Democrats needed a wakeup call – and the election results this week provided it.
In our American democracy – as fraught as it is – elections are the critical way that voters express their views on the state of the union. In the elections this week, voters did exactly that: a highly engaged public – which led to record off-year turnout – responded quite negatively to the party in power.
Elections are signals in the noise. When voters feel that a party has gone too far in one direction, or performed poorly in their leadership, voters send a signal – with their vote – for change.
In this age of negative partisanship, it’s easy to run as the opposition – especially when the party you’re opposing is unpopular. Rather than seeking to inspire voters around a cohesive and forward-looking vision, campaigns can rather effectively incite fear and anger toward the opposing party to gain power.
The ebb-and-flow that this causes in our politics has been well documented in recent election cycles.
Just a year after the seismic political upheaval in 2008 – that ushered in Barack Obama and large Democratic majorities – Democrats lost elections across a swath of reliably Democratic states: places like New Jersey and Massachusetts. Democrats even went on to lose the Senate seat in Illinois previously held by Obama. The same happened after a very different political upheaval eight years later when, after sending Donald Trump to Washington with a Republican Congress, voters ousted Republicans in reliably the red states of Kentucky, Kansas, and Alabama.
Ignoring this history to boost their own self-aggrandizing explanations, far too many pundits and prognosticators are presenting an overly myopic assessment of the problem Democrats faced. No, backlash to ‘critical race theory’ – entirely invented by the Republican media echo-chamber – did not cost Democrats the election. No, Terry McAuliffe – faults aside – did not run a distinctively flawed campaign. No, this is not a problem that’s unique to suburban voters.
This was a pronounced, and widespread, indictment of Democratic leadership.
Just look at the swing in Virginia since the 2020 election. If this was a suburban backlash against Democrats on education, you would expect to see disproportionate declines for Democrats in the suburbs. But what we see instead is a widespread, fairly uniform shift away from Democrats across the commonwealth: in big suburbs and small towns; in the Washington, DC collar counties all the way down through rural communities in southwest Virginia and across to the diverse Tidewater.
And the shift away from Democrats extends well beyond the borders of Virginia. In Virginia, there was a roughly 8-point swing towards the GOP since the 2020 election (from Biden +10 to McAuliffe -2). But the swing in New Jersey was twice as large: from Biden +16 last year the narrowest of wins for Phil Murphy.
Democrats lost ground everywhere. Had the midterms been held this week, Republicans would have easily taken back the House and Senate.
While there are countless factors that affect the outcome of any given race, micro analyzing any given factor misses the bigger signal in all of this: Joe Biden is really unpopular right now.
In recent months, Democrats have tried (with some success) to simply ignore this reality – without any appreciation for the political implications, realized this week, that such unpopularity presents.
There is no way to spin this: Since July, Biden’s popularity has fallen significantly.
Before July, Biden was in a relatively healthy position. His approval rating was above 50 percent. More than half of voters (52 percent) were hopeful about the year ahead. The pandemic was still top of mind, but cases were on the decline. By a 2:1 margin, voters thought the U.S. was handling coronavirus well and thought Biden was primarily responsible for this success. There were strong headlines for the President about an impending bipartisan deal on infrastructure, record GDP growth, and a July 4th proclaimed end to the pandemic. Biden had a net-positive approval rating for his handling of the economy and, for the first time in more than a decade, less than half of voters thought the country was headed on the wrong track.
In the three months since, Democrats have been stuck in the mud, paralyzed by their own infighting.
While the Republican media eco-chamber ping ponged from one ‘crisis’ to another for which Biden was to ‘blame’ – the rise of Delta, the bungled exit from Afghanistan, the border, inflation, supply chain issues – Democrats bickered amongst themselves and let their actions be defined by a political press that was more interested in reporting their proposed topline spending figures than the ways in which Democrats’ legislative agenda would positively benefit everyday Americans.
The effects have been devastating for Democrats. Biden’s job approval has tumbled to 42 percent, lower than any other modern president at this point in his presidency – with one important exception, Donald Trump. This summer, 44 percent of Americans thought the country was headed in the right direction. That optimism has collapsed. Today, just 27 percent feel we are on the right path.
This is a bit too simplistic, but when Ralph Northrup won Virginia in 2017 his vote share (53.9 percent) was roughly in line with Donald Trump’s disapproval rating (54.5 percent) nationally. This year, Glen Youngkin won Virginia with 50.7 percent. Biden’s current disapproval rating nationally: 50.7 percent.
So goes Biden, so goes Democrats’ electoral fortunes.
But all hope is not lost for Democrats – and there is clear path out of this disarray.
Joe Biden needs to restrengthen his popularity. To do so, he needs Democrats in Congress to snap out of it and recognize that their intransigence has led to Biden’s approval decline – and will lead to their own electoral misfortune next year. Democrats simply cannot go into the midterms with a president whose approval rating in is the low 40s and expect anything less than a massive defeat at the ballot box.
Democrats need to get to work. The defeat this week should act as the catalyst needed to get the infrastructure and the Build Back Better legislation swiftly passed. Now is not the time for inaction. As it stands, a plurality of voters (42 percent) think this Congress has done less than usual – and they blame Democrats. Inaction has led a sizable majority of Americans (58 percent) to view Biden as a weak leader. Just 36 percent of Americans are optimistic about the next few years with Biden as President.
Democrats simply cannot continue to let their slim majority be an excuse for inaction. In politics, as is in life, time is precious and priceless. The longer the spotlight is on Democratic inaction, the worse this gets. The longer Democrats bicker, the less time Democrats have to take their success story directly to voters; to counter the Republican media eco-chamber and communicate their legislative victories and the boost their legislation provides to everyday Americans.
Biden promised to build back better. Not demur and dither. Democrats must wake up and finally deliver.
