In 2018 midterm elections, a divided electorate issues a split decision
Elections have consequences. But sometimes those consequences are neither clear nor obvious. Tuesday was such an election.
As widely anticipated, Pennsylvania Democrats played a pivotal role in national results, help- ing win con- trol of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Democrats picked up three congressional seats statewide, reversing the 12-6 Republican control to a 9-to-9 party split with Democrats in the delegation. The biggest gains came in the Philadelphia suburbs and the Lehigh
Much was settled Election Day, but much more remains unsettled.
Valley.
The Democratic performance also dazzled in the so-called top-of-the-ticket contests. Incumbent Sen. Bob Casey cruised to victory by a percentage margin of 56 to 43 over Lou Barletta. Casey has now won six statewide elections, two as auditor general, one as treasurer, and now his third as a U.S. senator.
None of these elections was even close. Casey has emerged as one his party’s leading critics of President Trump, while supporting the president’s positions on trade and tariffs — support that translated into thousands of votes in those parts of the state with a large proportion of working men and women in the old mining and mill town counties.
Re-elected Gov. Tom Wolf similarly coasted to a near-record victory of 58 percent to 41 percent over opponent Scott Wagner. Ending his first term with a job performance north of 50 percent, Wolf’s easy victory should not surprise.
He had an opponent in Wagner who could not find an issue that resonated with voters, while Wagner’s campaign suffered endlessly from self-inflicted wounds, mainly administered by the candidate himself. State Democrats have now won four of the last five gubernatorial elections.
Democrats also scored impressive and historic victories, adding four women to the state’s congressional delegation. Previously the delegation had never included more than two women at the same time.
But state Republicans also won by not losing decisively, notably in the state Legislature. They entered Election Day with 121 seats in the House, with 102 being the operational majority. In the state Senate, the GOP held 34 of 50 seats, with 26 seats being a majority.
House Republican numbers now have been reduced to 110 seats, losing 11, and 29 seats in the Senate, a loss of five. Still, that leaves Republicans firmly in control of both chambers of the Legislature. Continued Republican dominance of the General Assembly means Pennsylvania will continue to have divided government.
And Republicans ultimately prevailed in several hard-fought congressional races — particularly in the 1st District centered in Bucks County, the 10th District centered in York and Dauphin counties, and the 16th District in the northwestern part of the state. Each of these was heavily targeted by Democrats, but they came up short in all three, minimizing what could have been a bigger disaster for Republicans.
Nationally, Republicans not only retained the U.S. Senate, but picked up at least two seats from Democrats, giving the GOP firm control of the upper chamber. GOP gains in the Senate while losing the House was historically significant in a midterm election.
So, overall it was a big night for the Democrats but far from a mandate. A Trump candidacy for re-election in 2020 is buoyed significantly by the seats his party picked up in the U.S. Senate.
We now have a divided government both in Harrisburg and Washington — and a divided electorate provided it. Much was settled Election Day, but much more remains unsettled. A split decision doesn’t mean there was no decision.
But it does mean the electorate decided to remain undecided — and the country remains embattled in its most bitter political struggle since the late Sixties and the Vietnam War-civil rights era.
Such division, with its chronic divisiveness and partisan wrangling, can’t endure indefinitely if American exceptionalism is to remain exceptional.
The 2020 presidential election now looms as our next best chance to decide who we are as a nation — and where we want to go.
G. Terry Madonna is professor of public affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, and Michael Young is a speaker, pollster, author and was professor of politics and public affairs at Penn State University.