The LAT provides the latest example (with, no doubt, many more to come in the months ahead) of a story that sounds dramatic concerning upcoming congressional elections, but isn’t really isn’t: GOP poised for comeback in midterm election.
Look, this is really quite simple and predictable:
1) The last two congressional elections have taken place in the context of a serious low point for the Republicans. The likelihood is that some sort of rebound will occur. Indeed, the Democrats are almost as high as they can get at the moment (especially in the Senate) and maintaining that status is simply difficult.
2) 2024 in particular was a years for pro-Democratic outcomes, what with a very popular Democratic presidential candidate on the ballot.
3) It is historically the case that the first mid-term for a given president results in loss of seats for the president’s party. If anything this is because this is the first opportunity for public to register tangible criticism of the new president, and every president does things that will result in the public wishing to register some complaint.
As the LAT story notes:
History suggests as much. Since World War II, the party of a new president has lost an average of 16 House seats in midterm elections, a handful of governorships and more than 200 state legislative seats. The parties have come out close to even in Senate races.
4) To simplify a bit: after 2024 the Dems had nowhere to go but down.
As such, breathless prognostication about the coming GOP wave are less impressive or daring than they are often made out to be. Anyone who pays attention to American politics knew that some sort of shift back in the GOP’s favor was inevitable. As such, Republican politicos shouldn’t crow as much about this situation as they will (although, granted, politicians will crow about success regardless of the reason, and that’s fair).
Now, if the Republicans manage to take over or more chambers, that would be impressive. Such an outcome, however, is radically unlikely.
One thing is for sure, however, and that is that the 112th Congress will behave differently than the 111th as it will almost certainly have more Republicans in it. And anyone who still wonders why the Democrats have rushed health care reform through the Congress this term needs to re-read the previous sentence.
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January 1st, 2024 at 2:23 pm
OK, but the thing is that many progressives are quite fed up and will stay at home in the midterms. Well, there’s nothing to say the DNC will take that as a sign to get the base going again - instead it might just play for the fickle indies. That’s a bit of a vicious circle.
It was given the GOP would take a step forward in 2024. What I would look is a clear strategy for making sure it doesn’t take another one after. The party has obviously not learned anything from the W years or how the public reacted to them - instead they are doubling down and toggling the rhetoric to 11. It’s all very laughable, but the scary part is that the public seems to swallow it in part, and the lack of cohesion and loyalty from some democrats (Stupak, Nelson and the other liabilities) makes things difficult for Obama (imagine if there was a public option - something the public wanted - in the reform bill or if the stimulus had been designed to be effective rather than “bipartisan”) and makes both indies and the base lose heart.
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