Democrats gain from disruptive Trump
The U.S. midterm elections did not turn out as Republicans had expected nor as many polls had predicted. Instead of a red Republican tide in Congress, the electorate delivered a ripple, with major Republican wins in Florida, Ohio and Texas and probably a razor thin majority in the House. Democrats will retain control of the Senate even with a December run-off in Georgia still pending.
The Democrats defied tradition where the party in power ordinarily loses heavily in the midterms. (Barack Obama’s Democrats lost 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats in 2010. Bill Clinton lost 54 in the House and 8 in the Senate in 1994.) Biden avoided anything close to these results. He did it basically by staying out of the way, leaving the battleground state campaigning to surrogates Obama, who is arguably still the most popular Democrat, and Bill Clinton.
Despite an unpopular president, record levels of inflation, rampaging crime and chaos at the southern border, the Democrats remarkably held their own.
Several factors influenced the surprising result. Although polls suggested that concerns about abortion rights had abated after a summer surge, exit polls indicated that it was a prominent determinant for voters overall. Exit polls in Michigan and Pennsylvania indicated that abortion was the top priority, ranking well above inflation.
Republicans were all over the map on abortion and lacked a consistent, compelling position. Democrats aggressively exploited this vulnerability.
Secondly, the disruptive behaviour of former president Trump endorsing MAGA, election-denying candidates, played to the Democrats’ advantage. Some Trump-backed candidates like J.D. Vance in Ohio, Ted Budd in North Carolina and Katie Britt in Alabama ultimately won. Others he staunchly supported like Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, Blake Masters in Arizona and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire lost. Almost all election-deniers in key states were defeated.
The Democrat’s closing argument that the country was gravely threatened by “insurrectionists” (Read Donald Trump) and pro-life fanatics, a message intended to fire up the Democrat base, especially younger voters. Democrats relish running against Trump.
Finally, Democrats mastered the “art” of early mail-in and absentee balloting while Republicans relied more on traditional ‘get out the vote’ tactics.
Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen, formerly a Bush speech writer, delivered a scathing indictment of the Republican campaign effort saying it was “an absolute disaster.” Support of “radical members have left the party in a terrible position.” Governors Desantis, Ohio’s Mike Dewine and Georgia’s Brian Kemp offer a “path to the future.”
A New York Post opinion article delivered a more trenchant view blasting Trump as “toxic” and gave him both barrels for the party’s successive election failures.
A Wall Street Journal editorial branded him as the Republicans’ “biggest loser”.
Democrats are smiling while Republicans commiserate over the results.
Being the consummate narcissist, Trump shoulders none of the blame and his prospects for running again loom large. He seeks expiation while many Republicans desperately want to turn the page. Ultimately, Trump will do what he thinks is best for him, not his party or the country.
Florida Governor Ron Desantis’ decisive re-election moves him into the pole position for the presidential nomination in 2024. He offers a record of achievement on COVID, on education and the economy, along with strong positions on crime, immigration and energy that will appeal to mainstream and populist Republicans alike, and without the erratic character foibles of the former president. True to form, Trump derided Desantis as “Governor Desanctimonious.”
The almost $10-billion cost of House and Senate elections was astronomical and does not include expenses for Gubernatorial and State elections. Data from Open Secrets shows that Congressional candidates with the most money win between 71 per cent and 98 per cent of the time. The Democrats outspent Republicans across the board.
Battleground Senate races like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio received the lion’s share of spending, especially from external sources.
Ten per cent of federal election spending came from ultrarich donors representing only 0.0003 per cent of the U.S. population.
Biden says he will stay the course and not make any adjustments to his administrative team or his policy priorities.
If Republicans manage to take control of the House, they may be able to slow parts of Biden’s legislative ambitions. They can force a showdown over spending when the government must again raise the borrowing limit, and seek something in return, possibly cuts in climate change funding, or a Joe Manchin-like approach to easier permitting of energy projects. Biden’s campaign promise to “stop all drilling” and shutter “all coal mines” did not sit well with the Democrat’s West Virginia Senator.
Despite being joined at the hip with a shared obsession over climate change, Canada has not reaped any dividends from the Biden Administration. We are not really on Washington’s radar these days. The president has yet to make an official visit to Canada.
U.S. protectionism is the perennial threat to Canada’s economic interests. Massive subsidies in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act are aimed at attracting foreign automakers to expand and build operations in America in exchange for pledges to use American products. German, Japanese and Korean firms are scrambling to obtain the freebies on offer. But these seem to violate both the USMCA and WTO rules, which is why Canada should lobby vigorously to block or modify these subsidies.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s re-election in Michigan threatens the fate of Line 5 — a pipeline providing critical oil and gas supplies to Ontario and Quebec — a dispute Biden has assiduously sidestepped.
Former Secretary of State George Shultz readily understood the importance of Canada to the U.S. and once observed that “Good relations were like good gardening. You have to take care of the weeds.” There are more weeds than flowers in the North American garden these days and our government must act firmly to safeguard Canadian interests and give greater attention to overt threats to our economy and less to infatuations about climate change.
ALMOST ALL ELECTION DENIERS IN KEY STATES WERE DEFEATED.