The Political pendulum continues to swing; Tuesday's elections spell doom for Democrats
With shades of 2009, Republicans took the governor's mansion in increasingly blue Virginia, and nearly won in New Jersey too.
Americans are almost always unhappy with their government.
Anywhere between 59% and 71% say that the country is on the wrong track.
Nearly every midterm, the party in power loses seats. The last time that didn’t happen was 2002, a year after 9/11 when Americans were mostly united.
The first year after a Presidential race is pretty limited in the total number of elections happening, but the ones that are on the schedule often give a good glimpse into what is coming the following year. In 2009, just 4 years after Virginia had elected Democrat Tim Kaine as their governor, Republican Bob McDonnell won in a landslide, setting the stage for the Tea Party wave of 2010. In New Jersey, Democrat Jon Corzine had won by double digits in 2005, but lost as an incumbent in 2009 to Chris Christie of all people. 2010 proved to be an even bigger disaster for Democrats, as Republicans gained a remarkable 63 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate, destroying the momentum of the “Hope and Change” Obama message and creating infinite gridlock in Congress.
One year after Donald Trump was elected in 2016, it was the same story in these 2 governors races. New Jersey was coming off of 2 straight terms of Republican Chris Christie at the helm, but Democrat Phil Murphy was able to win easily, by nearly 14%. Democrats had narrowly taken back the seat in Virginia in 2013, as VA continued its transition from a true swing state into a place where Republicans hadn’t won a statewide race in 12 years (until now), but Ralph Northam of blackface infamy won comfortably in 2017. Democrats then turned that into a 40 seat gain in the House the following year.
Notes from Virginia:
Democrat Terry McAuliffe was already governor of the state once, having served from 2013-2017, and was also chair of the failed 2008 Hillary Clinton campaign. Republican Glenn Youngkin is a former CEO of private equity giant “Carlyle Group”.
These 2 men have nearly identical policies, both so-called “moderates”. Hence why this campaign has been completely devoid of discussion of policy, and more focused on Donald Trump, who has nothing to do with the race.
Once a true swing state, Virginia has trended more and more blue in recent years, as the suburbs around Washington D.C., Virginia Beach and Richmond have expanded, decreasing the vote share of the more rural western part of the state.
President Joe Biden won the state by over 10%.
Youngkin outperformed former President Trump in every single one of Virginia’s 133 counties and city municipalities, flipping 12 from blue to red.
Down-ballot Republicans shared the same level of success, flipping the State House along with the Lieutenant Governor seat and the Attorney General.
There are a lot of battles going on right now to try and solidify a specific narrative to stick to this race. Many on the right are claiming that this election was an uprising of parents against critical race theory, while different factions of the Democratic Party are trying to pin the loss on each other. But after combing through tons of exit-poll data from the race, there are basically no significant trends to take away from this election specifically. Voters supported Youngkin at nearly identical rates whether they had children or not. Education wasn’t even the top issue to voters, although it was 2nd after “the economy and jobs”. McAuliffe lost ground among nearly all groups of voters from Biden’s 2020 performance, although young voters and white women without a college degree both shifted the furthest towards Youngkin. Turnout was actually very high for an off-year election, so it’s not like Democrats didn’t come to the polls. What it really seems to come down to is the national mood of voters overall. Biden and Democrats approval rating is down significantly right now, and that translated into difficult election results across the board.
Notes from New Jersey:
Phil Murphy was the incumbent Democratic governor, and is best known for his long career at Goldman Sachs, where he amassed a great deal of wealth. Jack Ciaterelli, his Republican opponent, is less well known but is a businessman himself and former member of the NJ state assembly.
Once again, these 2 candidates are both so-called “moderates” in their respective parties, and neither is particularly inspiring.
Biden won the state by just under 16%.
Murphy won by nearly an identical margin in 2017.
This race flew completely under the radar from the national press, and Murphy consistently held a polling lead of 10% or more.
Ciaterelli outperformed former President Trump in 20 of New Jersey’s 21 counties, and flipped 4 of them from blue to red.
This race was paid very little attention leading up to election day, and that has continued due to Murphy holding on for a close victory. Optimists in the Democratic aisle will point to the fact that this is the first time a Democratic incumbent has retained the governor’s mansion in New Jersey since 1973, but I don’t think the historical trend applies here. Since everything seems to be based on national politics now, I think it’s extremely difficult to flip this result into a positive for Democrats. New Jersey doesn’t figure to be a swing state at a presidential level anytime soon, but district level races could become much more difficult, including for federal Reps Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05), Tom Malinowski (NJ-07) and Mikie Sherill (NJ-11).
2 Takeaways and a Prediction for 2022
In my opinion, there are really only 2 things to take away from Tuesday’s elections. I’ve already touched upon the first one, which is that state level politics and unique candidates are basically dead. Everything is based on national politics, so you can predict with great accuracy what will happen in individual races based on the approval rating of the national party. While President Biden was quite popular for most of his first year in office, a combination of factors has sent his rating tumbling, with the average of polls showing him underwater by about 8%, with around 43% approval and 51% disapproval.
My second takeaway comes after recognizing and accepting that, in the age of social media, everything in politics is nationalized. If this is the case, then it’s up to one or both national parties to finally step up and deliver for their constituents. The current battle in Washington over the reconciliation package is a prime example. At the start of negotiations, Biden’s approval rating was relatively high. After months of Democrats negotiating against themselves, all of the most popular proposals in the bill have been stripped out and voters are understandably very frustrated.
This is not a new phenomenon by any means. In 2008 voters handed President Obama a massive mandate, including the House and a filibuster-proof Senate. What did we end up with? Absolutely nothing except a health care plan that was drawn up in Mitt Romney’s Heritage Foundation. In 2016 Donald Trump won the Presidency and had full control of Congress himself, but was unable to make any meaningful reforms to trade or immigration like he campaigned on. Now, Democrats have the Presidency back, and slim majorities in both branches of Congress. Through all of this, Congress has done the least amount of work in its history, so expect the pendulum to continue swinging.
For a long time now, 2022 has seemed like a difficult election year to predict. There are a number of factors to consider, from Republicans not trusting election results and hence being less likely to vote, to abortion laws like the one in Texas perhaps motivating Democrats. The Senate map is also extremely favorable to Democrats, with 34 Democratic seats not up for election compared to only 30 for Republicans, plus 3 Republicans retiring in swing states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina) and potentially a 4th in Ron Johnson from Wisconsin. But, after Tuesday’s results, it seems right now that historical trends will prove to be supreme once again.
50 would be less than 2010’s loss of 63 seats, but still an absolute disaster. Looking at the Senate, a 53-47 Republican advantage looks like the most realistic scenario right now, with R’s flipping Nevada, New Hampshire, taking back Arizona and Georgia, and Democrats having the slight advantage to flip Pennsylvania. This would likely be the end of the Biden’s presidency in any meaningful legislative way, and would set up whichever Republican runs for President in 2024 to have full control of Congress once again, and….. likely do nothing meaningful. The cycle continues.
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