It was a little comical when President Trump claimed the Republicans won the 2018 midterms considering Nancy Pelosi had just rode a Democratic wave of 41 seats to reclaim her spot as the Speaker of the House, but he had a point when it came to the Senate. There were some bright spots for Senate Democrats, notably reelecting Joe Manchin and Jon Tester, and winning Jeff Flake’s seat in Arizona and Dean Heller’s seat in Arizona. On the whole, however, it was a disastrous night, as Democratic incumbents Heidi Heitkamp, Claire McCaskill, Joe Donnelly, and Bill Nelson all lost, and the Democrats failed to topple Ted Cruz or win an open seat in Tennessee.
It was a tale of two midterms, and it should be remembered by any Democrat who thinks Joe Biden is on a glide path to win the presidency or who is overconfident that Mitch McConnell will be ousted as Senate Majority Leader. As Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal reports, Trump’s small post-convention bounce was still big “enough to draw Trump closer to Joe Biden in battleground states and give Republicans a fighting chance to hold their Senate majority.”
This is because Trump further polarized the electorate, making blue areas bluer, but also making red areas redder. The bottom line numbers are virtually unchanged, but it became harder for the Democrats to take over Republican territory. That’s important not just because Biden needs to win several Trump states in order to win the Electoral College, but also because the Democrats are hoping to win Senate seats in states like Alaska, Montana, Kansas, Texas, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and (two in) Georgia.
Remember, it doesn’t help Joe Biden and Cal Cunningham win North Carolina if all their suburban and Research Triangle gains are wiped out by bigger rural margins for the president. I’ve been warning about this possibility since a couple of days after the last election. It’s a nightmare scenario I first detected in a July 2013 piece: The GOP is Moving in the Wrong Direction. Consider that the following excerpt was written before I had any inkling that Donald Trump would be a candidate in 2016:
It appears that most Republicans are dropping the idea that they need to do better with Latinos and adopting the idea that they need to do even better with white voters…
…The most obvious way is to pursue an us vs. them approach that alternatively praises whites as the true, patriotic Americans, and that demonizes non-whites as a drain on the nation’s resources. This is basically the exact strategy pursued by McCain and especially Romney. It’s what Palin was all about, and it’s what that 47% speech was all about.
…Accusing the Democrats of socialism, which is a race-neutral way of accusing the party of being beholden to the racial underclasses, has been proven insufficient. The only hope for a racial-polarization strategy is to get the races to segregate their votes much more thoroughly, and that requires that more and more whites come to conclude that the Democratic Party is the party for blacks, Asians, and Latinos.
That is, indeed, how the party is perceived in the Deep South, but it would be criminal to expand those racial attitudes to the country at large.
The Republicans are coalescing around a strategy that will, by necessity, be more overtly racist than anything we’ve seen since segregation was outlawed.
Basically, I was hoping that the GOP wouldn’t go full-Trump before I even knew that full-Trump existed. What I saw was that it was the direction they were headed and that, though unconscionable, it had the potential to work.
And it can still work. Its effectiveness depends on some quirks in the system, like the Electoral College and the distribution of support between the Democrats (dense and narrow) and the Republicans (diffuse and broad). The white racial appeal works best on non-college educated whites and older generations, so states with low education levels or aging populations are Trump’s best targets.
It’s not easy to defend against this strategy, because it often operates a zero sum game. Hillary Clinton lost Michigan and Wisconsin because black turnout was down sharply in Detroit and Milwaukee, but also because she was slaughtered by unprecedented numbers in rural areas. Picking Kamala Harris as his running mate has the potential to solve the first problem while exacerbating the second. If it’s a wash, then it benefits the Republicans because a more polarized electorate makes easier for incumbents to win. This is why the Senate races suddenly looks like a harder lift for the Democrats, and it also probably explains a narrowing lead for Biden in Pennsylvania.
The Democrats had four years to figure out a way to avoid another bloodbath in the sticks, but they’re enamored with their suburban strategy. It gave them the House, after all, and it has Biden up considerably in the national polls. It still might not be good enough.
