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| Kirsten Gillibrand, who introduced the #MeToo Congress Act. |
Not surprisingly, the end-of-the-year political news coverage has been dominated by midterm election predictions. They usually point to the abundance of surveys showing Democrats with a big lead in generic congressional polls. Other pundits predict the public's response to the GOP tax reform law will play a key role in the November results.
But leave it to those pundits to miss what could be the top "x-factor" in the midterms: sexual harassment. Sexual misconduct has already been dubbed the top story for 2017: Complaints against the Department of Justice's handling of many sexual harassment cases is just the latest scandal to arise.
Potential cases could likely hit both the House and Senate throughout 2018. But it's the Senate where the impact is likely to be greatest, and the reason is simple math. The GOP majority in the Senate is already a dramatically low 51-49 margin post Doug Jones' victory in the Alabama special election. Just one lost seat either pulls the Senate into a tie or gives the Republicans some much needed breathing room.
Those 260-plus settlements yet to be unsealed hang like a sword of Damocles over all of Capitol Hill.
Sources say that pressure is leading to a widespread fear factor on Capitol Hill. Dozens of staffers have told CNBC they're starting to make contingency plans in case their elected bosses get ensnared in the next sexual misconduct allegation to go public.
There is no real reason to think that more Republican than Democrat politicians will necessarily be affected by this, after all men are still men despite their political point of view.
However if I were a betting man I would think that the Republicans would probably fear this more than members of the other party, simply because the GOP's attitude toward women is a little more Cro-Magnon and even their propaganda network (Fox News) is rife with allegations of sexual misconduct.
In the end I think this might mean that it benefits the Democrats a little more, but I am absolutely certain that it means we are soon to see a huge influx of female Congresspeople and Senators.
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