Midterm elections are finally here and credit unions will be watching as closely as the rest of the country.
Pre-election polling indicates Democrats will take back the House while Republicans maintain the Senate, but predictions vary on specific margins.
“’Dewey-defeats-Truman’ moments are always lurking on Election Day, but it appears that Democrats may gain the majority in the House while Republicans may gain seats in the Senate,” Chad Adams, director of political affairs at the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, said in an email. “While early polling generally favored Democrats, the races have tightened recently, voter motivation and mobilization will be key for each party come Election Day.”
One credit union consultant and former NCUA board member is predicting a “Baskin Robbins” night for the left, with House Democrats picking up 31 seats while the Senate comes in at an even 50-50 split, though Republicans would maintain a majority given Vice President Mike Pence’s tie-breaker vote.
Polls outside of credit union land also forecast the GOP maintaining its Senate majority, with Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight rating Republicans with an 84.2 percent chance of hanging on. Silver and others, however, have been wrong in the past, most notably on Election Day 2016.
From a credit union perspective, one of the primary features of this year’s race has been the additional expenditures from the Credit Union National Association. As previously reported, CUNA has invested $7 million – including more than $1.5 million in IEs – in support of 388 candidates, including 47 open House seats. Should vulnerable “red state” Democratic senators like Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., pull through, it may in part be thanks to extra spending from the credit union movement.
CUNA is also predicting a 50-50 split in the Senate, and representatives said the group “watching number of highly competitive races,” including those where it has made IEs, including Senate contests in Montana, Indiana, West Virginia and Missouri, along with a run-off race in Mississippi.
Priorities intact
No matter how things pan out, CU trade groups suggested that further reductions to the regulatory burden and data breach protections will be high priorities during the 116th Congress, along with protecting the industry’s tax-exempt status – a sacred cow that outgoing Utah Senator Orrin Hatch
While Congress won’t be back in session until next week, the Financial Accounting Standards Board on Wednesday will discussed current expected credit loss (CECL) implementation. An ongoing advocacy issue, banks and credit unions have lobbied for major changes to how
