Posted on 11/09/2022 9:36:00 AM PST by SeekAndFind
A cloud hangs over Republicans. The election did not go as well as they thought. They expected the results nationwide to resemble the results in Florida, where Republicans walloped Democrats. Didn’t happen. Florida now seems to be as exceptional politically as it is culturally.
Races across the country are much closer than expected. Many have yet to be called. Chances are that the House will flip to Republicans, and Senate control will depend on the outcome of Adam Laxalt’s race in Nevada and a probable December runoff between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker in Georgia. It may be a month before we know for sure, but Joe Biden can still become the fifth straight president to lose Congress in a midterm election.
Yet any Republican win will be surprisingly close, hard fought, and ugly. The national exit poll and the Fox News voter analysis help us understand what happened. I came away from the data thinking that the 2022 campaign turned on President Biden, abortion, and which party best represents the American center. None of these factors helped Republicans.
Biden is an unpopular president. The exit poll puts his job approval rating at 44 percent. He’s at 43 percent in the Fox analysis. Since 1946, presidents with less than 50 percent job approval have lost an average of 37 House seats. Biden will do better than average.
Why? Because voters distinguished between the man and his party.
In 2018, 38 percent of voters said that they cast ballots to oppose Donald Trump. They broke 94 percent to 4 percent for the Democrats, helping the party gain 41 House seats. A third of the electorate said Trump didn’t figure into their votes. These voters went for Republicans, but only slightly—52 percent to 44 percent.
In 2022, by contrast, only 32 percent of voters in the national exit poll said that they cast ballots to oppose Biden. This group broke for Republicans 95 percent to 4 percent. But an even greater number of voters—almost half of the electorate—said that Biden was not a factor in their votes. They went for Democrats 60 percent to 37 percent.
In the Fox voter analysis, more voters said that Biden was a factor (39 percent) than not (35 percent). But the difference in size between the two camps was small—only four points. And both voted in the same lopsided manner as voters in the national exit poll.
Donald Trump was an unpopular president who polarized the national electorate. Joe Biden is an unpopular president who makes the electorate yawn. Four years ago, the electorate was obsessed with Trump. In 2022 the electorate is thinking about other things.
It is thinking of things like abortion. If you read the polls in the runup to Election Day, you would have thought that abortion rights were fading from voters’ minds. That was not the case. True, 31 percent of voters named inflation the most important issue in the exit poll. But abortion was close behind at 27 percent. And these voters went for Democrats by a greater margin, 76 percent to 23 percent, than inflation hawks went for Republicans, 71 percent to 28 percent.
In the Fox analysis, a whopping 47 percent of voters said that the economy was the most important issue. Abortion came a distant second at 10 percent. Yet Republicans carried only a 31 percent advantage on the economy, while Democrats held a 68 percent edge on abortion.
The public’s views on abortion are complicated. And there are plenty of places, beginning with Ohio, Florida, and Georgia, where pro-life Republicans did fine. Still, it’s clear that abortion rights played a greater part in this election than many observers assumed they would yesterday morning. And in districts such as Virginia Seven, where Republican Yesli Vega lost to incumbent Democrat Abigail Spanberger, abortion may have been decisive.
The Republicans should have done much better on inflation and the economy. They lacked an effective and transparent message on how they planned to fix things. Complaining about rising prices and issuing the "Commitment to America" were not enough to generate a red wave.
Also, celebrity candidates like Herschel Walker and Mehmet Oz don’t have as much credibility on the economy as traditional GOP business types. (Trump was both a celebrity and a businessman, of course.) A complicated issue matrix and vague GOP messages on the economy and life produced a muddled election result.
Finally, since 2016 the GOP has been estranged from the middle of the country. I don’t mean the Midwest—I’m talking about independents, moderates, and suburban voters. Independents went 48 percent to 42 percent for Trump in 2016. Moderates went for Clinton, but by a relatively small 11-point margin. And Trump won the suburbs by 5 points, allowing his overwhelming rural margins to put him in the White House.
