September 17: Midterm Implications of Big Recall Win Are Mixed
Pouring over the details of the gubernatorial recall election in California, some significant patterns emerged, as I noted at New York:
The overwhelming defeat of the effort to recall California governor Gavin Newsom was a big victory for a Democratic Party that has had its troubles lately. With the margin of victory for the “no on recall” campaign roughly doubling the already-robust advantage shown in pre-election polls, the earlier scare that the recall threw into the ranks of the Golden State’s dominant party dissipated entirely. With about three-fourths of the expected vote now counted, “no” leads “yes” by a 63.8 to 36.2 margin (which could get even larger if the usual pattern of last-cast mail ballots leaning Democratic manifests itself once again).
The “no” vote was remarkably close to Joe Biden’s performance in California in 2020 (he won 63.5 percent). Given the extreme partisan polarization that underlay the recall vote (exit polls showed 89 percent of self-identified Republicans voting “yes” and 94 percent of self-identified Democrats voting “no”), that means the partisan patterns of the presidential race were reduplicated to a remarkable extent in a non-presidential special election, where Democrats often experience a “falloff,” particularly when they control the White House (and in this case, the governorship). That’s great news for California Democrats, and not a bad sign for Democrats nationally, who are bracing for the midterm losses the “White House Party” typically suffers.
But in assessing the implications of the results, it’s important to look back at what happened down ballot in California in 2020, while looking ahead to the most critical 2022 battleground, the fight for control of the House. Of the 13 net House seats Republicans gained in 2020,
four were in deep-blue California. There is no likely path for Democrats to hang onto House control in 2022 without flipping some or all of those lost seats in one of their strongest states.
Precisely because of the reduplication of the 2020 patterns, there’s really nothing about the recall returns that suggests Democrats are sure to claw back some House seats in California. Two of the four seats Republicans flipped in 2020 (with Asian-American women Young Kim and Michelle Steele as candidates) were centered in Orange County. While “no” won in Orange, the recall race there was closer than the Biden-Trump contest of 2020. A third battleground seat was the one Republican David Valadao won in a very competitive section of the San Joaquin Valley. The recall improved on Trump’s 2020 performance in every county in his district (e.g., Trump won 55 percent in Kings County, but “yes” on recalling Newsom won 63 percent). These results could reflect an intensifying alienation of this heavily agricultural area from Sacramento’s environmental and water-supply policies. Or it could reflect a drop-off in Latino turnout that could spell disaster for Democrats in close 2022 races. Either way the recall numbers should give pause to Democratic optimism about midterm House races.
One study of 2020 returns in California showed Latino turnout trailing non-Latino turnout by about 10 percent. One mail-ballot tracker for the recall showed the turnout gap between Latinos and non-Latino white voters swelling to 20 percent. Youth turnout for the recall was also terrible, exit polls suggest. Yes, these are constituencies that are difficult to mobilize in special elections. But that’s also true of midterm elections, which is a problem Democrats in California and elsewhere need to solve.
The bottom line is that Newsom won the Democratic and Democratic-leaning elements of the California electorate by strongly encouraging partisan polarization via his lavishly funded campaign. This was the obvious smart strategy in this heavily Democratic state. It’s less clear the same strategy will work wonders downballot for Democrats in 2022, which they probably will not have a big financial advantage and shifts in public opinion away from the presidential winner may have settled in, as they did for the last three presidents. Even if Democrats hang onto their monopoly of statewide offices and their super-majorities in the state legislature, any failure to make progress in House races could contribute to the much-dreaded moment when Californian Nancy Pelosi hands over her gavel to Californian Kevin McCarthy, and the Democratic trifecta that gives Biden a chance to implement his agenda comes to an end.
No one is more tribal than Republicans — and their tribe is WASPs. Doug Jones showed that you don’t have to hide who you are in order to win. So did Ralph Northam. Both were pro-choice, pro fairness in the tax code, and pro medicaid. Both were pro civil rights. They aren’t down the line doctrinaire liberals, but they wer
One thing that Republicans have that we don’t is the illusion of authenticity and devotion to principle.
We don’t have to be strident, but we DO have to be authentic. The more we tailor our message to particular audiences, the less authentic we become. That was one of Hillary’s greatest weaknesses — the perception that she was a phony.
People liked Trump and Bernie because they came across as being authentic. Bernie was truly authentic.
Trump was faking it, but had enough of the nativist GOP base to win, and he was running against Hillary and all of her baggage. Joe is authentic, and that’s why Conor Lamb is having him campaign.
Authenticity and lots of shoe leather.
Gregory
You really aren’t getting it. It is about winning elections, not about your personal ideology and prejudices.
We have ceded the “Jobs” messaging to Mr. Trump. A large number of Obama voters flipped and voted for Mr. Trump. Why was that?
You want to to keep losing? Continue the self righteous dialog with yourself and continue disregarding potential allies of differing creeds, beliefs and priorities. It is a surefire recipe for keeping the Repubs in power.
One fundemental flaw in current Democratic strategy is the emphasis on groups of people. We have excluded the white male in democratic retoric and apparently some of their wives took that pretty personally too. We need to speak loudly in an “all lives matter” tone and stop being a society of exclusivity. At this point, everyone is special except the white male; women, LGBT, minorities, immigrants, veterans, etc. We have to stop parsing people into exclusive groups.
Naomi, although what you said is well written, and sounds good; especially to those who you felt was left out, but the fact of the matter is that the past, and current system of government was built around the special privilege of the white male. So to make the white male feel so called “special” now would be to add special to the existing special; given white males special special privilege while everyone else have to deal with just “special privilege”.The Democratic party intent to deflate the arrogance of the white male was met with push back from certain states not the American People as a whole.Let me be clear, deflation of arrogance is not the same as marginalization.The arrogance being some whites believe; that whites inherently are better and therefore deserve “special special treatment” when it comes to running this country among other things,and because everyone else has been elevated to the same level we must be on a higher level or given more special treatment.
The strategy should be to awaken the same abolition sentiments of the Union to abolish the electoral college that was born out of slavery .Explain to the american people that the popular vote is the will of the “American people” and that the attempt to marginalize the many is an affront to the values of the founding fathers pure thought that all men was created equal with no caveats .
Thank you.
Why do some Republicans become Democrats?: Do you have a rank-ordered list of the reasons that Republicans become Democrats?
It seems clear to me that Dixiecrats became Reagan Democrats because of their racism; that they otherwise more or less were with the 99% and got snookered by Reagan and Southern tribalism.
What is most likely to bring not-racist Republicans back into the Democratic fold? Talk about recruits and recruiting.
Best,
Monty Johnston