Tag: 2022 mid-terms

The Anti-Partisans

It would be easy to conclude that American voters are now immovably committed to either Blue or Red, with margins of victory presumed to often hang on the sliver of the electorate that identifies with neither party.

But recent surveys conducted by Pew Research tell a very different story:

One-third of voters now identify as neither Democrat or Republican.

But this is not new news. Party identification has remained virtually constant for almost 3 decades, and there have always been voters who take great pride in not identifying with – much less ‘joining’ – either party. 

What has changed over the same period is the share of Americans who not only decline any party identification, but who hold highly negative views of the choice afforded by only two parties.

Not surprisingly, such opinions were more widely embraced during the 2012 and 2020 presidential elections, but are at an all-time high in the run-up to the 2022 mid-terms.

More surprising, however, is the remarkable consistency with which Americans of every political stripe – by a margin of 5:1 – agree on the gravity of political divisiveness promoted by the news media, and playing out among ordinary Americans, between politicians, and in social media.

Voters are exhausted by shrill and uninterrupted partisan chest-pounding and trash-talking… of hyperbolic boasting and bashing… of political discourse devolved into snarky memes.

As the election approaches, mass school shootings and abortion bans have handed Democrats have a windfall opportunity not only to energize party regulars, but to sway Republican-leaning Independents who are terrified or outraged enough by both to break with long-standing habit.

If, that is, individual Democrats can make the distinction between demonizing the opposition party/leadership without in the process demonizing those who may not be drinking all of the MAGA Kool-Aid.

And that, in a nutshell, is what COBALT is all about: A Progressive public agenda, presented as issues and facts without the partisan toxicity.

     

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      Senate race snapshot

      With nine weeks remaining until the general election, polling on U.S. Senate races is becoming more frequent and the emerging picture is a mixed bag of certain outcomes and down-to-the-wire races (complete data last below).

      FLORIDA:  Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings is poised to defeat incumbent Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.  Demings was on Joe Biden’s short list of prospective VP candidates in 2020.

      GEORGIA:  Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock is in a tight race with Herschel Walker.  Warnock won the seat by defeating incumbent Kelly Loeffler in a 2020 special election.  Walker, a pro football Hall-of Famer and 1992 Olympics participant, is a graduate of the University of Georgia.

      NEVADA: Polls are conflicted about re-election prospects for Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.  Cortez Masto, who holds the seat vacated by retiring Sen. Harry Reid, was twice elected as the state’s attorney general.  She is the first woman from Nevada – and the first Latina in the U.S. – to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

      NORTH CAROLINA:  Democratic State Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley is in a tight race with Ted Budd for the seat vacated by Republican Sen. Richard Burr.

      OHIO:  Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan is struggling in a race against J.D. Vance for the seat vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman.

      WISCONSIN:  Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes is poised to flip the seat held by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson.

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      The ‘drone view”

      Senate candidates are the perennial stars of midterm elections, but perhaps never more so than in 2022 as control of the Senate hangs by a thread. 

      With only one-third of senators up for re-election in each cycle, Senate races are easier for voters to monitor and candidates’ names are more widely known than for the House.

      And of the 36 Senate races, polls still rank 11 as too close to call.

      And while the House may have less star power, it has ably and amply demonstrated its value as a check on the influence of reactionaries on national policy.

      The sweeping Democratic victory in the 2018 mid-terms has now dangerously eroded, and years of gerrymandering have acted to reduce the number of seats that can be viably contested. 

      Of 435 House races, polls rank only 33 as toss-ups

      Only 20 more are rated as “leaning”…but not completely secure

      In other words, pollsters are saying that outcomes for 88% of House races are foregone conclusions… thanks in no small part to decades of gerrymandering.

      But it’s not just about Federal offices

      While most voters focus only on gubernatorial elections in their home states, recent years have reminded us that activist governors can have an outsized impact – for better or for worse – on policy that most impacts day-to-day life. And it should not be forgotten that 19 Presidents were previously governors, including Franklin Roosevelt, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan.

      This fall, governors will be elected in 36 states.

      Polls rank 11 of the 36 gubernatorial races with margins of 5% or less.

      U.S. voters living abroad are reminded that online registration for local elections are unavailable in:

      • AK
      • ME
      • MI
      • MT
      • NH
      • ND
      • OK
      • SD
      • TX

      Browse more COBALT blog posts on the 2022 elections – including highlights for individual races – here.

      Those living in Mexico who are eligible to vote in U.S. elections (born in the U.S. or born to a U.S. citizen) have the opportunity to influence the outcomes in Federal elections in two ways:

      • Register online here and have your ballot mailed to you. The election is only 10 weeks away.
      • Contribute to like-minded candidates not only in your home state, but to those in hotly contested elections nationwide.  More here.
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      Contraceptives: Mexico’s new contraband

      For 20 years Verónica Cruz Sánchez, founder of the feminist human rights group Las Libres in Guanajuato, Mexico, was a tireless advocate for women seeking abortions in a country with staggeringly high rates of rape and domestic violence. 

      During that time, her non-profit organization distributed hundreds of thousands of ‘abortion pills’ to women in need.

      But when Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in 2021 on the grounds that abortion bans violated the rights of women, it may have seemed that her organization’s work was concluded. 

      Then the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade and Las Libres’ mission was suddenly turned on its head.

      In recent weeks, the organization has experienced an avalanche of calls from U.S. jurisdictions in which abortion restrictions are already taking effect.

      Previously scheduled abortions are being summarily cancelled, leaving the victims with too little time to sift through too few alternatives.

