The Red Wave That Wasn’t

David Thornton

David Thornton is a freelance writer and professional pilot who has also lived in Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia and Emmanuel College. He is Christian conservative/libertarian who was fortunate enough to have seen Ronald Reagan in person during his formative years. A former contributor to The Resurgent, David now writes for the Racket News with fellow Resurgent alum, Steve Berman, and his personal blog, CaptainKudzu. He currently lives with his wife and daughter near Columbus, Georgia. His son is serving in the US Air Force. You can find him on Twitter @CaptainKudzu and Facebook.

Related Post Roulette

59 Responses

  1. Dark Matter says:

    Well I’m happy with this evaluation and result.Report

    • Brandon Berg in reply to Dark Matter says:

      Republicans barely retaking the House with Trumpists being overrepresented among the losers might be the best possible outcome. Republican control over one house prevents Democrats from having a free-for-all with the economic seed corn, while failing to capitalize on the way Democrats have embarrassed themselves over the first two years of the Biden administration may be the wake-up call Republicans need.

      Or maybe primary voters will take exactly the wrong lesson from this. They’re not smart people.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Brandon Berg says:

        “Or maybe primary voters will take exactly the wrong lesson from this. They’re not smart people.”

        Are primary voters different than other voters?

        Otherwise, I largely agree with your assessment.Report

        • Pinky in reply to Kazzy says:

          Voting in a primary is like going to a candy shop. Even the smartest person forgets consequences and grabs for too much.Report

        • Dark Matter in reply to Kazzy says:

          Are primary voters different than other voters?

          Yes, they’re more motivated. Primaries magnify the power of various special interest groups, everything from pro-life to unions to Trumpists.

          This combines poorly with gerrymandering. If both candidates are Right then it becomes useful to be more Right.Report

        • Brandon Berg in reply to Kazzy says:

          Primary voters are probably smarter than general election voters on average, but that’s a low bar.

          That’s the problem with democracy. Not one voter in twenty has the critical thinking skills and knowledge necessary to even begin thinking intelligently about how to vote.Report

          • Philip H in reply to Brandon Berg says:

            Most voters have those skills – what they don’t have is the time to dive in deeply in issues and candidate perspectives and records. Since they live actual lives and all.

            So they use heuristics where they can and media summaries where they can’t. The media no longer exists to actually serve thinking people. Which isn’t the biters fault at all.Report

  2. Saul Degraw says:

    I think Republicans are a bit in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t position regarding Trump. He still has the power of a kingmaker within the Republican Party but this turns off lots of other people. Florida is now officially a red state, not a purple one but DeSantis is not going to take his schtick from the state and be appealing in many other places except other deep red states.

    The Democrats did very well in state house elections in the Upper Midwest and PA. Beasley lost but the Democrats gained house seats in North Carolina. There is a smallish but not miniscule chance that Colorado’s house delegation is completely Democratic including the potential defeat of Bobert.

    IMO, the best hope for someone not named Trump to be the 2024 nominee for the Republican Party is him dying or becoming incapacitated. He is almost certainly going to announce he is running.Report

  3. Saul Degraw says:

    I can’t remember where I saw this but the entire mechanism to help Trump seal the deal in 2024 via hook and crook has pretty much gone down in flames. Election denialists are losing most, if not all, races where they could put their thumb on the scale for Trump in key states. Nevada may be the one bright spot for Republicans but it is too early to tell.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Is this your way of telling us that you misread the “threat” and the support those candidates had? And that I was right?Report

      • Philip H in reply to Pinky says:

        If Saul misread it, so did a lot of people, including those particular candidates.Report

        • Pinky in reply to Philip H says:

          You mean the nutty ones who failed? They misread things? And Saul did no better? Huh.Report

          • Philip H in reply to Pinky says:

            They were the nominees of their party. They, in many cases had the support of large PACs, conservative pundits, conservative media and even the tacit support of Mainstream Media who generally refused to call them on it. They had both independent and partisan poling data backing them. They weren’t “the nutty ones.”Report

