2022 Midterm Election MEGATHREAD

[Sheilbh]

I'm not great at this stuff, I'm an accountant posting on the internet.

Say he is a loser. He picks loser candidates, he lost reelection. He was a loser as president because while Trump was giving press conferences with the most awful man in history (to a republican primary audience), Dr. Fauci, he was opening the state of florida. Trump was weak for not firing Dr. Fauci. A weak loser.

I totally agree. I think DeSantis is a real risk to Trump (and probably more of a risk than Trump).

But I always think about that Blair line about thinking for a long time before attacking his opponents to work out the line that most voters, who don't follow politics, will nod along to rather than tune out. I think for a fellow Republican that attack is that he's a loser.

His supporters believe that he won the election but in actual reality, he lost and he's no longer in the White House. I think reality beats his prince over the water stylings from Mar-a-Lago. He lost them elections in 2018, he lost the White House in 2020, his candidates lost 2020 - while (if I were DeSantis) DeSantis turned a purple state red.

But also, sadly, there's something to Tamas' line about DeSantis can do. Trump is an ex-president. He can post on Truth Social and he can hold rallies. DeSantis is a governor - he can push "don't say gay" laws, he can get into a fight with Disneyland, he can ship immigrants to Martha's Vineyard. He has power and he can get on the news and dominate news cycles in a way Trump used to be able to, but increasingly can't because he's just an ex-president.

Having said that I don't think DeSantis has much charisma and his speaking voice isn't great - but I think those can to some extent be fixed. I think he's in a better position than any other Republican.

I think that NY Post front page is exactly the type of message and tone to go for with Trump - and I think tone matters. Part of Trump's appeal is transgression - so attacking him from a point of seriousness, or concern probably helps him. I think that may have been the challenge for Democrats in responding to Trump - my instinct is that the best attack for Democrats against Trump is that he's weak. But it's difficult to attack someone as weak (or a loser) while simultaneously talking about them as a threat to the republic. I think that's true but I also think it flatters Trump and plays into the sense he's doing things. There's a similar tonal dissonance in the threat of Trump (serious, grave etc) v actual Trump, that I think he exploits quite well.

[CountDeMoney]

Biden saying be will stand for re-election.
This seems sort of unwise given his age and now damaged position as a uncontroversial centrist.
But I guess the dems have failed in what should have been a major goal of grooming a successor. Harris has vanished off the face of the earth

Biden is the head of the party..

Biden saying be will stand for re-election.
This seems sort of unwise given his age and now damaged position as a uncontroversial centrist.
But I guess the dems have failed in what should have been a major goal of grooming a successor. Harris has vanished off the face of the earth

Having a successor lined up hasn't worked well yet. I vastly prefer we get out candidate more organically.

Besides there weren't really any rising stars to get. Harris was never going to be the successor, her performance in the 2020 Primary made that clear.

Biden, as the President of the United States, is the political head of the Democratic Party. His sitting Vice President--any Vice President--is the presumptive successor. That's the way it's always been.

The fact that she's so readily dismissed shows how far the concept of the party mechanism has dissolved.

That, and everyone hates educated and accomplished uppity negresses that lock up dumbass stoners in Chongistan.

[CountDeMoney]

Harris was chosen to tick boxes, always a poor qualification.

I rest my case.

[Grey Fox]

You guys lack patience. There is no need for the heir apparent to be out there right now to be attacked by the opposition.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Note that all Biden said was "he still plans to run again", which he has been saying since like 15 months ago. It isn't quite the same as the formal announcement of a reelection campaign. For some reason pundit class types and others have just assumed he wouldn't really run, but he has never given any indication of that.

[Valmy]

Biden, as the President of the United States, is the political head of the Democratic Party. His sitting Vice President--any Vice President--is the presumptive successor. That's the way it's always been.

The fact that she's so readily dismissed shows how far the concept of the party mechanism has dissolved.

That, and everyone hates educated and accomplished uppity negresses that lock up dumbass stoners in Chongistan.

