Yesterday, I made a number of claims about the progressive and media responses to the “inevitable” red wave we were about to witness. One of these was that these voices would downplay the wave as a mere “puddle.”
As it turns out, there’s no spin needed: the red wave didn’t happen.
Yes, it’s not all bad for the GOP, but it’s just a puddle. Republicans are still very likely to take the House, and still have a puncher’s chance at the Senate (although that may rest on . . . shudder . . . a runoff involving Herschel Walker). But, for a mid-term election with a president whose approval rating is down around 40, inflation rates not seen in a couple of generations, a porous border, and more, this was a significant underperformance.
What went wrong? There is a fairly obvious combination of factors whose importance varied, depending on the jurisdiction.
One, Donald Trump has become an undeniable net-negative influence on GOP politics. Yes, he was once very valuable as an outsider who brought non-voters and certain disenchanted Democrats into the GOP fold. Now, most people—even Republicans—just want him to go away quietly. He won’t, of course. But his act of consistently attacking “fellow” Republicans who don’t go along with whatever Trump wants, or who aren’t his hand-picked candidates, is both tiresome and harmful. Put simply, anti-Trump distaste now significantly exceeds pro-Trump affinity in most areas, and probably in the vast majority of statewide races.
Two, Dobbs. While I think most conservatives would agree that an underperformance in a mid-term was an acceptable trade-off for ridding the country of Roe, there’s no question that abortion-related concerns pushed some voters the Democrats’ way. Yet, I think Dems will overestimate the impact Dobbs had, which will play into GOP hands come 2024. In many states, Dobbs seemed to have little impact at all, which brings me to my final point.
Three, candidate quality. Related to the first point, the GOP has leaned too heavily on “regional Trumps,” as I like to call them. These are people who run on a platform that involves rejecting the results of the 2020 election and/or who come across as either opportunists (e.g. Oz), unqualified (e.g. Walker), or too extreme for moderate states (e.g. Mastriano).
Note that the above wasn’t the blueprint for Republican success in 2021. Glenn Youngkin won a purple state by focusing on education, the economy, and looser COVID restrictions, not “stopping the steal.” Now, a year later, anger over the 2020 election is even less potent, and it will continue to dissipate exponentially as we approach 2024 and 2026. Running on a platform that includes the 2020 election as a main plank seems as counterproductive to me as running on getting access to Obama’s birth certificate.
The silver lining comes from Washington Post columnist and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center Henry Olson. In a mea culpa piece similar to the one you’re reading here, he diagnoses why the GOP success was smaller than he expected, and he concludes with this astute observation:
It is surely premature for me even to think about a GOP resurgence in 2024 after erroneously expecting one this year. But look at the GOP letdown of 1978—a disappointing midterm in the midst of stagflation, with Republicans gaining only a few House and Senate seats from rock-bottom Watergate levels. Two years later, though, the 1980 election ushered in the Reagan era. The country was even more frustrated than before—and ready to give a Republican governor from a Sun Belt state a chance.
It is entirely likely that Democrats will come to believe that they need no course-correction. “Hey, even with massive inflation—which, of course, isn’t our fault!—we still did not-terribly in the midterms! Biden 2024!!!”
Unless we hit a major economic resurgence in the next 18 months (and we’re probably headed for a recession), that strategy would be a horrible mistake. But both parties are fond of making those types of mistakes these days, so I wouldn’t be surprised by Dems continuing to drift to the left under the mistaken belief that their economic and social policies are popular.
They will also make abortion a centerpiece of their 2024 efforts, even though this will be less effective over two years removed from Dobbs, especially if DeSantis—who is extremely skilled at challenging progressives and making them stake out an explicit position—is the GOP nominee. Given that Florida was the one true red tsunami state, that seems like a strong option.
Having said all of the above, last night’s election was a helpful (and humbling) reminder that nothing in politics is inevitable. That’s a lesson all of us, on all sides, should have learned in 2016.
It’s a mistake I won’t make again.