As the midterms approach, the Democrats are gaining ground
Just a few weeks ago, one of the UK’s top bookmakers was offering odds of 15-1 against the Democrats retaining control of both House and Senate in November’s midterms. Now the odds are 10-1 and still feel a mite pessimistic about the Democrats’ chances.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the chance of a blue wave has shifted from “very unlikely” and is now edging towards a previously improbable “likely”. And if that sounds crazy, consider the results from various elections across the US this week.
The headline result comes from Kansas where the electorate voted against a ban on abortions. The result was hardly close, with 59 per cent of voters supporting abortion rights, against 41 per cent. This is a very important metric. Kansas is hardly goatee and avocado spritzer country. This is the state of former Senator Bob Dole. Some 44 per cent of registered voters are Republicans, compared with only 25 per cent Democrats. You’d have to go back to 1932 to find the state electing a Democrat for senator (they only elected two in the entire 20th century). If Republicans were going to make their case against abortion it was going to be here. The fact they failed to do that should worry them and encourage the Democrats.
Also encouraging the Democrats are the candidates who were elected by Republicans in various primary races. For the most part, those elected were backed by former president Donald Trump. It seems that Republican voters haven’t yet got the message about Rupert Murdoch and his press switching their allegiance. Trump is still the alpha male in the GOP tent. Peter Meijer, one of just 10 Republicans in the House to vote to impeach Trump, lost. So too did Rusty Bowers, the Arizona House speaker who had recently testified against Trump in the January 6th hearings.
Both were the kind of Republicans that Republicans traditionally elect: straight players with cookie-cutter conservative values. They were beaten by candidates ostensibly less acceptable to the wider electorate. That’s down to the influence of the former president but also because Democrats are using America’s unusual primary rules to vote for the candidates they’d most like to see facing their nominees in November. Democrats might finally be learning how to fight ugly.
Take, for example, Arizona, where Mark Finchem won the race to become the GOP’s candidate for Secretary of State. Finchem dresses like some personable old cowboy but he is that very modern phenomenon of fierce election denier. More problematically, he’s also a member of the Oath Keepers, the violent militia group at the centre of the 6th January insurrection. Yet he is hardly unique and reflects a very different GOP ticket going into November. Imagine a party picking the people most likely to alienate the sensible parts of red and blue America and you have a pretty good idea about the current Republican Party and why their odds are lengthening.
Across the country, polling is not looking good for many candidates challenging in some key swing states. In Georgia, Raphael Warnock should be under far more pressure given that he won with just 51 per cent of the vote in 2021’s special election. The Republicans, however, have nominated former NFL running back, Hershel Walker, a man of some unique qualities. In addition to his celebrity, Walker has been accused of domestic abuse which he blames on his suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder, a condition that meant, at times, he had a dozen different identities. That might not be too problematic if Walker were a decent candidate but this, from a few weeks ago, sums up his style. He’s talking about pollution.
“Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air. So, when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So, it moves over to our good air space. Then – now we got to clean that back up.”
Unsurprisingly, polls put Warnock leading from between three and nine points, though you could also argue, surprisingly, polls only put Warnock leading from between three and nine points. Either way, Georgia is one of the states that Republicans should be winning if they hope to regain control of the Senate.
Even if Beto O’Rourke is still unlikely to unseat Greg Abbott as Texas’ governor, he has cut the previously unassailable incumbent’s lead in half. It too is the kind of trend that gives a good indication of what might happen in November. As the Republicans increasingly push deeper into the crazy land of Trumpish stolen elections, insurrection, and religious theocracy, the Democrats are striving to present their moderate side more in line with the concerns of most Americans. Much will continue to be made about Biden’s continued popularity, yet politics is rarely that one-dimensional. America might be facing escalating inflation and all the rest, but abortion has crystalised something about America’s Right that’s proving hard to sell. It’s an offer that’s based on intolerance, minoritarian rule, and, perversely for the Republican Party, a restriction of freedoms.
The last thing to bear in mind: Biden still has a few wins lined up. He’s just announced the not-insignificant removal of Ayman al-Zawahiri. It will be spun by Republicans as proof that Afghanistan remains a bad actor and America should never have withdrawn but, at the same time, it can be used to justify the American withdrawal. The US is reported to have used an R9X Hellfire missile, which does not explode, killing the target with the sheer weight of the missile plus (more gruesomely) six large blades that fan out just before impact. Biden can say, with some justification, that the operation was conducted safely from a distance (the so-called “over the horizon capability”).
Also appearing slightly from over the horizon, Joe Manchin has signalled that he might finally be ready to allow the Democrats to pass some heavyweight legislation in the Senate. That’s in addition to Biden also expected to announce $10,000 of student loan cancellation (though other Democrats have demanded that he cancel up to $50,000). These things might also come to help define the next few months.
Reading US politics through the headlines about Biden’s unpopularity can make those 10-1 odds feel realistic but, as this week’s elections show, there are so many more dynamics at play. Biden might not be great (though we knew that already), but many American voters will still feel that the alternatives are much worse. Don’t be surprised if November surprises.
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