October 15: Biden Is the Early Favorite For Reelection Even If Dems Lost Ground in 2022
After absorbing a lot of Democratic gloom-and-doom about the midterms, I offered some silver lining at New York:
The 2022 midterms don’t look great for Democrats, who will try to buck history by hanging on to super-slim congressional majorities. Thanks to the particular lay of the land, Democrats have a decent chance of maintaining control of the Senate. But the House? Not so much: The two times since the New Deal when the president’s party won net House seats in a midterm (1998 and 2002), the president in question had sky-high job-approval ratings. Even if you believe Joe Biden’s plunge in popularity has been stemmed or even turned around a bit, he’s not going to have 60 percent-plus approval in November 2022 unless really crazy things happen. There’s just too much partisan polarization for that these days.
Thankfully for Democrats, even if they lose their congressional majorities next year, Biden himself won’t be an underdog for reelection in 2024. After all, the last two Democratic presidents were reelected after historically terrible midterms. Democrats lost 54 U.S. House seats in 1994 and 63 in 2010. Yes, they had bigger majorities going into those elections than Democrats have now. But they lost the national House popular vote by an identical 6.8 percent in both midterms, which is pretty bad, particularly since Democrats suffer from a voter-inefficiency problem in House elections (too many voters concentrated in too few districts).
It’s possible for a president’s party to lose a midterm so badly that bouncing back in the next cycle is all but impossible. Consider the man whose unique comeback accomplishment Donald Trump will be emulating if he runs in 2024, Grover Cleveland. The president Cleveland defeated in an 1892 rematch, Benjamin Harrison, was a Republican whose party lost an incredible 93 House seats in the 1890 midterms. This, mind you, was at a time when the House had only 332 members, which means the GOP lost over half their caucus in one cycle (an even worse percentage than in 1894, when Democrats lost a record 125 House seats during the midterm after Cleveland’s comeback triumph). In this era of polarization, nothing like that is going to happen to Democrats in 2022.
Looking more broadly at the power of incumbency, there have been 13 sitting presidents since World War II who were on the general election ballot. Nine of them won. The four losers all faced special circumstances. Gerald Ford had not previously been elected to anything more than the U.S. House; he ascended to the vice-presidency and then the presidency when disgraced predecessors resigned, and he pardoned the president who appointed him, the especially disgraced Richard Nixon. Jimmy Carter was caught up in a historical realignment that he had held off four years earlier by carrying his native South, which then resumed a massive Republican trend. George H.W. Bush suffered from a terrible economy but then also a party split (third-party candidate Ross Perot won a lot of previously Republican voters). And we all know about Donald J. Trump, who was impeached twice and seemed determined to offend swing voters.
In retrospect, what’s most remarkable is that Ford and Trump very nearly got reelected despite their handicaps, exhibiting not the weakness but the strength of incumbency. And it’s with that perspective that any early handicapping of a potential 2024 rematch should be considered. Trump benefited from incumbency in 2020, as will Biden in 2024. So the idea that the 45th president has some built-in advantage over the 46th — absent the renewed election coup so many of us fear — doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Can someone explain why in slide #37 there are only 37% Gore voters from 2000 but 43% Bush voters?
Am I to understand that tons more people who voted for Gore in 2000 failed to come out than who voted for Bush? Why would that be?
There are moderate Democrats in the red states but they lose due to straight ticket voting – just look at the Senate elections this year, where moderate Dems got clobbered everywhere but Colorado.
Exit poll and other pre-election polling have a limited usefulness this time because they didn’t seem to correlate very well with the election itself. To use this data to try to understand why Kerry lost is probably not wise until we have a better understanding of why these polls didn’t match the outcome.
My personal theory is that there was an unusually large contingent of Bush backers who just weren’t willing to talk to pollsters– who they probably consider part of the “leftist media conspiracy”. In the same way that African-American candidates have often gotten fewer votes than polls indicated they would, I think voters who were anti-gay specifically or anti-tolerance more generally showed up to vote but not to talk to strangers. If that was the case– and it’s basically unprovable, probably– the exit polls would have to be adjusted.
Jay Bradfield, you’re exactly right.
They also beat us with discipline we lack. We’re always too busy making sure everyone gets to speak their mind. We wouldn’t want anyone to feel disenfranchised.
