Midterm blues but no red wave
These midterm results are not what the Democrats wanted. Nor are they the red wave the Republicans predicted. Congress will be in a bind. Republicans control the House of Representatives, but not the Senate.
Gridlock was not what the political parties sought, but a nation increasingly riven by extremes will probably exhale a sigh of relief. Perhaps reaching out across the aisle to opponents to “get stuff done” will come back into fashion. Don’t hold your breath.
Policy apart, the mixed results are bad news for Donald Trump, on the point of launching his 2024 run for the presidency. Many anti party-establishment candidates who enjoyed his backing suffered pratfalls. Demon in waiting, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, emerged victorious. Trump pot shots, aimed at clipping the governor’s wings, fell short of their mark.
The DeSanctimonious jibe didn’t work at Donald Trump’s 6 November Miami rally. You certainly won’t hear the insult repeated. Its target, DeSantis, has held on to the Florida governorship at a canter.
Maybe The Donald is losing his touch at coining put-down monikers: Crooked Hillary (Hillary Clinton), Little Marco (Marco Rubio), Pocahontas (Elizabeth Warren), Sleepy Joe (Who on earth can he mean?). All brilliant.
Trump’s strength is spontaneity. DeSanctimonious sounds like a jibe made up by someone else, perhaps confected by an advisory committee in a Mar-a-Lago hot tub with the temperature turned up too high. It’s just not funny. The sort of insult dreamt up when schemers are sober.
Republicans loyal to their party rather than its 2016 hijacker – that would be former Democrat, President Trump – will be relieved that the midterms did not add substance to his self-assumed role as party kingmaker. Another of his favourites, election loss denier Kari Lake, running for Governor in Arizona, has stumbled.
Yet, Trump will run, despite his stooges’ electoral disappointments. He has already – very, very, very, very likely – passed the point of no return in raising expectations that he will declare himself a candidate in the 2024 presidential race. Backing down would involve loss of face.
Trump’s face is not for losing. Expect a formal announcement any day now. But post the dodgy midterms, the primaries will no longer be a coronation.
Voices will be heard opining that Republicans lost the senate because of Trump’s cookie candidates in critical seats. Expect Ron DeSantis to run.
In the Blue corner, President Biden may be breathing a secret sigh of relief. Losing the Democrat majority in the House of Representatives is, for Biden, a blessing in disguise. The Democrats’ nutty woke agenda on social issues has been a huge contributor to the President’s personal ratings plunge.
Now he can focus on what his visibly dwindling powers make him best suited for. Being vaguely avuncular. Bill Clinton lost control of Congress during his first term as President and went on to win a second term with a vote of 49% in 1996, compared to 43% in 1992. Losing the House need not be a fatal blow for Biden either.
It is one of democracy’s abiding mysteries that the party of John F Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama cannot present any alternative to Biden to the electorate in 2024. Vice-President Kamala Harris is a non-starter. No national names have emerged.
Man to watch. For my money, one big gainer for the Democrats in the midterms is Josh Shapiro, newly elected Governor of Pennsylvania. He beat Trump-endorsed Republican Doug Mastriano by 55.2% to 43% in what the Make America Great Again (MAGA) faction was touting as a bellwether contest.
In spite of, perhaps because of, Trump’s backing, the bell did not ring for the Neo-Confederate military officer, Mastriano. “Shurely shome mishtake? He’s a Neo-Conservative”. For clarity, that is not a slip of the pen.
Nope, Mastriano is part of a group of people wearing military uniforms, forage caps and 19th century lum hats, who process around Arlington Cemetery with Confederate flags, denying that the Civil War was about secession. Perhaps the worrying thing is that he scored 43%.
Shapiro is exactly what the Democrats need. A cross-aisle guy who has quietly done his background political grunt work in the swamps of Pennsylvania politics and proved himself as independent. He backed Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries against the establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton.
Instrumental in sorting the “boring stuff” that matters for voters, a poisonous dispute between local health insurer Highmark and care providers University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) was settled in 2019. I had a grandstand seat, having until 2015 served on the board of a medical company, a joint venture between a UK company and UPMC.
Without getting into the weeds, UPMC was then embroiled in a battle with Highmark, refusing to treat their health plan patients. UPMC operated their own health insurance plan and were trying to “encourage” patients to swap. Smelled anti-competitive.
This was no small beer for Pittsburgh citizens – 1.9m patients were being denied access to their customary doctors. Shapiro eventually knocked heads together and, to my amazement, forced a settlement. Watch this freshly minted Governor.
Pennsylvania also probably proved the graveyard of Republican hopes of taking the Senate when Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), almost incapable of speech following a stroke, defeated the bizarre TV doctor, Mehmet Oz, (R), flipping a Republican Senate seat.
On policy matters, expect pushback from the House of Representatives on military assistance for Ukraine. The Make America Great Again faction argues that there are plenty of needs to be fulfilled closer to home than a faraway country of which they know little.
There will also be attempts to reign in social security spending. Senator Rick Scott (R) from Florida is leading plans to subject Social Security and Medicare budgets to annual scrutiny. Currently they run on autopilot, out of control.
Supreme Court nominations will remain hotly contested territory, but the Democrats’ proposals to make the appointment of Supreme Court Justices overtly political – like local ratcatchers – will now be shelved.
One lesson of these midterms is that boots on the ground organisation works. Novice candidate J.D. Vance (R), the Hill Billy Elegy author, scored 53% against experienced Representative Tim Ryan (D) – 46%. Democrats had been touting Ohio as a swing from Republican. Governor Rob Portman (R) had retired.
I know the Ohio Republican campaign leader well. His schtick is yard signs. Getting to instinctive Republican voters who feel they are ignored in political debate that, for them, is often meaningless.
His cryptic assessment of prospects on election eve was: “It will be epic”. And in his state, where the focus was on candidate quality and issues that mattered to voters, it was.
That it was not epic elsewhere is a lesson the Republican party would do well to reflect upon.
Write to us with your comments to be considered for publication at letters@reaction.life