The Status Quo Election

The November, 2022 midterms provides another lesson on why making predictions about how elections will turn out is dangerous.

That is why I try to avoid making any prognostications on what will be happen in any election.

If the pollsters can't get it right.

If those putting real money into the betting markets can miss so easily.

How can I believe that I know what people will do in the voting booth?

I look at facts and data and try to make conclusions that are rational and logical.

I am not a psychiatrist.

For example, look at this data from the midterm exit polling.

73% of voters in House races stated they were Angry (34%) or Dissatisfied (39%) with the way things are going in the U.S.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/national-results/house

76% of voters in the same poll stated that the economy was Poor (38%) or Not So Good (38%).

80% stated that their family's financial situation was Worse (47%) or About the Same (33%) than it was two years ago. Only 19% said it was Better.

Logic would say that these numbers would drive a call for change in the midterms.

If the status quo looks this poor, why would you not vote for change?

However, election results right now suggest that the House and Senate will not look much different in 2023 than it does today. 

The Democrats picked up one Senate seat in Pennsylvania (Fetterman over Oz) where Pat Toomey (R) is retiring. The Republicans look poised to win Nevada where Adam Laxalt is currently leading incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto by 2.5% points.

The House could possibly be in GOP hands by just a few seats just as the Democrats have been in a similar position the last two years.

Not one incumbent Governor lost.

As of now, the Democrats have won the governorships in deep blue Massachusetts and Maryland due to the retirement of Republican governors. However, it was an anomaly that the GOP controlled these seats in these liberal states in the first place. 

Arizona could yet flip to the Democrats but that race is still up in the air. Kari Lake (R) now trails Katie Hobbs (D) by about 13,000 votes but there are hundreds of thousands of votes that have not been counted.

Despite what the voters said about how they feel things are going in the country, and in their personal financial situation, they voted for the status quo.

Trying to make sense of it is a fool's errand.

Gretchen Whitmer (D) in Michigan, who presided over some of the most restrictive and authoritarian state Covid policies in the country won her reelection bid by just over 10 points.

Ron DeSantis (R) in Florida, who kept Florida open and free of most Covid restrictions, won by almost 20 points in a state that he won by just .4% four years ago.

Mike DeWine (R) in Ohio, which borders Michigan, who played Covid more as a centrist (strict early but more reasonable later) won reelection by 25 points.

The political pundits are trying to explain why the big Red Wave did not materialize as the pollsters predicted.

A popular narrative is that it was Donald Trump's fault.

Source: https://twitter.com/JohnnyB48976846/status/1590428261133131776

I think this is being significantly overplayed by those who are anti-Trump.

Candidates who Trump endorsed in the GOP primaries (Vance-OH), (Budd-NC) won. That may also include Kari Lake in Arizona and Herschel Walker in Georgia before it is over.

Dr. Oz was endorsed by Trump in the GOP primary but Oz was the most centrist candidate in that race. He also had high name id, was highly media polished and a whole lot of things you want in a candidate that should be attractive to important swing suburban mothers. 

It did not matter. Oz lost to a man who wears almost nothing but a hoodie and is barely able to carry on a conversation.

One of the reasons Fetterman won is that he did not debate until over 800,000 early votes had already been cast in Pennsylvania. Of course, that debate was an absolute disaster for Fetterman. 

If Oz could not win in Pennsylvania, I don't know who would have done better for the GOP.

The same is true for Walker in Georgia. After all, two high profile Republicans lost in Georgia two years ago.

Who would have done better?

Herschel Walker got 48.7% of the vote on Tuesday. Kelly Loeffler, Warnock's opponent in 2020, got 49.0 % in the runoff race. David Perdue, received 49.4% of the vote against Joel Ossoff. There is not a 1% difference in the results. 

Walker also captured 87.8% of the total vote that Loeffler received in the runoff election two years ago. Warncok received only 85.0% of the votes he received in the 2020 runoff. That argues that Walker did not come up short because he was a poor candidate. Georgia is just a huge demographic challenge for Republicans today compared to a a decade ago.

Brian Kemp, the incumbent Republican Governor, did run about 4.5 points better than Walker in his rematch with Stacy Abrams but incumbency was obviously a big advantage in a status quo election.

What is also missing in the trashing of Trump is the bigger picture of what has transpired in other states that used to be called SWING states.

States like Florida, Ohio and Missouri were once considered purple. They are now solid Red states.

Trump had a lot to do with that electoral shift.

Trump's ability to draw working class voters also made states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania competitive compared to a decade or so ago.

Trump's current record on endorsements?

Despite all of that, Tuesday's results were not good for Trump in comparison to DeSantis.

It was a BIG night for DeSantis.

No one comes out looking better in either party than the Governor of Florida.