It's been downhill from there. In 2018, independents went for Democrats 54 percent to 42 percent. Moderates broke for Democrats by a 26-point margin, and the suburbs split. In 2020, according to the national exit poll, independents went for Democrats 54 percent to 41 percent, moderates broke for Democrats by a 30-point margin, and Democrats won the suburbs 50 to 48 percent. Fox had similar results.
This year, independents went for Democrats narrowly. Moderates broke for Democrats by 15 points. And the suburbs narrowly went for Republicans in the national exit poll, while narrowly going for Democrats in the Fox voter analysis. Our national stalemate continued.
In retrospect, the 2016 election should be viewed less as a victory for Donald Trump than a loss for Hillary Clinton. Years spent overinterpreting the strength of both Trump and the "America First" agenda is one reason so many people, including me, are so surprised at this year’s outcome.
Since Donald Trump became president, Republicans have lost the House, the White House, and the Senate. If they win these institutions back in 2022 and 2024, it will not be thanks to his influence but despite it. The national GOP needs to recognize Biden’s irrelevance, settle on an economic message and agenda that wins public support, take lessons in how to talk about the right to life, and reconnect with independents, suburban voters, and moderates. Maybe the governor of Florida, who just won reelection by 20 points without Trump’s "help," can teach them how to do it.
Fraud
Here’s hoping Herschel Walker and Kari Lake prevail.
Mail-in ballots
And Laxalt and Masters, if they win guess what its still a red wave, we take the Senate and House and its a win..
It’s called Voter Fraud.
The normal M.O of the Modern Democrat Party.
abortion..that is what did it..the dobbs decision brought out the commie base, that simple..it wasnt extreme maga, or muh democracy that did it, but it was abortion..America unfortunately is NOT a pro life country, its pro choice it is what it is, even in Conservative states they still want abortion..that is why leftists candidates kept on harping on abortion they knew it was a winning issue. Just check out the CNN exit poll, it was right on the money(For once CNN had something right) the economy was #1 and abortion was #2
If taking the House and Senate from Biden is underwhelming, sign me up.
Ah, back to the old “tax cuts” argument that did so well for Minion Romney and McTurd.
58% of mail ins were women.
Lot of women upset about the abortion ruling. That was a big part of it.
Florida got the Zuckerbucks under control. Prosecuted voter fraud. Kept the feds away. Ron won big. Should be a model for 2024.
In 2016, Trump got less votes than Romney in wisconsin, but he beat Hillary clinton.
-Mail in ballots
-Fraud
-Cowardly RNC and GOP leadership that are afraid of their own shadows
Our times are in God’s hands and I firmly believe He permitted this to happen as part of setting up what is necessary for the fulfillment of end times prophecy.
I think we’re on a collision course with His judgment and I pray that it would only fall on those responsible for the baby killing, the injustice, the fraud, the immorality, and the rest of those things God hates.
I am praying for a clear distinction to be made in how He deals with those states and people who stand for righteousness, and those who oppose God.
Doubt that is going to get traction, unfortunately.
The last opportunity to have saved America was in December 2020 when Trump could have declared Martial Law and exposed the voter fraud. I said then, if we don’t clean up the system we will have a difficult time winning future elections. Some people think we can have a ground swell of energized supporters and overcome the fraud. It didn’t happen last night. Some think we should be more like Democrats (Cheney et al).
Its not going to get better unless the voter fraud is cleared up. Notice the results in Florida last night after their governor did just that.
VOTE FRAUD
there can be NO OTHER REASON why 73% of the country thinks things are bad, but yet vote to keep the idiots in charge.
When you have exit polling showing more people care about abortion than crime, yeah thats the problem right there
Democrats push for children to vote because children are moved by Pollyanna fabricated social issues and are too stupid for rational thought.
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