Salon Magazine: Good News for Democrats
I like their analysis since I tend to agree with it. Mid-term elections lost by the party in power are driven by turnout, not by some big shift in political opinion. Yep, Biden's job approval numbers have gone down, though if you pay attention to that kind of news, you'd have noticed they rebounded and bounced back quite a bit in December, not all the way, but getting in the ball park. And they can be compared in contrast to Trump's unfavorability, which is growing and hit a new high point in December, at 57%.
Why I'm Optimistic About the 2022 Midterms
This particular author did a little bit of research, instead of buying the line that since Republicans control legislatures in several of the states that are getting new seats, they can simply re-district enough Democrats out of power to get control of the house. But that's not what's happened at all.
The author of the Salon article, Amanda Marcotte, says, "A lot of it comes down to the fact that demographic changes have been so dramatic that Republicans, in many places, decided to 'consolidate' their current position rather than take a riskier path that might expand their seats. In the end, Democrats should have a shot at far more seats than previously believed."
Citing a Washington Post article by Paul Waldman, who states that the end result of redistricting will either be a "wash" or will wind up giving the Democrats a shot at more seats, Marcotte points to facts, rather than media speculation, which includes research done by experts who keep an eye on these things. There are two sides to the story. While Republicans do control state legislatures in several of the states that are getting new seats, Democrats control state legislatures in states that lost seats, which also have to be redrawn. In Illinois, where Democrats are in charge of the process, the seat that was taken away was a Republican seat, and the redrawing of the district lines put Democratic majorities in at least two other districts where the GOP had a razor-thin advantage. In Pennsylvania, an independent commission, which re-aligned the districts prior to 2018 and doubled the Democratic seats from five to ten, has essentially proposed the same thing, which moves Democratic majorities into two marginal GOP districts.
Even a casual observation of the districts drawn in the state of Texas, for example, where room has to be made for two additional members of Congress shows that there was virtually no place for Republicans to go to create two more GOP seats, while still protecting the ones that they have, because the population growth in the state over the past decade has yielded far more Democratic voters, specifically Latino Democratic voters, while the white, Republican vote has diminished significantly since 2012, by more than 10% and more than a million votes, reflected in the statewide totals that Beto O'Rourke got in his run against Ted Cruz, and what Biden picked up in 2020. Even Clinton's total in 2016 was up by nearly half a million over what Obama got in 2012.
Observing vote totals from elections since 2010 show that the Republican share of the vote in congressional elections nationwide has shrunk by 5%. And while both parties are guilty of gerrymandering, by definition, it is much more obvious in states which have a statewide Democratic voter majority but a Republican legislature drawing the lines. When an independent commission was ordered to redistrict Pennsylvania in 2017, prior to the mid-terms, because of a lawsuit, the lines they drew, along geographic and political boundaries, and evening out the populations in the districts, changed the political affiliation of its congressional representatives from 5 Democrats, 14 Republicans to 10 Democrats, 9 Republicans. That's much more aligned with the voter registration, though there are still a couple of "packed" districts in the Philadelphia area.
Even states that had population growth, but didn't quite reach the threshold of adding a new seat, like Arizona for example, will find it almost impossible to draw congressional districts that don't reflect the significant growth among Democratic voters in the state. Arizona also has a commission that draws the districts, and the maps they have released reflect the big political reality that Maricopa County, where three out of four Arizonans live, has become blue territory. In a record voter turnout, Biden won the county by 40,000 votes and since that's where 80% of the growth has been, the new district alignments reflect this fact. Portions of at least two marginally Republican districts have had to add more of Maricopa County to even out the populations. That they would remain GOP is based on past assumptions, but the majority of Arizona's new residents are former Californians, who are Democrats by a 65-35 margin, and Latinos who, in 2020 in Arizona, were a 70-30 Democratic majority. Latinos make up 60% of the new voter registrations since 2010.
According to both the Washington Post and Salon, this is what the experts who do the digging on this think it looks like. Maybe the rest of the media will pick up on it at some point, but I'm not holding my breath.
Mid-Term Elections Are All About the Turnout
Marcotte's #4 reason for Democratic optimism has to do with the "vomit inducing" line-up of Republican candidates running for office. It's unfortunate that the GOP has already managed to elect a number of these kinds of people, but it is fortunate that many others like them who have run for office haven't been elected. I believe the "Trump factor," including his endorsements and pushing candidates, represents some of the best chances Democrats have for increasing their congressional majorities in both houses.
