Last week Brendan Nyhan argued that Democrats shouldn’t expect the chaos in the Republican House of Representatives to hurt the Republicans in the 2016 elections. He is on very solid ground in terms of next year’s congressional elections. Congressmen simply are not punished at the ballot box for Congressional dysfunction and, as Thomas Edsall recently explained well, several national trends bode well for GOP efforts to protect their Congressional majority. However, I don’t think his analysis is as persuasive in terms of the GOP’s presidential aspirations in 2016.

Nyhan is clearly correct that voters have not been inclined to punish parties for congressional misdeeds. He used the 2000 election as evidence that the present Republican Congress’ problems should not be expected to hurt the GOP in 2016.The conduct of the Republican Congress between the 1998 midterms and the 2000 election was indeed cringe worthy, and the GOP did maintain their control of congress and they did win the White House, which makes the 2000 election a useful example for Nyhan’s argument.

However, Nyhan’s analysis doesn’t include an effort to account for what I see is a vastly different governing environment in Washington and national electoral environment today. Over the course of the Obama Administration’s tenure the partisan polarization in Washington and in the electorate has greatly intensified and maybe more importantly has been demonstrably “asymmetric,” which is to say that Republicans have become much more extreme in their rhetoric and tactics than have Democrats, a reality not lost on the public. So, while the GOP maintained control of the Congress and won the White House in 2000, they did so at a time when the public’s perception of the Republican Party was much less negative. They did so at a time when the threat of unified Republican control of the federal government was really just a base-building electoral strategy for Democrats. In 2016, the threat of GOP control in Washington will also be key to attracting so-called “swing” voters, thanks in part to the present extremism and dysfunction of Republicans in Congress.

In addition, I think the Supreme Court will be a more salient issue in 2016 than it was in 2000. Since its pivotal role in resolving the 2000 presidential election the High Court has inserted itself into partisan political debate more noticeably and in a more impactful way than it did during the Clinton presidency. Conservative extremists in the national media, who have become much more politically influential in the last 15 years, will also become unwitting volunteers for the Clinton campaign. What Jeffrey Berry and Sarah Sobieraj call the “outrage industry” will have a far more significant impact on the 2016 election than it did in 2000.I don’t think that either the political impact of recent Supreme Court decisions or the prominence of right wing media demagogues can be reasonably seen as disconnected from Republican “disarray” and dysfunction in Washington.

Hillary Clinton will make the threat of GOP control of all three branches of the federal government a centerpiece of her general election pitch. Because of the heightened public awareness of Republican extremism in recent years, this pitch will not be reserved for partisan Democratic audiences. It will also serve her well in her efforts to persuade independent and moderate voters, and possibly even moderate Republican voters as well.Ironically, the unlikeliness of Democrats retaking Congress next year (which both Nyhan’s and Edsall’s analysis reinforce) will actually increase the potency of Clinton’s case here. She will frame her candidacy positively when it comes to her policy priorities, but negatively when it comes to the institutional partisan stakes. A vote for the GOP presidential candidate will be portrayed as a vote for every extreme measure passed by the Republican House of Representatives since Nancy Pelosi surrendered the gavel. Clinton will portray herself as the only person standing between Tea Party extremists and unchecked control of the government, while her general election opponent will be forced to rely heavily on candidate-centric attacks on Clinton. Finally, if the GOP establishment fails to recapture control of their party’s nomination process and ends up with a Trump, Carson, or Cruz at the top of the ticket, Clinton’s effort to leverage Republican disarray and portray herself as the only reasonable option will sell itself.

So, while I think Nyhan’s analysis is reasonable and correct in a very precise sense (i.e. disarray won’t prevent the GOP from preserving its House majority in 2016) I do believe that the present disarray and dysfunction in the Republican Party will provide aid, comfort, and ammunition to the Clinton campaign in 2016.