A Few Thoughts On The Democratic Wave And The Repudiation Of Trumpism Last Night
It’s pretty clear that last night was a massive repudiation of Trump and the Republicans. Usually, off-off year elections like yesterday are driven more by local issues. But last night was an overwhelming and across the board rejection of Trump politics and his Republican sycophants. It was not just winning the gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey handily. It was actually more about those truly local races for state legislatures. In Virginia, the Democrats hoped to pick up 10 House of Delegate seats on a good night. They have already picked up 14 with five to still be decided. In Georgia, Democrats broke the supermajority that Republicans had in that legislature. In New Hampshire, Democrats won 2 special elections for the state House Of Representatives. In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, an area that Trump won by 4 points, the local Democrat won a state House seat by 20 points.
The repudiation was across the electorate. In Virginia, white, college-educated voters, especially women, came out in droves for Democrats, as did Latinos and other minorities. In the wealthy, highly educated suburb of New York, Westchester County, the Republican county executive won his last race by 10 points. He lost last night by 16, a 26 point swing. But the rejection of Trumpism extended into the Republican base as well. A poll of Trump counties showed that the President himself is barely popular in counties he won handily and underwater in swing districts that he carried in 2016. The results in Michigan but especially in Virginia illustrate that clearly. In Pennsylvania, the Democrats held on to the mayor’s office in Erie, Scranton, and Allentown, admittedly all cities, but in the heart of Trump country in that state. In addition, the younger vote is now overwhelmingly Democratic. In Virginia, the 18-29 age group voted for Northam by nearly 70%. But the 30-44 age group also voted for him by over 60%. And these two age groups now make up nearly 40% of the electorate.
As I’ve said before, Trump’s base really isn’t holding. Strong support even among voters who view him favorably has slipped dramatically. Now we see that he is underwater in swing districts that he carried in 2016 and nearly underwater in districts he carried handily. His approval ratings are in the low 30s in some polls. Nate Silver believes that the polls showing him still with 80% support among Republicans are misleading because a smaller and smaller slice of the electorate self-identifies as Republican. Trump won election in 2016 but lost by 3% of the vote. He won because of the anachronism of the Electoral College which allowed him to squeak in wins in a handful of swing states in an election where a foreign government was apparently running a massive propaganda campaign against his opponent, where the press relentlessly focused on a faux scandal of his opponent, and where the FBI Director specifically and against all DOJ rules and regulations intervened in the waning days of the election to further damage his opponent. If Republicans think they can win by relying on Trump’s base and a similar set of circumstances, be my guest. Tonight proved otherwise.
There are a few other takeaways from last night that I think are important as well. First, health care was the primary issue in both Virginia and New Jersey. In addition, Medicaid expansion was passed overwhelmingly in the state of Maine. Repeal and replace turns out to have backfired in an unbelievable fashion on the Republicans. Who knows whether they will look at these results and say it was because they failed to do what they said they would do or because they tried to do what they said they would do and the public finally understood what that would mean. My belief is the latter, but I’m not a Republican.
Second, we learn once again that a fifty state strategy is important. Democrats had let Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates run unopposed in past elections. The fact that the party competed in every race is what allowed it to possibly flip that chamber in this wave election. It was a symbiotic relationship in that down-ballot candidates probably brought more local Democrats to the polls and Democrats who did go to the polls had a down-ballot candidate to vote for. In addition, the old saw that, when Democrats actually turn out, we win and we win big, was once again proven correct.
Third, gun control was also an important issue, I believe the second most important, in both Virginia and New Jersey. I don’t think we know enough about Virginia to say whether that reflected the need for more of it or the fear that their guns would be taken away. But in New Jersey, Phil Murphy specifically ran on signing gun control legislation that Christie had vetoed and Northam wants to ban assault weapons.
In fact, both Murphy and Northam ran surprisingly populist campaigns. Murphy and Northam both support the legalization of marijuana and a $15 minimum wage. Murphy pledged to spend more on education and Northam wants free community college. Murphy also pledged to raise taxes on the rich and to charter a state bank that will help grow indigenous New Jersey businesses. While the focus of the voters may have been to send a message to Trump, it is also clear that these populist policies did not hurt the Democrats.
The answer for the Republican culture war is to wage a Democratic class war. By that I mean focusing on so-called kitchen table issues such as healthcare, jobs, and wages. Much was made of the fact that exit polls showed 60% of the voters in Virginia wanted the Confederate monuments to stay. But no one thought it was an important issue, much less one that would determine their vote. In Charlottesville, Virginia, the raw vote totals were up by 31% compared to the last gubernatorial election in 2013, proving that the overtly racist message may backfire on Republicans. For Democrats, the path seems obvious, to appeal to their base and to the Trump voters by focusing on the issues of healthcare, jobs, wages, and now tax fairness. If you can win on those issues, the culture wars mean nothing.
For Republicans in Congress running for re-election in 2018, these results should be frightening. Already, in the middle of election day, two more Republicans, one from Texas and one from New Jersey, announced they would not run for re-election. Frank LoBiondo, the New Jerseyan, specifically cited the extremism within his own party as part of the problem. Other Republicans in blue states will have also have some serious thinking to do. In Virginia, Barbara Comstock just saw Ralph Northam win her district by a whopping 13%. With this massive repudiation, you can expect many more retirements to come.
It will be interesting to see how the Republican leadership reacts to these results. Will they really continue down a path to increase taxes on virtually everyone in order to give huge tax breaks to the already wealthy? Will they really still keep trying to kill Obamacare, with health care as one of the top issues for voters? Will they still keep trying to gut Medicaid and now cut Medicare? It hardly seems like a winning strategy. Chris Collins put the situation that blue state Republicans like him, and perhaps Republicans in general, find themselves in pretty stark terms yesterday when he talked about the tax bill and stated that “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again.'” On the other hand, “getting it done” will also probably be political suicide.
For Democrats, this will certainly take the pressure off Tom Perez. He believes in the fifty state strategy and tonight it paid off beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. The big question looming now is how much to invest in the Senate race in Alabama. After this result, Democrats need to go all in.
One last point. Ralph Northam won his state by nearly 10 points. Democrats swept all three statewide offices. They won a large majority of the total votes for the House of Delegates. Yet extreme gerrymandering may mean the Democrats will only hold the very slimmest of majorities or perhaps still be a minority in that House of Delegates. This is absurdly undemocratic. Worse is the fact that the courts have already ruled these Republican-drawn districts as illegal but new maps were not in place for this election. That is also absurdly undemocratic. Waiting for a decade for the next census or multiple election cycles in order to undo a system that patently disenfranchises thousands and thousands of voters is not a sustainable way to run a democracy. Hopefully, this election will be another vivid illustration to the Supreme Court when they decide on this issue.
