What Cost the Republicans

The editors of the Wall Street Journal did their own ruminating about the midterm elections:

The GOP did well in getting out its voters. In the two main election surveys, more Republicans than Democrats turned out to vote: 36% to 33% in the national media exit poll, and 49% to 43% in the AP VoteCast. Republicans could get a majority share of the final House vote without getting a House majority. So much for the GOP’s supposed gerrymandering edge.

What cost the GOP is that it lost voters who identify as independents, who now make up a quarter to more than 40% of the electorate, depending on the state. According to Gallup, in October this year 33% of voters nationwide identified as Republicans, 29% as Democrats and 35% as independents. Forty-eight percent of the self-identified independents said they lean Republican while 42% lean Democrat.

In a typical midterm, those voters should be inclined to swing against the party in power, especially given inflation and President Biden’s low job approval. This year they didn’t. According to the national media exit poll, of the 31% of voters who identify as independent, 49% voted Democrat and 47% Republican. In the AP VoteCast survey, independents favored Democrats by four points.

Those numbers are startling compared to the usual pattern for independents in midterms. According to CNN polling, in 2018 54% of independents voted Democrat and 42% voted Republican. (Democrats added 40 House seats.) In 2010, 56% of independents voted Republican and 37% voted Democrat for a Republican pickup of 63 House seats. In 2014, 54% voted Republican and 42% voted Democrat, adding an extra 13 Republican House seats.

The results are worse for Republicans in key races. In Arizona, 40% of voters in the Senate race identified as independent in an exit poll, and of those, 55% voted for Democrat Mark Kelly and 39% for Republican Blake Masters, who lost a winnable race.

In Pennsylvania, 24% of voters identified as independent and an amazing 58% of them voted for the left-wing Democrat John Fetterman compared to 38% for Mehmet Oz. Ditto in Georgia, where 24% of voters identified as independent and Democrat Raphael Warnock won 53% of them compared to 42% for Herschel Walker. In New Hampshire, 43% of voters call themselves independents and 54% of them voted for Democrat Maggie Hassan over Republican Donald Bolduc.

The message couldn’t be clearer. Independent voters in swing states may be unhappy with the direction of the country, but they didn’t trust the GOP enough to give them power. Abortion seems to have been one factor that cut against the GOP this year, and the pro-life party will have to adjust its policy and message for 2024.

which you may notice aligns pretty well with what I said yesterday.

I have no idea how all of this will work its way out. Here in Illinois not to mention in comments around the Internet the Republicans seem to be taking the view that if you don’t completely buy into what it is that you’re selling, screw you. You’re just not smart enough to vote Republican. That doesn’t seem like a good way to attract people to your standard but that’s not my call.

IMO programmatic parties are not a good fit for our first-past-the-post, winner-take-all system but that seems to be what we’re stuck with.