DeSantis benefited from a strong results-based incumbency record that made it easy for Florida voters to make it a status quo election. They were not in the mood to mess with anything that was working in that state.

His resounding win gives DeSantis a lot to build on if he chooses to run for President in 2024.

What is my best explanation for what appears to be an illogical result based on the stated views of the voters?

As I wrote about in the prelude to the midterms, turnout is always critical.

It appears that Democrats did a much better job of getting their voters to the polls than the GOP did.

Most of that advantage is in their use of mail-in and early voting.

Midterms never get the turnout that Presidential elections years get.

Turnout in midterm elections used to be a big problem for Democrats. Two of their key constituencies--young voters and minority voters---were much less likely to turnout for the midterms.

On the other hand, Republican voters (many who are older)  could be reliably counted to vote in both cycles.

The advent of  expanded mail-in voting and long early voting periods due to Covid have been highly advantageous to Democrats.

The Democrats have used the long voting periods to micro-target voters. This appears to have been particularly effective with disinterested voters who don't pay much attention to politics but may have one big issue they are passionate about. 

Consider this data on mail and early voting in Pennsylvania,

Democrats turned out 47% of the numbers in the midterms in early voting compared to what they did in 2020.

Republicans only turned out 40%.

Early and Mail-In Ballots in Pennsylvania
2018, 2020, 2022

Fetterman captured 77.5% of the votes that Biden got in 2020.

Oz only got 72.8% of the votes that Trump got two years ago.

Oz lost principally due to turnout.

If he would have gotten the same turnout that Fetterman did (77.5%) on Trump's 2020 results he would have gained 159,000 votes of the 181,000 that he is behind right now.

The exit poll data also indicates that Fetterman beat Oz with Independents 58%-38%--a 20 point margin. 

Trump did 12 points better with Independents against Biden in 2020.

It is hard to look at the numbers and say that Trump was a drag on these GOP candidates when he actually ran better than they did.

We don't have the final numbers but clearly the Democrats were also able to get the 18-29 age group to the polls in the midterms.

I published the chart below in 2014 to contrast the reliability of older voters with young voters in the lead up to the 2014 midterms.

Young voters put Obama in The White House in 2008 but didn't bother to show up in 2010 to defend Democrats in Congress.

 

Older voters turned out in the same numbers each year.

The result was a loss of 63 Democrat House seats in 2010. The Democrats lost 13 House seats in 2014.

I don't have to look far to know that young voters had to show up in pretty significant numbers in 2022 when you compare the voting preferences by age in the exit poll.

It was a Red Wave but for the votes of 18-29 year olds.

More to the point, it was a Red Wave with everyone but single, 18-29 year old females.

Republicans won every other group---married men, married women and single men.

The abortion issue may partially explain this result. However, the percentage share of the vote (23%) and the Democratic preferences numbers (66%) were not materially different in the 2018 midterms when abortion was not a major issue for anyone.

How do you explain the huge divide by age?

My take is that young voters paid almost no attention to the economy or how things are going in the country with their vote.

Most were driven by some type of WOKE issue.

This a group that has known nothing but prosperity and low unemployment levels during their lifetimes.

None of these voters were even out of high school when the 2008 financial crisis hit.

They have seen the high gas and food prices but have bought into the narrative that this is just due to bad luck, Covid or Putin. It has nothing to do with policy choices.

They have not seen tough economic times. They have not seen any significant unemployment except when the government enforced the Covid lockdowns.

They believe that it is more important that someone uses the correct pronouns or is monitoring the gastric output coming from cattle ranches than the price of gasoline or the flood of illegals into the country.

They have been taught that the United States is a racist country and that most every problem is the result  of capitalism, climate change, a criminal justice system that is unfair or Christopher Columbus.

It has been said that people get the government they deserve.

It is also true that some lessons can only be learned the hard way.

Most people will abandon the status quo only when confronted with a significant emotional event that forces a change in their perspective of views.

Elephants are trained in the circus with a bracelet around a leg attached to a pole in the center of the ring that does not allow them to wander beyond the length of the chain.

Once trained, the chain is removed but the bracelet on the leg remains. However, the elephant has learned to not stray from the ring no matter the circumstances. Eventually the bracelet can be removed. They blindly accept the status quo.

It takes a fire in the tent and smoke reaching their nostrils to get the elephant to abandon the circus ring and the status quo they know.

This age group (and most particularly single women) voted for the status quo?

They saw nothing at all to think about voting for any change?

If this group did not move in 2022 I don't see them moving in the future without something that shakes them and their views to the core.

This does not portend a very optimistic future for any of us.

We are hurtling down the road for a rendezvous with history of our own making.  Two clearly marked paths were there for the choosing.  Choices were made.  We all will have to deal with where it leads.

My guess is more pain is on the way.

The status quo will not be an option with where we are headed.