            • Pinky in reply to Philip H says:

              Winning a primary for Secretary of State doesn’t remove you from the nutty list.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Pinky says:

                That nutty list includes the maybe loosing candidate for AZ governor, candidates for governor, secretary of state and attorney general in Michigan; governor and Senate in Pennsylvania; Senate in New Hampshire and Wisconsin; and secretary of state in Minnesota and New Mexico. Interestingly, the “nutty candidates” won the races for the Senate in Ohio and Wisconsin, as well as attorney general in Florida and Ohio. These were prominent folks, their party nominees and supported by deep pocketed and dark money PACs.

                I also don’t recall you – or many of the conservative regulars around here – calling them nutty before they lost.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Philip H says:

                I have pointed out that most of the people your side has labelled “deniers” in fact said something vague to get past the question. I already criticized the Secretary of State candidates who were really deniers.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Pinky says:

                Doug Mastriano denied the election. Kari Lake denied the election. Dr. Oz denied the election. Lake even went so far as to say she would jail Katie Hobbs over 2020 were Lake elected. Ron Johnson denied the election.Report

              • Slade the Leveller in reply to Pinky says:

                Is it a question that deserves a vague answer? It’s really just asking someone to state a fact.Report

              • Michael Cain in reply to Philip H says:

                How you know for sure that your state has become solidly blue… Colorado Republicans nominated both nutty and non-nutty candidates for major statewide positions this year. They all lost by similar double-digit percentage points. 56-58% of the voters are just going down the ballot and marking the (D) candidate.Report

  4. John Puccio says:

    Disappointment? Sure. Unmitigated disaster? That’s a bit much.

    Regardless of margins, expected or otherwise, the Dems losing the House certainly is going to take their agenda off the table for the next 2 years. The Rs were never going to get legislation passed even if they took over both chambers. I get the relief of Dems today, but the euphoria in some circles is a bit baffling. They are still kind of screwed. Dems could barely get anything across the finish line as it was. How did this midterm help them outside of establishing incumbents for the next cycle?

    It’s weird, the two places I focus most of my attention are New York and Florida, and they most definitely had a red wave.Report

    • Burt Likko in reply to John Puccio says:

      This — losing the House is bad and it was going to take next to nothing for that to happen. The Senate coming down to a one-race runoff between two flawed candidates (I think Walker is way more flawed than Warnock but I’m biased) is cutting the margin down with a surgical razor to again rely on VP Harris as the potential tiebreaker. That’s not a victory for Democrats. It is, at best, a much more moderate loss than had been feared.Report

      • InMD in reply to Burt Likko says:

        I hear you but I think this is the wrong way to look at it. Our entire system of government is arrayed against massive policy change but also against political permanence. The only recent context where the party of the administration didn’t suffer losses was 9/11, and even with Dobbs, nothing on that level has occurred. I think we’d all be better off making some peace with that. Every election is not going to be a landslide and certainly not one in any party’s favor.

        As for the Senate this could actually be really important. If the Democrats hold on they will be able to continue confirming federal judges without any Republican support and appointing officials to run various federal posts for the rest of Biden’s term. In context that’s a win, and a win against the historical odds.Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to Burt Likko says:

        Okay counselor. State your case. How is Warnock flawed? What does he have in his past that is even close to anything that has been alleged or proven at Walker. He is a perfectly reasonable Democratic Senator from a purple state.

        The Senate could still be in Democratic hands. We won’t know until December perhaps.

        The other way to look at this is that the a lot of things in 2022 indicated that it should be a very good year for the Republicans but they could not help themselves and nominated deeply flawed candidates and went for extremism that the public rejected despite largely being down on Biden.*

        *I don’t buy the theory that the Democrats helped try to nominate more extreme candidates. Those primary ads were warnings. They were negative ads.

