The Red Drizzle

Republicans were hoping for a red wave. Thanks to their lunacy, what they got was a drizzle.

Image from Graham Voss on ArtStation.

[Last updated 10:35 p.m. EST, December 6th, 2022]

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With an unpopular Democratic president, once-in-a-generation inflation, rising murder rates, a punishingly mismanaged pandemic, and an obnoxiously loud activist left whose purpose in life appears to be alienating potential voters, the 2022 US midterm elections should have been a bloodbath for Democrats. They all but got on their knees and begged to be slaughtered. For months, right wingers and heterodox centrists alike chirped in gleeful anticipation of a “red wave” come November. What transpired was something closer to a red drizzle.

The GOP has narrowly eked out a retaking of the House of Representatives. They have failed to capture the Senate, however, and in fact they even lost a seat. Combine that with losing two governorships to the Dems, losing one state-level secretary of state and failing to flip any others, and losing a number of consequential ballot measures, and there isn’t much cause for celebration in GOP circles. As things currently stand, it’s Apollo versus Rocky in the original film. Creed won — technically, barely, humiliatingly — in a fight where he was supposed to obliterate his opponent with one hand tied behind his back. What happened, and what can we take away from it?

How Did This Happen?

One iron law of political forecasting is to expect the unexpected. If you’d have checked in around springtime, the Democrats seemed to be cruising toward a curb stomping. The public was dissatisfied, and Dems controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress, which meant running on their records or any sort of positive message were out of the question. They needed someone to blame, something to run against. Trump was two years out office and not on the ballot, but no matter how thin the #Resistance schtick was wearing after six years, riding the anti-Trump train into the ravine was all they had. Then Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the Dems were thrown a much-needed lifeline. In an uncharacteristic display of survival instincts, they grabbed it, and with this new rallying cry, the polls began to tighten. A couple months later, President Biden’s executive order to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt gave the Dems another shot in the arm. For all of the naysaying online, real-life voters liked what they saw. 

For their part, the Republicans leaned into Trumpism, but sans its tangerine front man. Whether they were true believers or acting a part, the 2022 Republican crop resembled an American Idol of Trumpism — and far too many contestants were William Hung. It is difficult to overstate just how poor a position the Democrats were in. Whatever the Dems did right in the months leading up to November, this was the Republicans’ election to lose. They didn’t need to do anything except not be lunatics. This, apparently, was asking too much. The gap between the most unhinged corners of Trumpistan and the actual GOP candidates was far smaller than the gap between their Democratic opponents and the radical, septum-pierced weirdos Republicans relentlessly tried — and failed — to paint them as. Election denialism, conspiracy theories, right wing culture wars, and hardline stances on immigration and abortion will do that. Every indicator suggests that the electorate wanted to vote for Republicans — if only they weren’t completely insane.

Some Midterms History

With very few exceptions, such as 2002, in which George W. Bush and the Republicans were still enjoying the post-9/11 McPatriotism honeymoon, the party who controls the presidency usually gets crushed in the midterms. This is a trend that goes back many decades, especially when the party of the presidency controls the Senate and the House as well. For comparison, in 2018, the Republicans under Trump held onto the Senate but lost 41 House seats and seven governorships. Under Obama, the Dems lost six Senate seats in 2010, and another nine in 2014, losing control. They also lost 63 House seats in 2010, losing control, and another 13 in 2014. The Republicans flipped eight governorships during these two midterms as well.

There are a number of reasons for this pattern. Fair or not, the president’s party always takes the blame for the problems in society. Midterm elections also often serve as a referendum on the president and the direction of the country. Without any presidential candidates on the ballot, however, the negativity bias drives more dissatisfied voters to the polls than defenders of the party in power. This is the same dynamic we see in online reviews, where consumers who had a negative experience with a product or service are far more motivated to leave a review than those who had no problems at all. There’s also simply the desire for balance. Most Americans are not hardcore left or right wingers. Frankly, most Americans don’t know enough about politics, civics, and philosophy to even have a coherent political worldview. From this ignorance paradoxically springs a rather wise instinct to be wary of any one party having too much control for too long. This, combined with every other factor blowing in the GOP’s favor, makes their underperformance thus far all the more remarkable.

Was Democracy on the Ballot?

Throughout the 2022 campaign season, the Democrats’ unrelenting drum beat was that democracy was on the ballot. While the rhetoric has often been hyperbolic, there is indeed genuine cause for concern. Trump’s refusal to concede defeat and his naked attempt to steal votes behind the scenes, the January 6 2021 Capitol Riots, and the nearly one third of Americans (and 61 percent of Republicans) who still believe the 2020 election was stolen ain’t nothing. The fact that 60 percent of voters had a 2020 election denier on their ballot is a jaw-dropping statistic. But where election denialists can do the most damage is not primarily in the US Congress or Senate, but at the state level, where electoral procedure is created and carried out. That the Dems gained two governorships and have not lost any state-level secretary of state races (managing to flip one in Arizona) is an encouraging sign not only to Dem partisans but to anyone taking democracy seriously. The very fact that election coverage is now tracking states’ secretary of state elections — an office many Americans were not previously aware even existed — says it all.

