The Midterms and Beyond

While a few races are still unresolved, it is clear that Democrats fared much better in the Midterm elections than expected by pollsters, politicians, and pundits. There will be numerous analyses of just how and why this happened. It seems to me, however, that the Democrats’ success lay largely in a remarkable irony. Specifically, the election of Democrats seems to be more attributable to Donald Trump and to his appointees on the Supreme Court than to efforts of Joe Biden and the Democrats.

Trump wanted the elections to be about him and his Big Lie and, to a considerable extent, he was successful. He had a major influence on the GOP selection of candidates, whereby nominations were generally available only to those who subscribed to the Big Lie.  And many of the election deniers who passed that litmus test had little to recommend them to voters in the general election. Even Mitch McConnell  was heard to muse sourly about the problem of candidate quality. In the end, that problem led to the election of numerous Democrats in races that Republicans might have won with stronger candidates. In addition, Trump kept the focus on himself with noisy rallies of his devoted followers. Republican candidates who wanted to distance themselves from Trump had to do it on tiptoes lest they incur his wrath. 

Trump’s appointees on the Supreme Court, together with their three senior colleagues in the Court’s conservative bloc, gave Democrats the issue of abortion by their decision overruling Roe v. Wade. It will require more analysis to assess just how big a factor that decision was, but there is little doubt that it was an animating event that brought millions of women to the polls. This issue is surely not one that Democrats wanted to have, but it contributed significantly to their success. Unexpectedly, exit polls showed that abortion played a far larger role than pundits and pollsters had anticipated.

For his part, Biden was forced to operate with his dismal approval ratings an albatross around his neck. As a result, he played a limited role in the campaign, largely confining his activities to fund raisers and campaigning actively where candidates affirmatively welcomed his participation. Nevertheless, in a press conference after the elections, Biden claimed vindication, and no one could blame him. But his signal contribution may have been to follow the physicians’ credo of doing no harm.

In my previous blog, I charged the Democrats with ineptitude in failing to exploit the absurdity of Republicans’ devotion to Trump and the Big Lie. While I continue to believe that the point could have been made more consistently and more aggressively, many election deniers were defeated. Most important, many were defeated in races for offices in which they would have had the power to influence the 2024 election. Citing Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the New York Times reported:

Voters in a series of critical battleground states rejected Republican candidates for governor, attorney general and secretary of state who have spread doubts about the 2020 election, blocking an effort to install allies of former President Donald J. Trump in positions with sweeping authority over voting. 

On the other hand, the Times also reported that rejection of the Big Lie was far from universal:

Voters did not abandon Republican election deniers nationwide. Several such candidates for Senate were victorious, including J.D. Vance in Ohio and Representative Ted Budd in North Carolina, and dozens more won races for less prominent offices. 

Indeed, one of the most damaging elements of Donald Trump’s toxic legacy has been to undermine the trust of millions of Americans in the integrity of our elections. This trust may not be regained for many years, if ever, and for many it has fundamentally shaken their confidence in American democracy. Indeed, how many of us today can think of our country in terms of Ronald Reagan’s concept of a “shining city on a hill”?  If we have lost that sense of ourselves, it can only have serious effects, not only here but globally. 

Democrats and sentient Republicans may be in a mood to celebrate the fact that the feared Red Wave appeared to be a modest ripple or perhaps a series of blotches. Any celebration, however, should be brief and muted. While final results are still a ways off, it appears that, even with only a ripple, Republicans are still likely to take the House and possibly the Senate. Under such circumstances, the way forward will be difficult at best and potentially calamitous.

Republicans have made it clear that, with control of the House, it will be their intention to investigate the Biden administration on every imaginable subject. But that is hardly the worst of it. As reported in the last blog, one of the Republicans’ most dangerous threats is to weaponize the need for a debt ceiling increase in order to extract radical concessions from the administration and Congressional Democrats. Professor Michael Dorf has pointed out that there is a way of preventing such reckless extortion. Specifically, Dorf suggests that Democrats take preventive action during the lame duck session of Congress between now and the end of the year:

Using reconciliation, Congress can authorize an increase in the debt ceiling that covers anticipated borrowing into at least early 2025 with a large margin for error. (Ideally, they’d repeal the debt ceiling entirely or raise it to such a high level that it becomes inconsequential, but that appears to be politically impossible because of the fear of demagoguery on this issue). 

Dorf also points out that reconciliation could be used to protect funding for Ukraine, which Republicans have indicated is also in jeopardy. One hopes the Biden administration is listening.

The remaining question is what impact the Midterm results may have on presidential candidates for 2024. Donald Trump may feel the sting of the results, but he is not likely to acknowledge it, let alone allow it to interfere with an announcement of his candidacy. Apart from his ever-needy ego, Trump clearly sees his candidacy as a Get Out Of Jail Free card.

One hopes that he is wrong in that assessment, but he will not lightly abandon it.

One of Tuesday’s more notable results was the landslide reelection of Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. That outcome has created tension between DeSantis and Trump, but it seems doubtful that DeSantis would challenge Trump directly. But if Trump should be seriously wounded by a federal or state indictment, DeSantis would be the most likely alternative.

Since Joe Biden appears to feel vindicated by the election results, it has probably strengthened his thoughts of running in 2024. But Biden may be misreading the Midterms if Democratic successes were achieved in spite of, rather than because of, the electorate’s view of him. Nevertheless, Biden believes that he has been consistently underestimated and perhaps he will prove skeptics wrong again.