2022: What we learned in last week’s election

As the 2022 midterm election approached, pollsters and pundits settled on the idea that a “red wave” was going to sweep the Republicans into power in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. “The bottom is dropping out of the 2022 election for Democrats” said CCN’s Chris Cillizza. “The Republican wave is building fast.” “Democrats fear midterm drubbing as party leaders rush to defend blue seats” was a headline in The Washington Post. According to Politico, “The (Politico-Morning Consult) poll confirms the dramatic shift from the late summer, when the Dobbs decision (by the U.S. Supreme Court) and declining gas prices strengthened Democrats in races across the country, to today, when the midterms seem to be returning to a more typical referendum on the incumbent president in which the party out of power makes substantial gains.”

Some Republicans were anticipating something more. “I think it’s going to be a tsunami,” pronounced Texas Senator Ted Cruz. “I think Republicans are going to retake both the House and the Senate. I think in the House we could easily end up with a majority of thirty, forty, fifty votes. In the Senate, I think we’re going to retake the majority. I think we’ll end up with about 53 Republicans in the Senate.”

There was cause for their optimism. The president’s party typically loses seats in the House of Representatives in midterm elections: 30 in 2006, 64 in 2010, 13 in 2014, 42 in 2018. But in 2022, the red wave never materialized as Trump-endorsed candidates lost nationwide. The number of house seats the Democrats will lose in the House this year is a single digit. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy prematurely predicted Republicans would win control of the House. While a GOP House majority is likely, it may be too small for McCarthy to pass almost any legislation.

President Biden mocked the press for its predictions of a red wave. “We lost fewer seats in the House of Representatives than any Democratic president’s first midterm election in the last 40 years, and we had the best midterm for governors since 1986.”

In races across the country, voters rejected some of the most authoritarian, far-right candidates and policies on the ballot. Pro-democracy ballot measures passed in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Maine, and Michigan. In all five states where abortion rights were being voted on in the first general election since the fall of Roe v. Wade, voters rejected anti-abortion politics. Approaches to secure abortion access won in California, Michigan, and Vermont. Abortion-rights advocates also scored victories in critical gubernatorial and Senate races. New York voters approved a measure authorizing $4.2 billion in climate-related spending. Voters in Nebraska passed a $15 minimum wage act. Several new progressive voices will join the next Congress.

On election night, Cruz, speaking on Fox News, said, “Why did Democrats do better than expected? Because they have governed as liberals.” Great for the country, not so great for the Republican Party. Well, duh! At least Cruz didn’t say “as socialists.”

Who was the biggest loser? Surely, it’s Trump. “How could you look at these results tonight and conclude Trump has any chance of winning a national election in 2024?” tweeted Scott

Jennings, a Republican strategist who has advised Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “Despite the fact that 70 percent of the country thinks we’re on the wrong track, two thirds think we’re in a recession, people are pessimistic about the future, and people largely believe Biden’s policies are hurting, not helping, they still opted to stick with that over the alternative, which I’m afraid they associate with Trump.”

An editorial in the right-leaning Wall Street Journal said, “What will Democrats do when Donald Trump isn’t around to lose elections? We have to wonder because on Tuesday Democrats succeeded again in making the former President a central campaign issue, and Mr. Trump helped them do it. Since his unlikely victory in 2016 against the widely disliked Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump has a perfect record of electoral defeat. The GOP was pounded in the 2018 midterms owing to his low approval rating. Mr. Trump himself lost in 2020…Now Mr. Trump has botched the 2022 elections. ‘We’re going to win so much,’ Mr. Trump once said, ‘that you’re going to get sick and tired of winning.’ Maybe by now Republicans are sick and tired of losing.” The New York Post, referring to Trump as “Toxic Trump,” dubbed him “perhaps the most profound vote repellent in modern American history,” and told him to “scram.”

Even Fox News, which effectively served as state television during Trump‘s time in the White House, chimed in. FoxNews.com posted a story quoting conservatives who said the former president has “never been weaker” and that the midterm results show it’s “time to move on” from Trump.

Perhaps now we have three political parties, Democrats, Republicans, and still-Trumpers.

Mark Berg is a community activist in Adams County and a proud liberal. His email address is MABerg175@Comcast.net.

ElectionsMark Berg