this popular can possibly be.”
This week we’re kicking off the Quartz Gaming Club, an interactive chat adventure into the wide world of gaming, with stops along the way to discuss how games drive important shifts in business, technology, and culture. We’re playing six different games together over six weeks, for novices and experts alike, with QZ writers and readers discussing as we go. Come play with us here.
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, midterm predictions, and CBD-infused products to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day, or download our apps for iPhone and Android. Today’s Weekend Brief was edited by Steve Mollman.