While Biden did become President I don't think the intention was to groom him for President. I think both he and Harris were selected for roughly the same reason, to balance out the ticket. Likewise I don't think the Republicans were expecting Cheney or Pence to be the next President.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Cheney was clearly a bit of an outlier from a traditional VP--Bush had a lot of question marks going into the 2000 campaign related to his general competence, a "boring" but technocratic/capable VP was seen as burnishing his administration.

I don't necessarily think the Vice Presidency is "assumed" to be an anointing of a Presidential heir, but it is certainly the case that most people selected to be Vice President it is at least presumed they will be a contender for a Presidential nomination in the future.

[DGuller]

Cheney was clearly a bit of an outlier from a traditional VP--Bush had a lot of question marks going into the 2000 campaign related to his general competence, a "boring" but technocratic/capable VP was seen as burnishing his administration.

I don't necessarily think the Vice Presidency is "assumed" to be an anointing of a Presidential heir, but it is certainly the case that most people selected to be Vice President it is at least presumed they will be a contender for a Presidential nomination in the future.

I agree that there is no reason to waste a VP spot on someone who has no chance of being a successor, and this is where Biden's demographic requirements have really hurt the Democrats.  Arbitrary restrictions don't matter if you have an infinite pool of candidates to choose from, but I don't think an infinite amount of Democratic presidential candidates is the reality we're in right now.

[Sheilbh]

Cheney was clearly a bit of an outlier from a traditional VP--Bush had a lot of question marks going into the 2000 campaign related to his general competence, a "boring" but technocratic/capable VP was seen as burnishing his administration.

I don't necessarily think the Vice Presidency is "assumed" to be an anointing of a Presidential heir, but it is certainly the case that most people selected to be Vice President it is at least presumed they will be a contender for a Presidential nomination in the future.

Also Biden. Historically hasn't the VP mainly been about geographic balancing and that seems less of a thing now but there is maybe a bit more of an ideological/experience/image balancing in recent VP picks? It also feels like in the past the VP pick was maybe more willing to act as the attack dog/be more overtly political while the candidate tried to act "presidential".

I agree, they absolute get included in the list of possible successor but I think it's maybe always been about more what they offer the ticket at the point of the election rather than that they're the best person in 8 years time.

Which is where I'd slightly quibble with DG of whether what he's saying has always been that way? Biden was explicit about his requirements in a VP, but they've always been there - just normally been about geogrpahy or perceived political position for outreach to x part of the party.

[HisMajestyBOB]

The last time the VP was the nominee in 2000 with Al Gore. Cheney didn't run in 2008, Biden stepped aside for Hillary in 2016, and Biden was not the primary front runner until South Carolina in 2020. VP selections are more about balancing the existing ticket rather than setting up the heir apparent.

[FunkMonk]

I was impressed by Fetterman in PA, although I haven't really followed him. I know he suffered a recent stroke, which put his campaign in doubt, but obviously it didn't hurt him in the election.

He also looks like a professional wrestler. The man looks like he could pile drive DeSantis into the ground so hard that DeSantis would be speaking Chinese.  On Twitter someone said he looks like if a union was a man 

[Valmy]

Cheney was clearly a bit of an outlier from a traditional VP--Bush had a lot of question marks going into the 2000 campaign related to his general competence, a "boring" but technocratic/capable VP was seen as burnishing his administration.

I don't necessarily think the Vice Presidency is "assumed" to be an anointing of a Presidential heir, but it is certainly the case that most people selected to be Vice President it is at least presumed they will be a contender for a Presidential nomination in the future.

I agree that there is no reason to waste a VP spot on someone who has no chance of being a successor, and this is where Biden's demographic requirements have really hurt the Democrats.  Arbitrary restrictions don't matter if you have an infinite pool of candidates to choose from, but I don't think an infinite amount of Democratic presidential candidates is the reality we're in right now.

The demographic limits were to balance the ticket. If there was some superstar out there he probably would have gone that direction, but there wasn't. Mayor Pete doesn't exactly deliver anybody who wasn't already voting for Biden.

[Caliga]

I was impressed by Fetterman in PA, although I haven't really followed him. I know he suffered a recent stroke, which put his campaign in doubt, but obviously it didn't hurt him in the election.