        If this is the best Republicans can do in 2022 with gerrymandering (NC is now evenly split in its House delegation despite gerrymandering). It does not bode well.Report

        • Burt Likko in reply to Saul Degraw says:

          Warnock has the same flaws as Harris, actually: almost no range beyond prepared remarks, and can only rarely land a punch. And while it speaks well of him as a man, there may be some things he’s simply too decent to let be done, like questioning his opponent’s mental abilities in light of what seems like pretty obvious CTE left over from sports injuries.

          Much less important to me, but places he has weaknesses: his left flank doesn’t like him doing deals with the likes of Tommy Tuberville or Ted Cruz, although that’s something I’m sanguine about (you don’t always get to do business with nice people). Also I’m sanguine about accusations of bad conduct from his ex-wife, as they seem to have arisen during a custody dispute, but not everyone understands to be skeptical of such matters.

          As I say, “Walker is way more flawed than Warnock” but if control of the Senate is at stake, expect the noise machine to go nuts, and I fear he won’t fight back as hard as he ought (specifically on questioning Walker’s mental abilities). Walker has already been hit as hard as possible on the abortion thing and based on getting functionally half the vote, so clearly Republicans don’t care.Report

          • Saul Degraw in reply to Burt Likko says:

            Okay. He is potentially not a super-great politician and his inherent decency can be a setback at times. I don’t see these as flaws per se in the same way that Walker is a flawed person in a vastly different way. Warnock is a politician doing what a politician does and the left flank does not have enough power in Georgia to make a big deal of Warnock being the 18th or something most bipartisan SenatorReport

          • Philip H in reply to Burt Likko says:

            Senator Warnock is also a patient of king standing and while he is thus capable of building a crowd to a crescendo – or he wouldn’t be in MLK’s pulpit – that’s not a speaking style that’s prone to quick quips and sound bites.Report

          • Dark Matter in reply to Burt Likko says:

            As of February of 2022, they’re still going to court for child custody issues. Reading between the lines suggests she’s trying to cut him out.

            Their wiki on him running over her foot is a hoot. He called the cops right when she made that accusation and medical professionals found no bruises or anything to suggest it was real.

            Warnock has serious mental issues. Not sure it matters enough to vote on.Report

    • Philip H in reply to John Puccio says:

      Florida was already red.
      New York reelected all its statewide Democrats and flipped one house seat red.

      How is that a wave?Report

  5. DavidTC says:

    If I had a nickel every time control of the Senate came down to a Georgia runoff in the last two years, well…I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.Report

  6. Marchmaine says:

    Teeeechnically, if they take the house and/or senate it would be a mitigated disaster.Report

  7. Republican or Troll? says:

    Conservatives used to be skeptical of democracy, emphasizing that the country was designed to be a republic, that elites emerge and must be selected in every system, and that too much democracy would upset the balanced, mixed regime contemplated by the Constitution. Any system that selects someone like Fetterman or a tyrant like Whitmer is flawed and questionable.

    The real measure of good government is not how leaders are picked, but rather who it elevates to leadership and how they govern. A system where oligarch-controlled media influences voters, where millions of new voters are let into the country to tip the scales, and where marginal people on welfare and with criminal records can vote and have the same impact as the productive and the law-abiding has a problem, which only becomes more apparent when reviewing the results.Report

    • Chip Daniels in reply to Republican or Troll? says:

      What’s fascinating is that this is practically a textbook illustration of the authoritarian mind.

      The first paragraph tells us that a proper republic will allow elites to emerge and lead. Then the second paragraph darkly warns of oligarchs controlling the media.

      How to tell elites (good) from oligarchs (bad) is left to the reader to ponder but appears to be nothing more complicated than “people I like” versus “people I don’t like”.

      Then of course, concludes with the Wilhoit principle, telling us that not all people are in fact equal, but some people are inferior and should not be allowed to vote.Report

  8. Saul Degraw says:

    Fox News anchor Jesse Waters is having a sad that unmarried women and women under 40 went blue and thinks getting them married will make them Republican: https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1590680637945806850?s=20&t=zh-cLjcwr-LgIFSjMHABUA

    Jesse Waters had an affair that ended his first marriageReport

  9. Republican or Troll? says:

    You gotta recognize the fact that this is a godless country. I hate it. It’s immoral, it’s wrong, it’s heinous, it’s evil, but this is an evil country. And this country will surprise you at how evil it is.