So far, beyond some minor grumblings, Arizona’s Kari Lake has been the only defeated candidate who has refused to concede. Regardless, a Republican sweep would not have ended democracy, but it would have weakened it. Democracy was on the ballot. And it won.

Democrats Win With Ballot Initiatives

In addition to over-performing in their races, Dems have racked up a number of impressive victories in state ballot measures. In California, Michigan, and Vermont, abortion rights were enshrined in state constitutions. Michigan and Connecticut passed early voting and expanded ballot access. Maryland and Missouri legalized recreational marijuana. Nebraska voted to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour, and Nevada raised theirs to $12, in addition to passing ranked-choice voting and open primaries (the latter will need to be passed again in 2024 to take effect). Oregon has established healthcare as a constitutional right, and will require permits for firearm ownership. This, once again, demonstrates that while their cultural views are unpopular, the Democrats have the edge on policy substance.

For Democrats, a Reprieve and a Warning

The Democrats dodged a bullet, but they have still lost the House. There aren’t many positive takeaways to draw from playing against a team who scores on their own goal. Dems cannot control GOP insanity — and they therefore cannot always count on it being so egregiously self-sabotaging. What Democrats can do is control themselves, and rein in their own extremists and activist buffoons. While Republicans can — and often do — go overboard in their reactions to left wing culture wars, large parts of the public, including key demographics the Democrats cannot win without, such as Asians and Hispanics, are being increasingly alienated by social justice politics. Sooner or later, the GOP will, if only due to the broken clock principle, experiment with not running a slate of clowns. If the Democrats haven’t gotten their act together by then, they’re courting disaster.

For Republicans, a Wake-up Call

Republicans won running on Trumpism in 2016. The fact that they have either lost or severely underperformed in the three election cycles since tells us either that 2016 was a fluke, or that America was willing to roll the dice once and didn’t much like the results. As uncomfortable as Americans feel about youth gender transition, critical race theory, and all of the privilege-checking “white fragility” horseshit one so often sees peddled on the left, these remain irrelevant issues to most folks who aren’t political junkies and don’t live online — and that describes most people. There was only ever one deal-breaker: the defund and/or abolish the police movement. While Democrats flirted with such notions in the collective psychosis that followed the murder of George Floyd, to their credit they quickly realized how politically disastrous the issue was and have been continuously backtracking ever since. Compared to the deranged madness of Trumpism, the Dems remain, wokeness and all, the lesser of two evils in the eyes of the public. Overturning Roe further demonstrated this.

Back in May, I wrote: “You can take away a woman’s right to choose, at least in certain states, but you cannot take away her right to choose at the ballot box. In the fullness of time, Republicans will come to regret the cost of their extremism, if not morally, then politically.” Exit polls show that the Democrats won 68 percent of unmarried women, a five point gain over 2020 — and in an election cycle where, by all rights, the Dems should have lost ground across the board. The Republican Party has only won the popular vote in a presidential election once since the 1980’s, and not since 2004. They tried something new with Trumpism. It hasn’t worked out. Even just a return to pre-Trump Republicanism would have been sufficient to win big in 2022. But if the GOP is serious about becoming a competitive and popular party, they need to change with the times. They need, as I have argued, meta-conservatism.

The lesson of 2020 was that voters want a return to normal. For being the party of business, you’d think Republicans would learn to give the customer what they want.

A Win for Pollsters, another Humiliation for Vote Counters

The polls showed a close race the entire time. Even in the darkest moments, the GOP never led the Dems on Real Clear Politics’ generic ballot average by more than four points. And yet, nobody could quite believe the numbers. We collectively assumed the polls must somehow be underrepresenting the support for Republicans, and that the Dems were heading for a pummeling. The polls, it turns out, were right all along.

While our data nerds are high fiving, our boards of election continue to wear dunce caps. Somehow, in the 21st century, in the age of fantastic technologies and computation, we have lost our ability to count. Suddenly, it has become unreasonable to expect to know the results of an election, barring some extraordinarily close race like Florida in 2000, the night of the vote. Leading the way in this national disgrace are Arizona and Nevada, whose processes to count the vote would bring shame and dishonor on any middle school student government. The inability to perform these most basic of democratic functions only invites suspicion, skepticism, distrust, conspiracism, and ultimately, anti-democratic sentiments.

What This Means For 2024

The commentariat is already alight with speculation that the 2022 midterms have seriously hurt Donald Trump’s chances at becoming the 2024 Republican presidential nominee. After all, the voters have repeatedly rejected Trumpism, right? They have, however public opinion carries little weight in party primaries, where fewer voters turn out, and where the hardcore base has an outsized say. No matter how much of a come-to-Jesus moment the party bosses have, it is not within their power to deny the return of the Donald, who declared his candidacy a week after election day. There is a slim chance that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis could prevail, should he throw his hat into the ring, but Trump is still the horse to bet on for 2024. Age and health are the biggest X-factors determining whether Trump will earn the nomination — not competitors, the party, or legal troubles. Buckle up.

See also: “The Great Realignment That Wasn’t”

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