Election '22: Is the Democracy Over Yet?
A rebuke to Trump, an opportunity for Republicans
Americans went to the polls Tuesday, voting to give Republicans huge majorities in both chambers of Congress, while flipping the governorships in now-competitive “blue” states like Michigan and New York. As expected, sea levels instantly rose, the blood-dimmed tide was loosed, a falcon was unable to hear a falconer, and a rough beast, its hour now come (at last), slouched toward Bethlehem to be born. Stunned coastal elites cried out to the Hindu tidal god Varuna for mercy while frantically scouring for openings at Montessori schools further inland. Meanwhile, Republicans announced a bold new agenda which included confiscation of “In this House” yard signs and mandatory life sentences for election-denier deniers.
Democracy Itself, which was on the ballot, conceded at about 8:01 EST.
Whoops, wrong script. Let’s try this again. Americans went to the polls on Tuesday; early results indicate Republicans will probably take control of the House, though with a somewhat slimmer majority than they and many others may have anticipated, while Democrats remain (slight) favorites to hang on to the Senate. In the gubernatorial races, the status quo mostly held, though there were significant victories for Ron DeSantis in Florida and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer which could position each to receive his or her party’s presidential nod in 2024.
Unsurprisingly — that is, if you live outside the establishment media bubble — predictions of widespread political unrest and rampant election denialism failed to materialize. Even Stacey Abrams in Georgia conceded her race this time, sparing her party and allied media the embarrassment of having to cover for her for another four years while she ran about insisting the election was stolen.
Meanwhile, a disconcerting number of electronic voting machines malfunctioned early on in Maricopa County, Ariz., quite possibly the very last place you would want to see this happen. A fix seems to have worked. But with seasoned election disputers at the top of the ballot, you’d be nuts to think we’ve heard the end of the story there. In any case, the media coverage of this was fascinating. The major news organizations moved almost instantly from reporting the issue with the machines to calling out “unfounded” or baseless claims circulating on the right. Pure reflex at this point.
It was another mixed night for pre-election pollsters, this time seeming to have overestimated GOP strength. (Realclearpolitics.com projections, based on polls, had the GOP netting maybe three seats in the Senate and as many as 48 in the House.) But assumptions here could be misleading. Early voting makes late polling unreliable. In states such as Pennsylvania, more than 700,000 ballots were cast before John Fetterman’s calamitous lone debate with his Republican Senate rival, Mehmet Oz. Early votes tilt heavily to the Democrats, meaning much of the Pennsylvania electorate had already chosen Fetterman before having a chance to evaluate the extent of cognitive impairment that remains from the stroke he suffered in May. Oz seemed to gain a polling advantage in the closing week of the campaign, but it already may have been too late.
Earlier this year the Democratic Party put tens of millions of dollars into supporting extremist GOP candidates in the primaries, on the theory they would be easier for the Democratic nominees to beat in November. It was a controversial tactic, and hardly seemed wise, since the party wanted to argue these same candidates posed a very real threat to the nation. But on the evidence, the plan was certainly effective.
In New Hampshire, Don Bolduc fell well short of ousting Maggie Hassan from the Senate, while Oz was no doubt handicapped by having to share the ticket with gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, a deranged bedlamite who wound up losing by more than 13 points. John Gibbs, another candidate boosted by Democratic dollars, also got walloped, as did Robert Burns, a House candidate in New Hampshire; Maryland gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox; and Darren Bailey, a candidate for lieutenant governor in Illinois. The only one potentially left standing (just) is Kari Lake in Arizona.
And Donald Trump. Many years ago, when I was covering politics on Capitol Hill, there was a Congresswoman from Georgia named Cynthia McKinney, a Democrat, who was known mostly for spouting outlandish conspiracy theories. (One of these was that the FBI murdered Tupac.) After one of her more inane pronouncements, I remember going to Tom Davis, who at the time led the House GOP’s campaign committee, to ask if he thought she might be vulnerable to a Republican challenge and whether Republicans might consider mounting one. “Are you kidding me,” he said. “We want her to stay around as long as possible.”
That’s what Trump is to the Democrats. A heel.
When he proclaimed years ago that, under him, Republicans would get “tired of winning,” he forgot to mention they would get tired of Democrats winning. Everything he touches turns to crap, or something like it. “It is far from clear that Republicans will take the hint, and will finally grasp that Trumpism isn’t only terrible civics (which is reason enough to reject it) but also terrible politics,” Yuval Levin writes. My hunch is that Republican professionals already knew this, but have felt they cannot risk alienating Trump’s cult. It’s the Democrats who now face the risk that Trump is sidelined.
