Election 2022 Postmortem Quick Takes

I'll be back late this month or early next month with my usual full state-by-state analysis of the 2022 midterms, but here's a cluster of hot takes that were top of mind for me the day after the big event....

No Red Wave-- I made the disclaimer at the outset that I never go into an election night fully confident that I have the electorate figured out, and qualified my bearish predictions accordingly.  Of the range of scenarios that could have unfolded, the one that seemed less likely to play out on November 8, 2022, actually materialized.  That's good.....not just for the Democratic Party but for making election nights exciting generally.  I'll take my lumps for buying into the red wave narrative, particularly since it was based on a reasonably comprehensive selection of data points, anecdotes, and tea leaves.  I have certainly earned the dunce cap this time.

Polls/Trump Factor--The fact that the polls underestimated Democratic strength in the August races certainly gave me pause when it came to accepting that that dynamic had changed so considerably in less than three months.  By and large, last weekend's media polls come out looking pretty good.  But as I digest the hot takes on cable news and elsewhere, I can't help but identify the cognitive dissonance in interpreting a number of the takeaways, including how the election results relate to Trump.  In one breath, we're told that the undersampling of Republican voters is a phenomenon that only occurs when Trump is on the ballot and brings these people out in droves.  But in the next breath, we're supposed to interpret yesterday's results as a massive rebuke of Trump and MAGA politics.  Can both things be true?  And if they can, how does that apply to 2024 when Trump remains the odds-on favorite to be the GOP Presidential nominee again?

Exit Polls--I made a special point of looking at exit polls at the exact moment of poll closing for all the battleground races last night.....and most of them turned out to be pretty close to right.  The NC-Sen result was about three points too red, making it the first time in 30 years of poll watching where I've seen an electoral outcome bluer than the exit poll indicated.  The remaining exit poll wild card is Nevada, where the exit poll numbers predicted an outcome almost identical to the current margins.  We'll see who's closer to right in the end....the exit polls or the notion of tens of thousands of deeply blue late mail-in votes reversing the current deficits.  Nothing would surprise me but I'm betting the exits are right and the final ballots don't alter the margins much.

Hispanic Vote--Quite a few people predicted a collapse of Democratic support among Hispanics while others didn't foresee much change from previous cycles.  The reality appears to be somewhere in the middle but it's too soon to know, if in fact we ever reliably can.  Everybody seems to lean hard on the RGV for lazy analysis of how the Hispanic vote went.  I was surprised the Democrats didn't collapse there more than they did, although at best it seems like the existing losses from 2020 are durable.  Outside of the RGV and South Florida, the picture is some combination of mixed and incomplete at this writing.  Certainly Democrats took some losses in Hispanic-heavy places like the Bronx and southern California, but it's possible the losses there were proportionally higher among other ethnic groups.  Ditto for Nevada, where win or lose, the needle is moving in the wrong direction.  I haven't dug in deeply enough as it relates to Puerto Rican-heavy communities in the northeast yet to see how those numbers broke down.  On the other hand, there was zero indication of atrophying Hispanic votes in Colorado, Arizona, or New Mexico.  I still think Dems have a troubled future with Hispanic voters, but if there is any kind of evolution it doesn't appear likely to happen in a straight line.

Abortion--It's hard to dispute that the Democrats made the right call to hype the abortion issue as much as they did.  I submit that there were quite a few jurisdictions where the message was a net negative in terms of salience, but on balance it seemed to motivate far more voters than it repelled.  It would be interesting, but probably impossible, to extrapolate how many seats the Democrats were able to save because of abortion rights voters.  Would we be looking at the 23 House seat losses I predicted if not for Dobbs and the Democrats' litigation of it?  On the other hand, if Kathy Hochul had taken crime messaging more seriously and talked less about abortion, could the downballot wipeout in the Empire State have been averted?  Who knows.

Minnesota and Marijuana Parties--Arguably my biggest fumble--and my biggest surprise--of the 2022 cycle came from the vastly truncated significance of the marijuana parties in Minnesota's statewide races.  I was absolutely certain that the eight-year growth trajectory of these gadfly parties would continue in a cycle with high wrong-track numbers and skepticism of both parties.  More than just about any other minor party in America, these cleverly branded parties were perfectly positioned to sponge protest votes.  Instead, the two parties fizzled, both failing to hit the 5% threshold needed to maintain major-party status.  Even in the Auditor's race, where I figured the pot parties would combine for more than 10%, they barely combined for 5%.  I truly did not see that one coming.  Had I foreseen the pot parties ebbing, I'd have been more likely to predict at least some of the Democratic wave that hit the Gopher State.  But even in the best-case scenario, I wouldn't have figured Keith Ellison would have been re-elected or that the Dems would win the state Senate.