Organizing the left for Democratic theme issues is next to impossible, because complaining about THEIR issue always transcends winning the presidency or congress. As someone once said, it’s like moving frogs in a wheel barrow.
Conservatives love order, so they love a good, firm chain of command, where orders come down and are followed. Meanwhile, liberals are still arguing about which T-shirt makes the appropriate statement with this outfit.
Liberals are too busy crying about whatever it is that makes them unhappy at the moment to work on finding the middle. Not content to be minority status in all branches of federal and state government, they seek to turn the course further left.
I am a former conservative Republican red-stater turned progressive. The reason we don’t see fusion politicians in the red states is because of the effectiveness of the Inside the beltway conservative movement. I am sadly beginning to realize there is no equivalent progressive movement.
The conservative movement goes out of its way to get all of its candidates to tow the line on conservative issues. So you might have social conservative mid-westerners who is tempermentally opposed to free trade, as are his constituents but because of the working of the conservative network of think tanks, lobbyists, donors, and activists this guy will eventually change his tune on free trade. Maybe it’s because he is convinced by the rationales offered in a Heritage Backgrounder, maybe it’s because right-wing activists show how he can still win while be free trade, or maybe a wealthy conservative donor had a chat with him about his political future. Either way the conservative movement takes care of itself, its agenda, and its members. Progressive don’t. Progressives lose.
Dobson is a guru for the “family” devotees within the evangelics, but his role is no different in the Bush campaign than Limbaugh’s: He’s there to excite and motivate the base, and he does.
The people who listen to Dobson and Limbaugh and watch Fox News, are the same people. At least there is large overlap. Find someone who likes Dobson but doesn’t like Limbaugh.
Whatever his message, Kerry did a poor job of communicating it. Bush was just terrible in the campaign, and only because Kerry was hopelessly worse did Bush prevail.
alan abramovitz’s show claims that the the GOP have an effective lock on the senate and the house for the forseeable future, although he seems more optimistic about the dems regaining the presidency in 2008.
what puzzles me why the GOP has such a great advantage in the senate house, if “cultural issues” are so paramount. one would think that the senate and house candidates — from both parties — would more closely reflect the people that reside in their districts, which would effectively “level the playing field” with regard to cultural issues. why, then, aren’t there more democratic senators and representatives from the blue states? the only answer i have is that even for house and senate races, democratic candidates end up taking the views of the national party on issues such as gay rights and abortion, which puts them at odds with most of their consituents, even if they more closely “connect” with their voters on other, less crucial issues.
but this brings to mind another question: why do democratic candidates from red states persist in reflecting the the national party on cultural/wedge issues? why have we not seen the emergence of red state politicians (from either party) that would seek to more closely align themselves with red state voters by wedding cultural conservatism (opposition to gay rights, abortion) with economic liberalism (higher minimum wage, national health insurance)?
the fact that we’ve not seen “fusion politicians” such as these makes me wonder if there’s a flaw in thomas franks’ analysis in “what’s the matter with kansas?” maybe, contrary to what he says, the midwest picks the GOP as much for its economic program as its cultural program, although i’m hopelessly mystified as to why. or maybe there’s some coupling between the GOP’s cultural and economic programs that we blue staters simply can’t grasp.
Do not be distracted by continued verbal self-flgulation. The election was stolen and unless we ALL focus on the false result of this election, we are going to remin fractured and out of power. Evangelists are passionate but they are not stupid. They did not give Bush this election. Voter fraud did.
My understanding is that the Gay Marriage issue resonated with Dr. James Dobson whose radio show reaches a reputed 7,000,000 listeners. By “closing the deal” with Dobson and earning his endorsement, Bush probably picked up a fair number of his devotees who may or may not care much about gay marriage. My take is that the Republican Gay Marriage strategy was to influence those who can influence others. Then frighten the masses with wolves. It might be interesting to try to find out what portion of the population sought advice/were given advice from someone they trust and how this advice affected their vote.
So, the economy was a push, the morals issue was a wash, Kerry should have offered a clear opposing plan for Iraq, and for fighting terrorism. And he should never have switched his message from Iraq and foreign policy. Kerry kicked Bush’s butt in the first debate about foreign policy he had Bush rocked, but failed to knock him out. Joe Biden was right, hammer away on Iraq and offer a clear plan. The future doesn’t look too bright in the congress either.