What Red Wave? Part II

It certainly was not a total blowout for Republicans.  Fox reported that governors who either opposed Covid lockdowns, or reopened their states quickly, did very well.  Ron DeSantis in Florida won reelection by 19.4 percentage points.  DeSantis had his state on lockdown for only one month, with schools closed for under 3 months.  Kristi Noem of South Dakota won reelection by 26.8 points.  She did not lock her state down, and only closed schools for less than 3 months.  

Kim Reynolds of Iowa won reelection by 18.6 points.  Again, Governor Reynolds only closed the schools for a few months.  Jared Polis of Colorado won by 18.1 points, having a one month shutdown only.  And Brian Kemp of Georgia again beat Stacey Abrams, this time by 7.6 points.  We'll see if Ms. Abrams again becomes an election denier.  

As Kimberly Strassel, of the Wall Street Journal, noted, DeSantis carried Hispanics, women, white men, older voters, independents and married voters.  ABC reported that DeSantis carried Hispanics by 57% to 42%.  He carried Cubans 68% to 31%, likely because Cuban voters understand freedom better than most.  In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine won by 25 points, and helped to increase Republican majorities in the legislature.  In Iowa, not only did Governor Reynolds win, and Senator Grassley win, both by double digits or more, but Republicans held all of the State's House and Senate seats.  Republicans also gained a super majority in the state Senate, and increased their majority in the state House.

In Texas, in addition to Governor Abbott winning, the Republicans increased their majorities in the state legislature.  Governor Abbott:  "Tonight, Texans sent a message that they want to keep Texas the beacon of opportunity that we provided over the past eight years."  Hard to argue with that, given the supporting facts.  In the decade from 2010 to 2020, Texas added about 4 million people.  Meanwhile, California lost people and lost a US House seat as a result.  700,000 Californians during that decade moved from California to Texas.  And, as recently as in 2021 alone, 62 businesses moved from California to Texas.  

Of course, the Democrats had their own wins - in addition to staving off a red wave in the House and the Senate.  In 4 states that had split governments before the election, the Democrats post election are now in complete control.  In Michigan, Minnesota, Maryland and Massachusetts, the Democrats control the governor's house as well as both branches of the state legislature.

Is there a takeaway from these state elections?  Daniel Henninger, of the Wall Street Journal, thinks so.  Referring to Governors DeSantis, Kemp, Abbott, DeWine and Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, Henninger concluded:  "Each of these Republican governors ran on policy successes that elevated their state's economies, schools and indeed personal freedom.  Abortion didn't defeat them."    

Could the Republicans have done better in this divided country?  Maybe.  But, clearly all is not doom and gloom either.    

What Red Wave? Part I

There have been many explanations for why the Republicans did not do better in the 2022 midterm elections.  Abortion, with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade (Dobbs case).  One commentator suggested that many people thought the decision actually outlawed abortion nationwide.  Which, of course, it did not.  (Perhaps "government" is no longer taught in the schools.)  The threat to democracy.  Weak Republican candidates.  Young people, who vote overwhelmingly Democrat, voted in large numbers.  Biden, an unpopular president, mostly avoided the campaign trail, akin to hiding in the basement in 2020. 

I think that the outcome in the Senate gives us a pretty good clue as to what happened.  Of the 35 Senate seats up for election, the Democrats were at risk for 14 - and won all 14.  The Republicans were at risk for 21 - and so far have won 20, with Georgia to be decided by a runoff vote on December 6.  Regardless of who wins (if Walker wins the Senate remains at 50-50, and if Warnock wins it will be 51-49 in favor of the Democrats), the message seems to be that the country remains very evenly divided.  As I write this, the GOP has the lead in the House, barely, 212 seats to 204, with 19 seats still to be decided.  Again, very evenly divided.  So, the question I have is this - with such an evenly divided country, should we have even expected a red wave?

Were other factors at play?  Probably.  But, again, the question I have is - were those factors simply supporting the evenly divided outcome in our evenly divided country?  For example, the Democrats, who always excel at their unified messaging, talked non-stop about the threat to democracy by MAGA Republicans, by which they meant all Republicans.  It was not just Biden's speech (see the 9/4/22 post).  It was virtually all the Democrat candidates, along with their allies in the mainstream media.  And the messaging was non-stop.  Did that messaging prevent more Republicans from winning, when inflation is at a 40 year high, crime and homelessness are out of control, the border is unprotected (with over 5 million people crossing illegally since Biden took office), lack of energy independence (with high gas prices), and a feckless foreign policy.  Inflation, alone, should have resulted in a red wave, no?  

It is worth pointing out that the Democrats played dirty.  In a surprising, but successful move, the Democrats spent tens of millions of dollars in support of weak Republican candidates in the primaries.  Yes, they supported many "MAGA Republicans" in the primaries, expecting that they would be easier to defeat in the general election.  Their bet paid off, as those candidates did, indeed, lose.  But the very idea that the Democrats would support candidates in any election that they viewed as a threat to democracy, was called "cynical" by the Wall Street Journal.  One could also call it hypocritical.  I call it corrupt.  

Chuck Schumer had some interesting comments, after realizing that he would remain Senate Majority leader.  Schumer:  (the) "American people...rejected the anti-democratic, extremist MAGA Republicans."  And this:  (Americans are) "not happy with Republican leaders who condoned and even supported this nasty, poisonous rhetoric."  Schumer is a piece of work.  As Majority Leader, he stood outside the Supreme Court of the United States and threatened Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, if they did not agree with him on abortion.  As we know, there was subsequently an effort made to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh.  Schumer is a hypocritical liar.

And I'm sick of hearing about the "anti-democratic, extremist MAGA Republicans."  Democrats, who will not support US sovereignty, with their open border policy; who favored state courts rulings against state laws that placed limits on the time for voting; who support prosecutors who ignore state laws in order to effect "equity" in the criminal justice system, thereby ignoring the victims and protecting the criminals.  Tell me how ignoring enacted legislation supports democracy.  And who is extremist?  All the Democrats who claimed election fraud over the last decade or more, with some still in Congress? The Democrats who support socialism?  The Democrats who want to defund the police?  How about the antisemites in Congress who are part of the Democrat Party?  Why isn't antisemitism considered "extreme?"  Oh, that's right.  It is only considered extreme when the Democrats believe they can pin the "antisemite" label on a Republican.   

Did the consistent "anti-democratic MAGA extremists" propaganda play a role in the outcome?  To the extent that it may have affected the votes of independents, I would say it did.  Again, the Democrats have the near universal support of the mainstream media.  And the message was repeated day after day after day.  We have a mainstream media that no longer bothers to even give any pretense of being objective.  In fact, quite a few so-called "journalists" have justified their one-sided reporting (lying) on behalf of Democrats.  

When I refer to the mainstream media, it is not just most newspapers, it is also NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC.  It is also many TV shows and movies, because the writers are usually left-wing.  In a recent episode of "The Good Fight" on Paramount+ (I have never watched it), Ron DeSantis was accused by a gay character of sexual harassment, and of forcing this character to have oral sex.  Of course, the story is fictional, but it raises two questions.  Why even have such a story, unless the intent is to damage the likely leading Republican in the country, hoping that many people will assume the claim to be true.  Secondly, given Joe Biden's actual history of inappropriately touching women and even young girls, why wasn't he the target of the accusation of sexual harassment?  Well, we know why.  He's a Democrat.

Was it a total defeat for the Republicans?  See Part II.