For the past few weeks, every American political scientist had taken for granted an easy Republican victory in the midterm elections. There was talk of up to eight advantage seats in the Senate and up to 40 advantage seats in the House of Representatives. Tuesday came and the forecasts went down the drain. As of this writing (Friday afternoon), Republicans have 210 seats versus 195 for Democrats, with 30 seats remaining. Things are much tighter in the Senate, with Republicans winning 4948 and only three seats left.
What would be the causes of this election “disaster”? Why was the red wave which some, including myself, took to be a tsunami just a wave? In my view, the causes are varied.
First up is Republican disunity and infighting, somewhat reminiscent of the 2006 PSDB. No one thought Lula would easily undo the damage the monthly allowance had done to his image, but the PSDB leadership did everything they could to give the PT victory, including abandoning Geraldo Alckmin’s campaign in their last Phase. Around here, Republican chiefs who operate in the same way are known as “swamp creatures,” and their most obvious individual manifestation is the persona of Mitch McConnell. The seventerm senator and notorious dissatisfaction with Donald Trump worked in such a way that some candidates backed by the former president didn’t get all the campaign funding they needed to win. Rather than wire funds from the Senate Leadership Fund to Blake Masters, the Arizona nominee for the top spot, McConnell invested money in the Alaskan race, which was being held between two Republican candidates to pit his ally Lisa Murkowski against Trump nominee Kelly Tshibaka to prefer. Swamp creatures only care about themselves.
Joe Biden is expected to spend two years with the legislature playing against his administration. Something like this is expected to be a little less bad than the Democratic president’s first two years.
A second reason lies in the vote counting systems of certain states. Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Georgia were the states with the most evidence of abnormalities in the 2020 election. Of those four, only Nevada has had Democratic control of the state legislature for the past four years; in the other three, Republicans controlled both the state Legislature and the state Senate. Moreover, in Arizona and Georgia the governor was also a Republican. Despite all this power to pass laws, muchneeded reforms of the electoral system have not been implemented. By comparison, in Florida, these reforms were a government priority, and the result was the cleanest and fastest investigation of any major American state.
Cause number three is linked to Donald Trump. The former president played a prominent role in picking candidates and supporting his allies in the Republican primary. It was from Trump’s hands that the candidacy of Dr. Oz for the Pennsylvania Senator seat, whose race was won by one of the worst Democratic candidates to ever set foot in the United States, John Fetterman. Fresh from a stroke, Fetterman was barely able to speak out on the campaign trail, and even then he fueled the controversy over Oz. Trump also backed Blake Masters in the Republican primary for the Arizona Senator seat. Masters was never considered the best name, but his allegiance to Trump helped seal his nomination. At the time of this writing, Masters was still in the running, but his chances were slim.
A final fact that may have hurt Republicans in some disputes was the reversal of Roe v. Wade. While voter concerns have focused much more on economic issues in the face of the disastrous Biden administration, many people prioritize the abortion agenda when they vote. In this case, there is no way to regret what happened. As I have covered in previous columns, the converse of Roe v. Wade was a moral milestone in the history of the United States, and any political burden associated with it, in my opinion, is less than the benefit to the little babies saved from death.
If current polling trends are confirmed, Republicans should have a narrow majority in the House of Representatives somewhere between five and eight seats and the Senate majority won’t be determined until after the second round in Georgia. The state has other rules that require the winner to win 50% plus one of the votes. The election takes place on December 6th and is designed to attract the stars of both parties because it pays to control the House of Lords. And Joe Biden is expected to spend two years with the legislature playing against his administration. Something like this is expected to be a little less bad than the Democratic president’s first two years. And let 2024 come.
Content edited by: Marcio Antonio Campos