He also looks like a professional wrestler. The man looks like he could pile drive DeSantis into the ground so hard that DeSantis would be speaking Chinese.  On Twitter someone said he looks like if a union was a man 

It did hurt him in the election (though he still won)... he was trouncing Oz in the polls until they debated, which is something he was reluctant to do and if you watch the debate, you'll see why.  On account of his stroke he is really struggling to communicate clearly and it's pretty difficult to watch.  I really hope he recovers his speech since I think Fetterman is great.

[Josquius]

I was impressed by Fetterman in PA, although I haven't really followed him. I know he suffered a recent stroke, which put his campaign in doubt, but obviously it didn't hurt him in the election.

He also looks like a professional wrestler. The man looks like he could pile drive DeSantis into the ground so hard that DeSantis would be speaking Chinese.  On Twitter someone said he looks like if a union was a man 

It did hurt him in the election (though he still won)... he was trouncing Oz in the polls until they debated, which is something he was reluctant to do and if you watch the debate, you'll see why.  On account of his stroke he is really struggling to communicate clearly and it's pretty difficult to watch.  I really hope he recovers his speech since I think Fetterman is great.

I do wonder how much the whole "The dems are running a mentally deficient person" thing helped him though- a hell of a lot of people in the country will have someone close to them who has had a stroke and be able to see through that.

[alfred russel]

The Democrats beat the spread.

The spread on the morning of November 8, 2022? Yes they did.

The spread on Jan 21, 2021 when Biden was taking office and direction was being set? I think they lost to that spread. I don't know of a place where senate / house odds were available to bet that early to show for sure, but the 2024 presidential market back then had republicans in the low 40s. Now they are at 55% to win.

So everybody was assuming that Biden was going to have gains in the midterms despite that very rarely ever happening in US political history? Huh. Gamblers are sure stupid.

I mean most of the stuff he promised to do he did, and the stuff he failed to do he at least attempted with his tiny majorities. And what? He was supposed to go off in a vastly different direction than the platform he campaigned and won on? I think the Democratic base would have been upset. And it's not like there is this vast pool of voters that can be won over. A huge number of voters are not going to vote Democrat no matter what they do, so chasing them at the expense of the base sounds like a strategy to repeat 2010...and 1994.

Besides a huge component is overcoming the shitty world economy which is largely outside the US President's ability to control. Which is also why I think odds of 2024 in 2021 or 2022 are worthless. A lot will be determined by just how things happen to be going regardless of what anybody does.

Valmy, you didn't understand what I wrote. I don't know of any betting market on the midterms that existed at the start of Biden's term. But there was a betting market on who would win the presidential election in 2024, and that had republicans at about 40%. My guess is that they were well below 50% because 1) incumbents usually get reelected, 2) an assumption Jan 6 and general republican chaos would hurt them, 3) vaccine rollout was starting and the idea america could take off when freed from covid, partially offset by 4) biden being really old and possibly not the strongest candidate in 2024.

Today the betting markets have chances of a republican victory in 2024 at about 55%. So the outcome of the past two years appears to be a net positive for republicans if we are using the spread as a guide as Yi brought up.


But the bigger point i've been trying to make for 2 years is that what is really important is the senate, and the messaging needs to reflect that. Lets assume that democrats win all the senate races that have yet been called. We are calling this a win for democrats, but republicans won 1 seat in a Biden state and all of them in 2020 Trump states. In 2020, the republicans also won the senate race in every state that Trump carried, and 1 seat in a Biden state. This is not sustainable: winning in states like Georgia and Arizona should not be seen as a "miracle" or "triumph", it is simply holding serve if the party is to be competitive for majorities in the long term (the bill on this comes due in 2024 when all 3 of the democratic senate seats held in trump 2020 states are up). Now if the republicans keep nominating people like Walker or people that want to fixate on furries using litter boxes in schools in the most competitive states, they might do so. But that won't be because of quality democratic leadership, it will be because of the implosion of the opposition.

The number of seats that shifted is also kind of a limiting way to think about things...for an incoming president, congressional results were not good at all for democrats in 2020. In a more normal cycle democrats may have picked up 15 or so more seats in 2020, and then lost them in 2022.