Election? What Election?

WASHINGTON, DC—Today US voters are heading to the polls for the mid-term elections, but truthfully there is no need to stay up late tonight watching the returns. The polls are almost unanimous in what the predicted results will be: the Senate will turn Republican and the GOP will pick up additional seats in the House of Representatives. It is possible, likely even in Louisiana, that some states will not be decided today but will require a run-off. Even with that possibility in the mix, most politicos say a GOP takeover of the Senate is a done deal.

Even states that seemed to be in play a few weeks ago are almost certainly going to send a Republican to Congress, David Johnson, principal of Strategic Vision tells GlobeSt.com. "Iowa, Arkansas, Colorado, Montana, West Virginia and South Dakota are all pointing to that," he says. So if one or two states are undecided it still won't impact the Senate leadership.

With that ending neatly written, the next question to ponder is what will this change in Congressional leadership mean to the business community, specifically commercial real estate?

The answer is …nothing. It will be business as usual for a number of reasons, beginning with the fact that President Obama still has veto power. "This next Congress will basically be killing time," Johnson says.

Both parties will be positioning themselves to capture the presidency. Also, electoral math for 2016 favor the Democrats in recapturing the Senate, which gives them little incentive to compromise with Republicans.

Jeff Karp, head of the commercial division at RPMiller Realty Group, is fairly typical in the industry when asked about the election's impact on commercial real estate. New York City, where he is based, will be "relatively unaffected," he tells GlobeSt.com.

For the most part, this is good news for businesses, which rarely embrace significant change emanating out of Washington, unless it is a scale back of regulations or a lowering of taxes. While possible, neither scenario is very likely in the next two years.

The renewal of TRIA is perhaps the one exception: here the CRE and other business communities are desperately hoping to see fevered action before the law's expiration at the end of the year.

This was a point highlighted in The Real Estate Roundtable's recent Sentiment Survey for the fourth quarter. "On the eve of the congressional mid-term elections, our Sentiment Index shows favorable views about current market conditions, yet also reflects concerns about the lack of clear direction in many federal policies, primarily terrorism risk insurance," says Jeffrey D. DeBoer, the Roundtable's president and CEO.

In the end TRIA will pass the lame duck session, Johnson predicts – but there could be some tense moments. Conservatives in the House that disapprove of TRIA will likely be emboldened by the Senate's win and push for more changes when the measure goes into committee.

"Eventually it will be muscled through," Johnson says. "Everyone will then be able to blame it on the lame duck session."