Pennsylvania and Huge Geographic Differences--The most impressive performances of the night came from the top of the ticket in Pennsylvania which trickled downballot and saved multiple endangered House seats.  For a state that's on the demographic knife's edge and seems like it should be trending Republican, this is the third election cycle in a row where the Keystone State has significantly outperformed the adjusted Trump-era fundamentals.  Comparing last night's performance to its neighbors really helps put in context just how nicely Pennsylvania held up.  Along the same lines, remember the days not so long ago when Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin seemed to reliably shift in tandem with the political winds?  Just as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia have taken vastly different trajectories in recent cycles, the same divergence can be seen in last night's results from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa.  

Where Do We Go From Here?--It's hard to glean any overarching takeaway from last night's results that can be directly deployed for 2024 messaging.  Even though litigating Dobbs appeared to have worked, I still think Democrats run a risk by talking about it too much, particularly if the predictions of a recession come to pass in 2023.  Beyond that, there's no clear mandate against immigration policy, crime enforcement, or any of the culture war touchstones the Fox News set obsesses about to where Democrats would hypothetically receive a loud and clear message.  That makes it tougher than ever in determining where we go from here because I think a number of those issues are still simmering under the surface even though voters fell far short of speaking about them in a unified voice.  As for the likelihood of narrowly losing the House of Representatives, I'm not one to buy into the "we win by losing" trope, but as I said last weekend, it seems likely that a GOP House with a narrow and dysfunctional majority sets up Democrats with at least a little less exposure going into the 2024 Presidential cycle?  If a recession is really coming, wouldn't Democrats be poised for an ever harder landing in 2024 if we didn't have a GOP House as a foil?

More detailed analysis to come on the other side of Thanskgiving.

Election 2022 Final Predictions And My Closing Thoughts On The Campaign

 The Democrats will lose the House of Representatives on November 8, 2022.  That prediction should shock nobody and it would be one of the most stunning outcomes in electoral history if the Democrats somehow managed to hold on to the House next week after all the reported late-breaking momentum toward Republicans and the growing battleground of races where Democratic incumbents who never imagined they'd have a competitive race suddenly find themselves endangered.  I'll put a random guess out there of the Republicans netting 23 House seats, well above the 5 that they need to retake the body.  At various points in the past, I could have been counted upon to break down the exact incumbents that I expect to be felled, but after a fresh round of redistricting where I have a very loose understanding of who's serving where, I lack the knowledge and the enthusiasm to make a comprehensive breakdown.

I've been resigned to the Democrats losing the House basically since before control of the House was officially decided in the 2020 election.  I'm rarely one to venture into the "we win by losing" trope, but when it comes to control of the House of Representatives, I won't be dropping many tears specifically about that on November 9th.  There's a near-consensus that the economy is heading into a recession in 2023.  If Democrats were to go into 2024 with the doddering Biden as President and narrow control of both houses of Congress, we could expect a wipeout of 1980 proportions.  If the Republicans control the House, they'll have some buy-in for what's coming, and if they're seen as ruthless obstructionists, it at least has the potential to work to their disadvantage in the next cycle. We certainly saw that in 2012 when voters took Obama's side against a recalcitrant GOP House and rewarded his party, even amidst a still-sputtering economy.

On the other hand, I can't just grudgingly accept a GOP landslide in the House because it will almost certainly trickle down to governing bodies where there's more urgency for keeping power out of Republican hands.  First and foremost, control of the U.S. Senate.  The Democrats caught an extremely lucky break by winning those Georgia runoffs and scoring effective control of a 50-50 Senate in 2021, allowing them to not only have a fleeting moment to actually govern, but two years to shape the judiciary amidst what seemed likely to be a generation-long lockout at the hands of Mitch McConnell and whoever his successor is.  Up until recently, it seemed like a better-than-even bet that Democrats would manage to hold the Senate for another two years after the 2022 election, gifting them another two years to appoint judges and potentially hold off court challenges that would undo every progressive victory since Teddy Roosevelt.  

There's almost no scenario where Democrats would maintain control of the Senate after the 2024 election, and once they lose it, it's very hard to see how they'll get it back given the trajectory of the geographical fault lines and its impact on Senate races moving forward.  It remains my top priority this cycle to see Democrats maintain control of the Senate, however narrowly, and have two more years to build a judicial sea wall to defend against the right-wing flood that's coming.  That still might happen, although it seems like more of a long shot each day closer we get to the election.  And certainly if the Democrats take on even modest let alone huge losses in the House, the less likely it is that they hang onto 50 Senators.