One lesson of Tuesday’s vote is that, where it matters, in the difficult races, the closer you are to Trump, the further you are from what voters can tolerate. Yeah, there were exceptions. J.D. Vance won the Senate race in Ohio, but Ohio is now pretty much a red state and he would probably have won anyway. (It bears mentioning, in any case, that Vance ran about ten points behind GOP Gov. Mike DeWine, an un-Trump who easily won reelection.) But the GOP pissed away very winnable Senate seats in multiple states, including Arizona, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, and may be on track to lose Georgia, and it’s hard not to see Trump’s ties to the candidates in these races as a major factor in their defeats.
The Republicans who did best — incumbent governors Ron DeSantis in Florida, Brian Kemp in Georgia and DeWine in Ohio — were ones who weren’t tarnished by an association with Trump and his bullshit claims the 2020 election was stolen from him. It probably ought to be noted that all three of these governors are also Pro-Life, which ought to (but won’t) undercut the assumption that Democrats benefited from their emphasis on abortion rights.
Democrats will take the outcome of the elections as a win. To prevail in a midterm election when the sitting President is from your own party, his approval ratings are miserable and the economy is floundering is a real feat. So losing only the House majority, if that’s what comes to pass, would not be too much of a disappointment. (The only time in the last 40 years the party of a sitting President has picked up seats in his first midterm election was in 2002, after the Sept. 11 attacks.) Once you throw in high inflation, soaring gas prices and an immigration debacle at the southern border, plus polling that shows Americans overwhelming believe the country is on the wrong track, even losing gently starts to look like a miracle.
Democrats did better than that. Holding on to the governorships in Michigan, New York and Wisconsin — three states that looked winnable for Republicans pre-election — is a major boost. It’s about more than being able to set the agenda. If the Democrats lost — and lost big — in these key blue states, it would have altered the party’s outlook for 2024 and may even have caused major party donors to reconsider their giving. There is very little in the results that tells Democrats they will need to make drastic changes to their policies or messages if they are to compete in two years. They just need to be better than Republicans. Which, on the evidence, is very doable. As a bonus, they may now be rid of hapless vanity candidates such as Abrams and Beto O’Rourke (Tex.), whose prospects are always dim but who divert mountains of cash away from worthier contenders.
Sure, the Democrats will still probably lose one — and perhaps both — chambers of Congress. There’s no way for them to be totally happy with that. (And any happiness may be short-lived in any case: 23 of the 33 Senate seats that will be on the ballot in 2024 belong to Democrats or independents who caucus with them.) But if you’re going to lose one, make it the House and make it close. The Republicans will probably have the votes to block the Democrats’ legislative agenda. But you can still get the President’s judicial nominees through the Senate. Plus, a slim House majority for the Republicans will act as a constraint on the GOP’s wilder impulses, such as a possible push for Biden’s impeachment. Presumptive Speaker-elect Kevin McCarthy will be under tremendous pressure from the right to do the stupid and indefensible. But there will be limits to the types of legislative proposals and amendments he can bring to the floor, if only because Republican defectors could provide Democrats with victories that embarrass the GOP leadership.
There is a silver lining here for the Republicans. Having the power to direct oversight and determine federal spending is no small thing, and the GOP hasn’t had a chance to do much of either since Biden took office. Odd as it may sound, the results from these elections may be the best possible scenario for Republicans. If you don’t believe me, consider the alternative: a red wave spurred by an excellent (though maybe temporary) issue environment that sweeps into office a full slate of cretins hand-picked by Trump for their willingness to lie on his behalf. Really, now. Can Republicans be too upset that Mastriano didn’t win in Pennsylvania? Or Blake Masters in Arizona? Or Bolduc in New Hampshire? If they had won, Trump would take the credit, his critics in the party would be silenced, more kooks would see opportunities — when all that had actually happened was that the President’s party had been punished in the usual fashion in a midterm election, and one where the issues where just about all the issues worked against the Democrats. Now, the entire Trumpist infrastructure has been discredited. If, after these results, Republicans can’t turn the page on this low and disreputable era for their party, and perhaps elevate an obvious winner like DeSantis, they will deserve to lose the White House, and much else, in 2024.
(Editor’s note: A previous version of this post misidentified the incumbent Senator from New Hampshire. WILSY regrets the error.)