Waiting for the red wave

A few days after the 2022 midterm elections, the consensus is that the consensus was wrong. The media, the polls, and many politicians were predicting that Republicans would have a huge day and take over the U.S. House of Representatives easily. The Senate was also in play, with the Democrats' slim majority in danger. In addition, Governor and state officer races were dominated on the Republican side with headline-grabbing election deniers who could wreak havoc with state election system if they were voted in. President Biden had a high disapproval rate. A Red Wave was coming.

Things look a lot different now. 

Despite the historical tendency for midterm elections to be bad for the party who holds the White House, the Democrats outperformed expectations by quite a bit. Three days after the election, we still don't know which party will control the House of Representatives. Same story with the Senate: votes are still being counted in some states, and Georgia will go to a runoff election. It seems very possible the Democrats will hold on to the Senate. And they also held off a lot of those election-deniers in state races. 

Here in Minnesota, Democrats have won re-election for Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General, ensuring that election-deniers will not meddle with our electoral system. Minnesotans also voted in a DFL majority in both the House and Senate, a development the Minneapolis Star Tribune called "a stunning upset." Previously, the Republicans had a slim majority in the Senate and were thought to be positioned to compete for control of the House. But Minnesota now has one party in control of state government. 

How did this happen? The reasons are complicated but I think one word sums up the biggest answer: hubris. 

Both political parties are guilty of living in their own bubbles at times, but in recent years Republicans seem to have had an especially strong tendency to create their own reality. There was even the infamous "alternate facts" expression from the previous presidential administration, and it seemed to fit: many top Republicans seemed to think they could just say something to make it so. 

Part of this was enabled by a media system that endlessly told Republican voters what they wanted to hear. Fox News was a nonstop Republican hype machine this year, and had their own favored pollsters--who always seem to have Republican candidates a little higher up in the numbers than other pollsters. 

In the end, not only Republicans but the political mainstream started to believe the hype--helped by the reasonable assumption that this midterm would follow historical trends. 

It didn't. 

Democratic and independent voters were unusually motivated by things like Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Women, in particular, were outraged by the prospect of politicians taking away their liberty to make their own reproductive choices. Younger adults, who tend not to vote in large numbers in midterms, were also much more involved this year. Other issues, such as gun violence and protecting democracy, also have risen in importance for Americans--they aren't at the top of the polls, but they are polling significantly higher as important issues to voters. 

Yes, the polls showed the economy and inflation were top-of-mind for voters, but that did not translate into Republican support amongst a strong majority of voters. People can be concerned about more than one thing. And it seemed clear that a lot of voters simply did not see the Republicans as presenting good solutions and ideas about our current set of challenges. It's also possible that enough voters were paying attention that they knew Biden and the Democrats had taken several steps to help Americans with pocketbook issues.

I think it's also likely that many independent voters have figured out that the Republicans--some of them, anyway--don't seem to care much about governing. The animating issues among the Fox News/MAGA crowd seem to be things like conspiracy theories and settling political scores. "Owning the libs" is a term we've heard a lot. 

I think a significant number of voters are tired of this type of politics. They want serious people representing them, who will work to find solutions for the many issues we face. It's not even a "bipartisan" hand-holding ideal that they want--they just don't want the endless chaos and bickering that the Trump wing seems to enjoy so much. They want adults in the room, and in the MAGA world, adults are always the exception, not the rule. 

I've had many political discussions with MAGA supporters in recent years, and it's always: "Just you wait." 

Just you wait, Trump will arrest Hillary and Obama. John Durham will come up with blockbuster charges against Mueller and other Trump enemies. It will turn out that Antifa was behind January 6. There's going to be a red wave. Just you wait. 

Delusion has its limits. If you build a house on sand, it will fall. Real facts, eventually, will beat alternative facts. That's the story of the 2022 midterm election.