THREE REALITIES POWERING A REPUBLICAN SWEEP
Listeners of political shows, whether on cable, talk radio or podcast, tend to be “high-information” voters. They’re the voters who pour over statistics and polls, analyses and deep-dives. They devour newsletters and political columns, looking for clues and tells. It’s a peculiar vanity to think any of us can fully grasp political currents in a country this big, but high-information voters try.
If their feed comes from MSNBC and the like, they will be high-information voters of the left. If they listen to Fox News or most nationally syndicated radio shows, they will be high-information voters of the right. Moderate voters, many of whom sample the breakdowns from both sides, might filter out more of what they find unhelpful.
Still, a week of meetings with audiences ranging in number from 150 to 1,400 in cities where my radio show has affiliates — Detroit, Denver, Pittsburgh, Columbus and Cleveland — buttressed my view that a Republican wave is building. Having talked to many of those in attendance in person (most, admittedly, were conservative), I’d nonetheless argue that it’s hard to miss what the midterms are about.
The three facts driving the election are: 1) inflation at 40-year highs, especially for food and energy; 2) the perceived deterioration of public education, manifested most recently by declining grade school test scores in nearly every state and falling ACT scores; and 3) unprecedented border crossings, which strike many Americans as a crisis of national security.
When new facts arrive in the final weeks of a campaign that for months didn’t seem to be about anything, the nudge toward a political choice becomes more like a shove.
The October inflation numbers provided a jolt to voters, though perhaps not to those who do the food shopping. The new figures about classroom achievement of fourth and eighth graders will likely push some voters toward a GOP slate.
But for sheer surprises, it is hard to compete with Friday’s figures from the Department of Homeland Security. Consider the numbers: In September 2019, 52,546 people were stopped at the border. In September 2020, the number rose to 57,674. By September 2021, it had jumped to 192,001.
September 2022’s total? 227,547. Among the conservatives I talked with last week, the collapse of controls at the Southern border might not quite rate with inflation as a primary motivator.
But illegal immigration is a close second as a primary reason to vote this year. The new numbers suggest the threat is not about numbers alone. There were 20 arrests at the border of known or suspected terrorists on the FBI’s terrorism watchlist in September alone, according to the new Customs and Border Protection numbers.
That brought the total for those arrested on terrorism watchlists to 98 since October of last year. That’s more than three times the number arrested in the previous five years, combined.
Midterm elections are traditionally a referendum on the president. That was going to be true before the triple whammy of bad news entered the picture in the last fortnight of campaigning. Even polling, which in past cycles has proved to favor Democrats, has picked up the shifting political landscape.
The late breaking facts are staggering to consider. No doubt the same is true of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision and the House select committee hearings investigating Jan. 6, 2021, for many on the left. But what will push the middle of the electorate to pull a lever for a party rather than a candidate?
The election is breaking for Republicans because, in the end, facts are stubborn things.