    We need a dictatorship. We need to take control of the government and force the people to believe what we believe.Report

    • Saul Degraw in reply to Republican or Troll? says:

      Who said this?Report

      • Chip Daniels in reply to Saul Degraw says:

        Someone who is close to Republican Representative Paul Gosar, Republican Representative Margorie Taylor Greene, and who has spoken at several national conservative conferences.

        https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1590771129681342464Report

        • Pinky in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          Nick Fuentes! You’re quoting Nick Fuentes! That’s hilarious. At least now we know the answer to “Republican or troll”.Report

          • Chip Daniels in reply to Pinky says:

            Yeah why quote someone who influences Republican Congresspeople.

            This is what I mean by the effort to launder Republican radicalism.
            We are being to to disbelieve that Nick Fuentes has influence within the Republican Party, and to ignore the evidence of our own eyes and ears.

            Nick Fuentes is far more representative of Republican thought than you or any of the other Republicans here.

            And I mean that as a compliment.Report

            • Pinky in reply to Chip Daniels says:

              Fine, go back to quoting tweets and thinking that you’re building a case. I can’t stop you. But I can laugh at you and point out that you’re completely misreading your opponents. I mean, Nick Fuentes. From anyone else, I’d say that they’d stopped trying, but I think you’re serious. It’s like I’m trying to think of the equivalent to Nick Fuentes on your side, and I’ve got a midpoint between Cenk Uygur, the guy who attacked Paul Pelosi, and…you, if you think Nick Fuentes is an influential Republican. If there’s anything left in you that can listen to an opponent, I’m telling you, this is more absurd than anything from that troll who posts here all the time.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Pinky says:

                Give me the criteria of who counts as an influential Republican.

                Preferably a definition that excludes Nick Fuentes but somehow includes Republican Representative Paul Gosar.

                See, part of your disbelief is that you don’t know anyone like Fuentes and none of your friends do either.

                But you almost certainly know people who would vote for a Gosar, Greene, or Boebert rather than vote for any Democrat.

                Maybe they tell themselves it’s for judges or tax cuts or abortion or whatever, but they are elevating people into power who listen and nod with Nick Fuentes all the same.Report

  10. Jaybird says:

    The theory that this was due to the youth vote is now being disputed:

    Report

    • Pinky in reply to Jaybird says:

      There’s a perception that post-election polling is more accurate than the polling leading up to a race. It doesn’t have the weakness of people changing their minds, but then again pre-election polling never claims to avoid that anyway. Data at election stations can be more accurate, but still you’re making assumptions on weighting. And showing up at the polling place is going the way of landlines.Report

    • Saul Degraw in reply to Jaybird says:

      Eh. These things take months to tell and I’ve seen contrary reports. Exit polls are not that greatReport

  11. InMD says:

    Here is a slightly different take. Not sure whether its backed up with any voter data, so time will tell if there’s anything to it. I will also of course cop that it rhymes with some of my priors.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/opinion/republicans-midterms-workers-populists.html

    What sort of national vision did the Republican Party offer working Americans in 2022?

    It’s hard to say, really. The best I can come up with is something like this: Hand us the keys to government, but don’t expect us to give you anything in return. And in that indifference lies the central problem bedeviling Republicans up and down the ballot.

    Ever since Donald Trump’s rise, there has been much talk, and some evidence, of a realignment in American politics. Breaking with longstanding G.O.P. orthodoxies on free trade, entitlements and health care, Mr. Trump coaxed huge numbers of white voters without college degrees away from the Democrats. Once in office, he delivered on tariffs. But other pieces of his populist agenda fell away, as his aides forged ahead with the old Chamber of Commerce conservatism (tax cuts, deregulation and a profoundly anti-union labor policy).Report