November 11: Midterms hot take mashup

In which, Russia pulls back in Kherson, world leaders talk about the climate, and I zoom out and look for cooler heads in the sea of midterms hot takes.

Midterms hot takes mashup

OK, first things first, let’s get the mea culpa out of the way, dear readers: I was too bullish on Republican gains in this election.

If you’re feeling downcast this week because your optimism was grounded in my misleading reportage, I’ve got a simple message for you:

In my defense, my New Year’s prediction of this election all the way back in January was that there was a high probability that the GOP would retake the House, the only question was how big would the majority be?

While the red wave may not have materialized, the GOP appears to be on track for a House majority (though that could still change), with an outside possibility of a Senate majority. It’s no wave, but taking control of even one chamber of Congress is a victory not to be laughed at. And, as some commentators have noted, even in certain losses like the New York governor’s race Republicans demonstrated an ability to make inroads in traditionally blue strongholds.

Two things are generally historically true of midterm elections: voter turnout is lower than presidential elections years and the President’s party suffers losses. So far, those two truisms have held true. Even if the outcome wasn’t exactly what you wanted (and this was a decidedly mixed bag for both parties), it was actually a pretty normal midterm election, historically speaking.

Except for the painfully slow vote counting in some states.

And the absurdity of Donald Trump trying to grab the limelight when many of his backed candidates went down to defeat.

And except for the emergence of abortion rights being such a substantive issue even in a poor economic picture…

OK, OK, it wasn’t totally normal.

There were actually several interesting stories and narratives that either came to fruition or suggested interesting new directions coming out of election night.

The Hispanic vote

If you listened to my recent podcast with Joe Laughon, you’ll remember that Joe suggested that the outcome of the election in the border counties of Texas would be something of bellwether on the stickiness of a trend of Hispanic voters breaking ranks with the Democratic Party. That trend does indeed seem to be holding, suggesting that the Hispanic vote will be in play in 2024 in a new way.

The abortion boost for Democrats

This was something of a surprise to me as the economic picture got so grim through the summer and fall. Polling data indicated that whatever boost Democrats got in the summer from the Dobbs decision had appeared to evaporate by October. However, exit polls suggested that wasn’t the case (though the real effect is hard to determine), and this may indicate a blindspot in otherwise fairly accurate polling this election: Gen Zers may have been underrepresented. Indeed, a bright spot for Democrats is the degree to which they dominated in the under-30 age category.

Trump card?

For the Republicans, the biggest loser of the night was probably the man not on the ballot: Donald Trump. Just as the election was getting going, Donald Trump announced he’d have an important announcement to make on November 15. Most assume it’ll be an announcement to run for President again in ‘24, but that could well fall flat after many Trump-endorsed candidates did exactly that on election night. A couple high profile Trump endorsements have yet to get final results in states like Arizona, but the big picture indicates that a Trump endorsement is a double-edged sword. Georgia is an interesting example here. Governor-elect Brian Kemp took the Glen Youngkin approach and kept Trump away from the governor’s race while GOP candidate for Senate Herschel Walker embraced his Trump endorsement fully and failed to avoid going to a runoff with current Senator Warnock. In deep red states and districts, a Trump endorsement may not hurt you, but in purple and blue regions it most certainly does. 

After such a poor showing by “Team Trump,” many conservative commentators are ready to kick Trump to the curb… but will the party leadership do that as well? I suspect so, especially when you’ve got

DeSantis in the wings

Similar to his gubernatorial colleagues in Georgia and Virginia, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis kept Trump at arms length, ran on his own substantive record and absolutely crushed Charlie Crist by almost 20 points while Florida Republicans entrenched their supermajority in the state house and picked up House seats. What was once a battleground state is now firmly in the GOP camp, and many observers (and donors) now see DeSantis as cementing his claim to presidential candidacy. 

Democratic dial back?

One of the points I raised last week was that losing control of a Congressional chamber could seriously impede President Biden’s remaining legislative agenda items. Such a possibility would/should suggest caution to a President and party standing on fairly shaky ground in a divided electorate, despite the nominal success of preventing a worse loss. 

Tactical defeats sometimes suggest the need for strategic restraint or repositioning, but Biden appears to be quite bullish about his options and has indicated that he’s not changing a thing going into the second half of his administration. We’ll see how that works for him (early reports indicate not so well). 

More broadly, the Democratic leadership generally appears to share Biden’s public optimism, so whatever soul searching was hinted at in the last couple of weeks doesn’t appear to be needed now… which means it is really needed. The Democrats had a narrow escape not because of their appeal or brilliance, but because of GOP missteps and a “fortunate” Supreme Court ruling. When one of your strategic chiefs loses his own election (btw that “back the nut job” strategy? Didn’t go so well), the government is divided, and a key demographic group is trending away from you, one shouldn’t cheer too loudly.