At least as important to the future of the republic as the Senate races are the gatekeepers of the election process.  Across the country, statewide offices are being contested by a long list of election deniers running on the Republican ticket.  The nation narrowly avoided a Third World-style junta in 2021 because a bipartisan slate of elected officials presided over just enough important states and refused to allow Donald Trump to hijack the 2020 election.  In most of those same states, the GOP is making sure democracy doesn't get in the way of autocracy next time, putting forward slates of candidates vowing to disregard the reported vote count unless they like the outcome.  If the majority of them win, the 2024 Presidential election outcome is predetermined no matter who gets the most votes as the secretaries of state, governors, and attorneys general of the contested states will simply refuse the results and nominate a slate of electors beholden to their own preferred candidate.  That's a pretty big problem...and if the Republicans have a good night in the House of Representatives next week it's a safe bet the election deniers running for statewide office will get dragged across the finish line with them.

These were always the big concerns about this cycle, but as recently as a month ago it seemed as though the worst-case scenario would more likely than not be avoided.  So what happened that it's once again a live possibility, even though nothing has fundamentally changed about the state of the country or economy since last month when voters weren't as bearish on the incumbent party?

I had a feeling last month when I wrote my piece expressing how impressed I was with Democratic resilience and how the abortion issue appeared to have saved them that that story wasn't complete. Six weeks has made quite a difference and Republican campaign messaging has been orders of magnitude more effective than Democratic campaign messaging.  I'm not yet to the point where I'm predicting that the Dobbs ruling will be a net negative for Democrats, but it certainly made them lazy with their messaging.  I'm still not discounting the possibility of a "shy Roe vote" leading to Democratic overperformances a few days from now, but it seems less likely by the day.  

 

Before the Dobbs ruling, Colorado Senator Mark Udall was the highest-profile politician who overplayed his hand on the abortion rights issue and lost his Senate seat as a result of it back in 2014.  It turns out that Udall's warning shot should not have been ignored by those who care about abortion rights, yet even in the aftermath of Roe's overturning, it doesn't seem like voters will be any more motivated by it than they were when Mark Udall was shouting from rooftops about it.

It seems like a better Democratic messaging approach for this cycle should have been......keep playing chicken with Republicans at your own peril.  This message would co-opt the abortion rights argument and use it as an effective white board for the laundry list of Republican priorities that are just as unpopular as rolling back abortion rights but likely more salient.  

 

For more than a half century, Republicans have been calling for repealing abortion rights.  "We should believe them."  

 

Over the same time span, Republicans have been trying to crush labor unions at every level and have not been shy in campaigning to dismantle your union and wipe out the check that they provide against corporate power.  "We should believe them."  

 

Since their inception, Republicans have been vowing to either dismantle Social Security and Medicare entirely or to cut and/or privatize them.  Party leaders just this year have doubled down on that call.  "We should believe them." 

 

Republicans have attempted dozens of times to repeal Obamacare and the insurance protections for people with pre-existing conditions, falling only one vote short of doing so just five years ago.  They continue to promise to do this.  "We should believe them."  

 

For 50 years, the centerpiece of Republican economic orthodoxy has been to ram through unpopular, deficit-financed tax cuts intended to transfer tens of trillions of dollars in wealth to the top of the income ladder.  Even though Liz Truss just tried this in Britain and it led to a market collapse, Republicans want to do it again.  "We should believe them."

This messaging wouldn't have negated all of the Democrats' vulnerabilities heading into this cycle.  It was always going to be a tough year.  But establishing a clearer diagram of what's at stake was imperative to filling out the bigger picture of what a Republican-controlled government (and judiciary!) will mean to the people grumbling about the price of gas and bacon.  Putting this against the backdrop of cherry-picked Democratic accomplishments of the last two years that poll well may well have been enough to save them a few seats in a few key places.  

On the other hand, I'm a little surprised that Democrats aren't poised to take an even heavier pounding this year given the fundamentals and the easy-to-demagogue excesses of their donor base's priorities, which they won't (and likely can't) effectively distance themselves from.  The fact that they've gifted Republicans with tacit support for open borders, softness on crime, and a perpetual cycle of racial grievance, yet the election is still something resembling a tossup the weekend before the election, says a lot about the Republicans' own electoral vulnerabilities.   

The biggest question coming out of this midterm, aside from how bad the Democratic collapse is among Hispanic voters, is whether it gives us a window into longer-term electoral trends, as was foreshadowed in 2006 and 2014, or if it's more of a conventional short-term backlash against the incumbent party as we saw in 1994 and 2010.  I suspect I'll be better positioned to answer that the next time you hear from me.