      Las Libres packages the pills in orders of 3-5 each, depending upon availability.  They are batched and transported to the U.S.-Mexican border, where an army of volunteers carries them into the U.S. and assures that each is delivered to its final destination within days of order.

      Mexican clinics are already anticipating an influx flood of U.S. women seeking abortions, evoking images of abortion clinics dotting the Mexican side of the border like casinos on Native American reservations.

      And contraceptives are now a regular part of the mix of drugs making its way north. In an ironic reversal of stereotypes, Mexican Catholics have proven themselves far more tolerant and respectful of human rights than Evangelical Americans.

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      At risk from redistricting

      With the exception of metropolitan Detroit, Michigan is a challenging landscape for any Democratic candidate.

      Republicans have maintained control of the state’s Senate for the past 8 elections, and of its House for 6 of the past 8 elections.

      Current Governor Gretchen Whitmer is a Democrat, but Michigan’s governorship has alternated between the two parties for the past 6 elections.

      The 2020 Congressional redistricting significantly redrew boundaries for the adjacent 7th and 8th Districts, now pitting one House incumbent, Republican Tim Walberg, against another, Democrat Elissa Slotkin.  Walberg has served in the House since 2011, and Slotkin since 2019.

      Slotkin, who holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University a master’s from Columbia, began her career serving in Iraq with the CIA. She later served on President George W. Bush’s national security staff and in the Department of Defense during the Barack Obama administration.

      Her experience makes her an exceptional choice for her current House committee assignments:  Homeland Security, Armed Services, and Veterans’ Affairs.

      Highlights of her voting record (Yeas) in the current Congress:

      • American Rescue Plan
      • For the People Act
      • American Dream and Promise Act
      • Equality Act
      • Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
      • Build Back Better Act
      • Women’s Health Protection Act
      • COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act
      • Impeachment of Donald Trump

      Learn more about Elissa Slotkin here:

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      Racial inequality: Peeling the onion

      It is unsurprising that Republicans are far less likely than Democrats to believe that Blacks experience racial discrimination on every dimension surveyed… but the contrast in partisan perceptions is truly staggering.

      Reality seen through a fractured lens

      Democrats are 4 times more likely than Republicans to believe that Blacks experience racial discrimination in employment.   The data suggests that the more than 1 in 3 Republicans who deny employment discrimination believe that affirmative action has actually given Blacks an unfair advantage.

      It is of note, however, that – perhaps as a result of the BLM movement – the partisan gap is significantly narrower on the issues of discrimination within “the criminal justice system” and “dealing with police”.

      Republicans, however, exhibit their greatest denial of discrimination on the issues of “healthcare” and “voting rights”.

      Blaming the victims

      When it comes to the causes of racial inequality, Democrats assign greater weight than Republicans to external factors including the influence of access to good schools and jobs, and systemic discrimination.

      Republicans are far more likely to blame the victims, attaching far greater significance to family instability, lack of good role models, and laziness.

      An atmosphere of bigotry

      Ever since Trump was elected in 2016, both Blacks and Republicans have believed that the expression of racist views is both both more common and more widely accepted.

      Government action

      It has been as long documented that awareness of racial inequality increases with education as it has been that American education has been faltering.

      In fact, a voter with a high school education or less is twice as likely as a college graduate to believe that government has done too much to address racial inequality, a view shared by:

      • 1 in 5 of those aged 65+
      • 1 in 4 of those aged 50-64

      In stark contrast – and on a hopeful note for the future – those 18-29 years of age believe that that government is doing too little by a staggering 5-to-1!

      NOTE: All data presented in this post was generated by Pew Research.

      Racial stereotyping and prejudice are proving far more deeply rooted and resilient than many imagined.  It is a cancer that will only grow without elected representatives who will stand up to reactionaries for the protection of equal rights.

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      Democrat complacency

      Democrats are railing over the Supreme Courts’ judicial coup as if it was unforeseeable and unpreventable, but there’s a strong case to be made that they need to look to themselves rather than their opposition when placing blame.

      The seemingly sudden sea change has been building for over 20 years.

      By the time Donald Trump was elected President, Democrats had controlled the Senate for only 3 of the previous 14 sessions of Congress, and controlled both houses only twice. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had working Congressional majorities for only their first two of eight years in office.

      In this century, the Democratic Party has consistently been unable to translate its Presidential victories into sustained Congressional majorities, in no small part to depressed voter turnout for mid-term elections.

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      But the outcome should have been readily foreseeable. Republicans cannily secured control of governorships and statehouses in anticipation of redistricting following both the 2010 and 2020 censuses. The resulting gerrymandering resulted in the creation of an increasingly number of virtually uncontestable districts for the G.O.P.

      The effect has been an enablement of the G.O.P. to effectively stall a progressive political agenda for more than two decades, while managing to stick the Democrats with blame for the consequences of inaction.

      Those Democrats counting on a repeat of the 2020 turnout in 2022 should remember that Joe Biden’s victory was as much a consequence of revulsion for Trump as of Biden’s positions. In fact, the data suggests that as much of one-quarter of Biden’s support came from Republicans disgruntled with Trump, but who still voted for G.O.P. candidates down-ticket…. which in part explains the lack of a Biden coattail.

      If Democrats are to prevail this fall, it will require that the battle be fought seat-by-seat, state-by-state.

      And it will not only require that the Party’s factions put aside their squabbling until after a victory… but that Democrats adopt a tone-of-voice that is far less focused on demonizing G.O.P. voters than on inviting women of any stripe for whom abortion bans and school shootings may lead to a break in ranks within the privacy of the voting booth.

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