Healthcare policy can probably eat into those suburban-rural margins a bit. Instead of getting wiped out 80-20, maybe it can make it 70-30, but that might be enough. Just need to highlight who has the better healthcare plan, and who wants to get rid of preexisting conditions clause.
If COVID is still raging (and it seems there’s an uptick in the MidWest), then this becomes all the more important. Today, two polls had Biden up in Ohio and trailing by just 5 in MO. Not sure that means anything, but it seems there might be some openness in the reddest states to listen to something different. Also, make sure that the minority communities in the Midwest are reached to offset some of the loss.
Agreed. COVID isn’t going away any time soon. As more folks lose employer based health insurance, talking up healthcare is a great way to start a conversation. Maybe it won’t change minds to the Dems, but if it causes someone to sit home who would vote R, same thing.
Healthcare is a kitchen table issue, especially with COVID-19 still doing its thing. Since right now an optimistic scenario is to get down to early June COVID-19 case numbers by late this month, we’ve got a situation were we still have a pandemic in our corner of the world that is not contained once the next spike happens. And just in time for flu season. So reminding folks of how a public option could help, or simply reminding folks that those jobs that provided health insurance as a benefit aren’t coming back unless we get COVID-19 controlled is part of the argument – and also making it damned crystal clear that the Trump regime had plenty of time to come up with a nation-wide strategy but pissed it away. The other thing to focus on is Social Security and Medicare. I’m still a ways off from retiring, but I’ve paid something like 35 years into that benefit, and I am expecting to receive. Trump’s efforts to sabotage the payroll tax will kill Social Security during his presumptive second term. Nice Social Security check you got there. Nice that Medicare is paying for a few things. Would be a shame if anything happened to those. And we know who will kneecap those benefits – Trump and the GOP that is subservient to him. So another issue to hammer at. That may bring some of our elder voters back into the fold – if even for just an election year, as there is an actual near-term threat to their own benefits. Other thing in industrial states is to keep hammering away at all the manufacturing jobs that were promised and never came. Keep hammering away at how infrastructure week became a running joke. You want jobs? Want union jobs with benefits? This is your last hope. There’s a lot of work to do in 2021. But it only happens if Trump is fired.
This, but also, Democrats can blow the election by trusting that they can just drop their ballot into their own mailbox and have it counted like an in-person vote.
Trump and his Camoshirts have already said that they will be tampering with mail-in ballots. They said so when they projected what they will be doing, onto Democrats.
So, vote early, in person. If you have to vote by mail, DROP YOUR BALLOT OFF INSIDE THE PRECINCT.
Freedom ain’t free.
Any in person voter fraud also plays into his hands. Nevermind he is on video telling his supporters to commit voter fraud. If he loses, it’s because people voted twice. Even if all the voter fraud is done by registered Republicans. Because that’s a detail, and not important to the man-child’s narrative.
That’s the plan. And as a reminder, voting during the pandemic is pretty safe. “If you can grocery shop in person, you can vote in person,” just like the subtitle says. Guess what, I still go to local grocers and pharmacies in person, and I definitely no spring chicken. Take all the precautions, follow the rules and guidelines and mandates in place where I live, and although no guarantee, it’s worked. Wisconsin was something of a test case, but so were numerous other states. Just stay physically distanced as much as possible, wear masks, and keep some hand sanitizer handy for after you submit your ballot. Early voting is the best bet, as crowds are minimal, relatively speaking. I wouldn’t trust the USPS any farther than I could throw the Postmaster General, under the circumstances. Vote in person. And yes, freedom ain’t free. We do have to be willing to take some calculated risks for the good of the country. This calculated risk seems like a safe one, all things considered. Got my calendar marked and am ready for action.
Martin, it’s been a while since I saw you lay this out. I see the electoral problem you identify. My question is what new policies and rhetoric Democrats should use to avoid the 80/20 crushings which they suffered in some rural areas in recent elections. I can imagine policies and rhetoric that Democrats might pursue which get them more rural voters but lose them even more suburban and rural voters. I think you shared your views about the policies/rhetoric issue in the past. What are your views on that today? You don’t address the pros and cons of various policy and rhetorical adjustments in this post.
*lose them even more suburban and urban voters, I meant to type.