It means that Democrats and moderate leaning independents will have to turn out and vote in November. The Virginia election this past November is, perhaps, the best wake-up call that exists to drive this point home. With a GOP candidate who was only marginally a Trumpie, and a not-so-exciting Democrat at the top of the ticket, it turned into a lower than expected Democratic turnout. That can't happen in 2022, and it doesn't have to.
The DNC does appear to have a very workable strategy and they are being very supportive. The contributions, motivated by Trump's shadow, will underwrite a lot of strategy. Democrats who will be on the ballot are, in many states, popular, have sizeable leads in early polling and have solid, well organized campaign teams that are working on getting the turnout they need. In Arizona, where Senator Kelly has a strong, deep campaign aimed at turnout, there's also a strong, popular Democrat looking for a primary win for Governor, current Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. She excites voters in Arizona because she's provided fact after fact to prove the vote totals in 2020 were accurate, and successfully engaged with the "Cyber Ninjas," the Trump fraud group that spent $6 million finding out that Trump really did lose to Biden in Arizona.
The setup is similar in Georgia, where Stacy Abrams is set to make another run for Governor, and will be on the ticket with Senator Warnock. That's a well funded, powerful ticket. Those will be exciting campaigns. In Pennsylvania, several popular Democrats are running for the senate seat being vacated by Pat Toomey, who is retiring. The GOP is offering a slate of deplorable Trumpies, in a state he lost by a hundred thousand votes.
But one of the things Democrats need to learn how to do is not rest on winning the Presidential race, but go back and make sure they cast a ballot in the mid-terms. As we have learned, elections have consequences and even though there have been more Democrats voting nationwide since 2000 than Republicans, and that number grows, the turnout needs to be high because of the gerrymandering.
This can be done. Doug Jones won a special election in one of the most Republican states in the country by having a campaign that got the turnout against one of those "vomit-inducing" Republicans. And even though he knew his term would be short, and in a general election he would be overwhelmed by straight-ticket voting Republicans, he was committed to the Democratic agenda while he was Senator. He'd be an asset if he were in there now, coming from a state that is as conservative as West Virginia.
For What It's Worth, Some Suggestions For Winning This
Trump's strong disapproval rating, which averages 57% in composite polling data, isn't getting any better and in fact, gets worse with each passing month. If the media just stopped paying attention to an ex-president who offers nothing but lies, he would fade into oblivion. If you take the percentage of Republicans who say they don't support him, add that to independents and Democrats who say the same, you come to somewhere slightly above 70% of the electorate. The Democrats have a strong core base and if Trump pushes a list of "vomit-inducing" nut jobs, who wind up beating some mainstream Republicans in primaries, the Democrats can count on winning some of those seats.
We need to take advantage of that in every place possible. These GOP candidates have nothing to offer and are basing their campaigns on falsehoods. Compare and contrast everything the Democrats are doing to genuinely make things better for people with Republican opposition to any kind of help, support or stimulus and their tendency to redistribute income from the working class to the rich. That should be a major motivator for voters.
Ignore the media, even the mainstream media, and anything that speculates or relies on past trends without pointing out facts. Amanda Marcotte, of Salon, is to be commended for doing exactly that in this piece which makes it worth citing and sharing. Likewise, several Washington Post and New York Times political writers do the same thing. Both of those publications are worth the ridiculously cheap electronic subscription rates. MSNBC's evening lineup, specifically Joy Reid, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, are A+. The weekend lineups are also excellent. Let's see if we can't improve their ratings.
The economy is roaring. There's been some obstruction within the party, but there's also been some movement in a positive direction, especially by a couple of Senators in particular. I'm working on digging up some facts, but I'm hearing that Democrats in both West Virginia and Arizona have made significant impressions on Senators from their respective states, in West Virginia specifically, where over 60% of the voters strongly approved of the Build Back Better bill in its original form, I hear that the response was "overwhelming."
Vote. Every time there's an election, get in line and cast a ballot. I got some strange looks at a recent gathering for local, city council candidates when I raised my hand and asked the question, "Do you believe Donald Trump really lost the 2020 election?" One of the candidates started in with the line that those issues really had nothing to do with the council election and I countered by saying I would not vote to put anyone in public office who believed that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, regardless of the issues or the level of the election, and I got some applause for saying it. And I voted for the candidate who quickly and boldly said he believed the election was secure and accurate, and Trump was a liar. He won, by the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment