Comment The 2022 election will be remembered for the surge of Republicans clashing with Democratic resistance to produce a surprise result that, while potentially shifting the balance of power in Congress, does not signal a call for a dramatic change in direction or a mandate for the GOP. In an era of electoral denial and warnings of unrest or worse on Election Day, the democracy was carried out with few problems and a strong turnout that, when all the ballots are counted, could eclipse that of 2018, the previous record for a midterm election. Few predicted that Democrats would defy expectations of a “red wave,” and yet the pattern of results has been an integral part of national politics for some time, since Donald Trump won the White House in 2016. The forces that aligned against Trump in 2018 and 2020 were evident once again on Tuesday, less perceived or appreciated in advance, but every piece determined to be heard. Abortion and concerns about extremism in the Trump-dominated Republican Party have proven as powerful in activating voters on the left as inflation, crime and illegal immigration have helped Republicans. President Biden’s low approval ratings have proven less damaging to the Democratic candidates than history would suggest. Polarization remains deeply embedded in the electorate, and that, too, has helped dampen Republican hopes for big gains in the House and a clean sweep in the Senate. “With inflation at a 40-year high, crime out of control in many cities, and our southern border still porous, combined with Joe Biden’s job approval in the 40s, Republicans should have gotten away with this election,” said Whit Ayres. Republican pollster. “He should never have been around.” It was close, he said, for two reasons. First, overturning the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade proved a major catalyst for Democratic voters and others who support abortion rights. For that, Republicans can blame themselves and Trump, because they assembled the current 6-3 conservative majority on the court. The second reason, Ayres said, was the quality of the Republican candidates. Many with Trump’s backers predictably proved unready for prime time, including two in Pennsylvania — Mehmet Oz, who lost the Senate race to Democrat John Fetterman, and Doug Mastriano, who was soundly defeated by Democrat Josh Shapiro in the governor’s race. Simon Rosenberg, president of the Young Democrats Network, said too many analysts have misinterpreted the signs that have been evident since the court ruled in June to overturn abortion rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. “From Dobbs, the Democrats checked all the boxes,” he said. “They’ve outperformed in five special elections, outperformed in Kansas [in a ballot initiative that kept abortion rights in the state constitution]. Voter registration increased. Our candidates raised more money. The question was whether the tension would carry over to the elections. Early voting showed that tension had carried over into the election and then into Election Day. The Republicans hadn’t checked any of the tension boxes.” The red and blue divisions continued to hold, and in one particular place – Florida – intensified. The double-digit re-election of Republican Gov. Ron DeSandis was the most talked-about result of the night, turning, at least for now, a state once considered quintessentially American into a Republican stronghold. Meanwhile, Democrats reasserted themselves in three northern states that have long been presidential battlegrounds and where Trump made inroads in 2016. In addition to Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Michigan voters re-elected Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Wisconsin voters re-elected Governor Tony Evin. Those victories, along with the re-election of Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic secretary of state in Michigan, prevented Republican candidates who contested or denied the outcome of the 2020 presidential election from holding public office in which they could have created serious election irregularities. 2024. Emerging from the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, voters appeared ready for stability, robustness and logic. The results showed that they weren’t looking for dramatic changes or extreme candidates, instead looking for something safer. “As much as anything people are trying to find their balance,” said Democratic pollster Peter Hart. “It’s been a tough two years for America. These are elections for normality and not ideology.” “When you feel things are volatile and close to unraveling, you look for candidates who will provide a safe harbor,” said Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson. The fringe candidates found themselves in tougher-than-expected races, most notably Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who as of Wednesday afternoon trailed her Democratic challenger, Adam Frisch, by a few thousand votes. “Trump lost Election Day,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. “Many of his candidates and his style of politics lost. Despite low job numbers and dissatisfaction with the economy, voters actually confirmed Biden-style politics.” Exit polls, while not conclusive, offered some evidence to support this. More than 9 in 10 of those who approved of Biden’s performance, strongly or somewhat, voted for Democratic House candidates, and more than 9 in 10 of those who strongly disapproved voted for Republicans. But among the 10 percent of the electorate who said they somewhat disapprove of the way Biden is handling his job, 49 percent supported Democratic candidates versus 45 percent who supported GOP candidates. The data too offered telltale signs of the conflict between the issues being pushed by Republicans and those being pushed by Democrats. Nationally, abortion ranked second only to inflation as the most important issue in citizens’ voting choices. In some key states, the comparisons were even more dramatic. In Michigan, where voters approved a referendum to include abortion rights in the state constitution, 45% of the electorate said this issue was more important compared to 28% who named inflation. In Pennsylvania, 37 percent cited abortion compared to 28 percent who cited inflation. In New Hampshire, 36 percent cited inflation and 35 percent cited abortion. And in that state, even as Republican Gov. Chris Sununu was re-elected, Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan fended off a strong challenger to win by 10 percentage points, and two Democratic House members, Ann Kuster and Chris Pappas, easily defeated their challengers in the GOP. . Republicans had thought that any or all three of those contests could end up in their column. “I think the voters were saying, ‘Don’t tell us what we care about. we’ll tell you what we’re interested in,” said William Galston of the Brookings Institution. “The conventional wisdom in the week before the election was that abortion had faded as a burning issue, that Democrats were making a huge mistake not talking more about the economy, and that the combination of inflation and crime would be deadly. -two fists.” If there was another big message, it was the damage done to Trump and his wing of the Republican Party. “It’s not a catastrophic fall for him, but it feels more like we’ve reached a turning point,” said historian Gary Gerstle. “The Republican Party may be moving away from Trump somewhat, but not in a way that recognizes that. … We’re starting to see in this election a quiet drift, which Trump will notice because he’s paying close attention.” Rosenberg added: “The big mistake of the Republicans this cycle is that they ran to his politics [Make American Great Again] which had been rejected by the American people in the last two elections.” Trump’s politics appeared to be most problematic in the handful of states that decided the last two presidential elections and were at the center of Tuesday’s battle for control of the Senate. “Voters may be tired of the rhetoric or just tired of the hype,” said Jennifer Piscopo, chair of the politics department at Occidental College. “His very core base does not have a majority in these more diverse swing areas.” Some analysts see the results as a shift in the balance of power within the Republican coalition, with DeSantis the biggest winner of the night. In Florida, DeSantis won 58 percent of the Hispanic vote and carried traditionally Democratic Miami-Dade County, the state’s most populous county, with 55 percent of the vote overall. Galston speculated that Republicans may conclude that DeSantis is “the one who can break the nation’s 50-50 barrier” and give them a governing majority. “I’m sure a lot of Republicans are asking, ‘Why isn’t he our best candidate?’” he said. There were signs that the polarization that defined the electorate was deepening with this election. According to a Washington Post analysis of national election returns, counties where at least 40 percent of adults hold a bachelor’s degree or more went heavily Democratic, by nearly 60 percent, just marginally below Biden’s performance in 2020. Counties where fewer than 22 percent of adults have a college degree cast 69 percent of their votes for Republican candidates in House races, six percentage points above Trump’s performance in 2020. The highest-income counties went for Democratic House candidates, but not as strongly as they supported Biden in 2020. But in middle- and lower-income counties, Republican House candidates fared better than Trump did in 2020. Republicans were hoping to make big gains in suburban areas on Tuesday. They improved their performance in 2020 but not spectacularly. In 2020, suburban counties supported Biden with 52 percent of the vote. On Tuesday, based on current numbers, Republicans won…
