![]() ![]() It doesn’t want to vote for Democrats necessarily, but the Republicans have to pass this minimum threshold of acceptability, and too many of them decided to light themselves on fire instead,” Ponnuru said. “This is a group of voters that is cross-pressured. These voters very easily might have chosen Republicans given the set of issues they cared about, had the party fielded different candidates. Vance, the Trump-endorsed candidate who beat Democrat Tim Ryan for Ohio’s open Senate seat, did significantly worse than other major Republican candidates on the ticket who won their races, including the state auditor, Ponnuru noted. “It does seem to me that the deeper a candidate in a competitive race was into Trump’s nonsense about the 2020 election, the worse they did,” he said. Republican governors who pushed through anti-abortion legislation didn’t seem to pay a price, and demographic groups who were expected to rally in opposition to such legislation, like unmarried women, turned out in similar numbers as in 2018, leading some to argue the abortion effect may be somewhat overstated, said Ponnuru, a CNN contributor and Bloomberg Opinion columnist.Ĭandidate quality coupled with concerns about democracy had an impact in many races, even those that Republicans won easily. And while many of former President Donald Trump’s preferred candidates lost, even he suffered more of a “setback” than a “massive repudiation,” Kristol added.Įlection deniers “had a bad night,” but Republican incumbents did well for the most part, which also bolsters the case that this was not a change election, said Ponnuru, editor of the National Review and nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. With two elections in a row with very similar results, 20, this midterm was neither a repudiation of Biden nor of the Republican Party. Kenan Jr., Professor of Government at Harvard and the program’s current director, as a venue for political theory and debate. Kristol co-founded the Program on Constitutional Government in 1985 with panel moderator Harvey Mansfield, William R. “They took what is a real historical trend, no question about it, as if it were somehow inescapable and forward aimed,” said Kristol, editor at large at The Bulwark and founder and longtime editor of The Weekly Standard, a now-defunct, neoconservative magazine. He attributed the incorrect predictions by the media and others to the relative youth of so many influential political analysts and opinion-makers who have only ever experienced “wave” midterm elections. The “near parity” in these numbers is a “substantial” part of why everyone has been so surprised by the fizzled Republican showing, said Galston.ĭemocrats also fared much better with voters who were “lukewarm” on Biden’s performance or the direction of the country, but not “angry” enough to vote for the Republican candidate, said Galston. In swing states like Michigan, voters cited abortion (45 percent) over inflation (29 percent) as a top concern in exit polling. One key reason is reflected by exit polls nationwide, which showed that the percentage of people who said inflation and abortion were key was nearly equal. Senate, and control of the House of Representatives, while still not fully settled a week later, is likely to yield only a narrow majority for the GOP. Pre-election polls had many expecting a nationwide “red wave” of Republican victories, with voters blaming President Biden and the Democrats for the economic pain brought by surging inflation. ![]() ’79, in trying to make sense of what all agreed was a “crazy” and “remarkable” midterm election. Galston was joined in the Thursday discussion by conservative journalists Ramesh Ponnuru and Bill Kristol ’73, M.A. ![]() It’s closer to say it was a referendum on the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court lost,” said William Galston, a liberal political theorist, Brookings Institution senior fellow, and Wall Street Journal columnist, during the Program on Constitutional Government’s biennial post-election breakdown, co-sponsored by the Center for American Political Studies. “The 2022 midterm election was expected to be a referendum on Joe Biden. Even the biggest loser (at least to some) of last week’s midterm election was a surprise. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |