{"id":149957,"date":"2022-11-18T12:56:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T17:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=149957"},"modified":"2023-01-24T17:48:34","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T22:48:34","slug":"13-insights-about-the-2022-midterms-from-bates-politics-professors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2022\/11\/18\/13-insights-about-the-2022-midterms-from-bates-politics-professors\/","title":{"rendered":"13 insights about the 2022 midterms from Bates politics professors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two years after their last post-election gathering<\/a>, members of the Department of Politics at Bates reconvened to offer their expert takes on this year\u2019s midterm election results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking part and sharing insights from their specific areas of expertise were Pavel Ba\u010dovsk\u00fd, John Baughman, Steve Engel, Lisa Gilson, and Chris Price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWelcome to our biennial politics department panel,\u201d said Baughman at the start of the webinar, quipping that \u201cwe conveniently have federal elections immediately preceding these panels so we have something to talk about every two years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are their insights:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, a primer on \u201cthermostatic voting\u201d<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Thermostatic voting is the idea that the electorate acts as a thermostat to balance the political climate, explained Baughman, an associate professor of politics whose specialty is American politics and the U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf your house is too cold, the thermostat triggers heat\u201d to bring the temperature back to normal. \u201cOften, the electorate in a mid-year election will pull the government back to the ideological center. So after a Republican president is elected, swing voters may want to elect more Democrats in the midterms to check the president.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lack of a “red wave” doesn\u2019t mean there was no thermostatic voting in the 2022 midterms<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Pundits expected that thermostatic voting would create a “red wave” of Republican victories during the midterm elections. \u201cThose expectations came from President Biden\u2019s low approval ratings and past midterm results,\u201d Baughman said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut leading up to the election, pundits misapplied\u201d the idea of thermostatic voting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Typically, thermostatic voting reacts to what the president is doing that dominates the headlines. But Biden didn\u2019t change the temperature of the electorate. Something else did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baughman asked the audience to think of the biggest policy change over the past year. \u201cIt\u2019s probably not what the president did. It was arguably the Dobbs<\/em> decision, overturning Roe v. Wade,<\/em>\u201d he said. \u201cThere’s quite a bit of evidence, especially in states like Michigan, that voters were responding with a thermostatic reaction to Dobbs <\/em>more than to Biden’s low approval rating. This benefited Democrats. It was a reaction against a conservative Supreme Court.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Phil
Two voters cast their votes at a public school polling location in Des Moines, Iowa, on Nov. 8, 2022. (Phil Roeder \/ CC BY 2.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Baughman added, \u201cIt\u2019s extraordinarily rare for a Supreme Court case to generate the level of public reaction that we had in this case. I can’t think of a similar moment in modern American history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young voter turnout played a big role in the midterms<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Pavel Ba\u010dovsk\u00fd is a visiting assistant professor in politics whose specialty is political behavior, including youth political behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noting that \u201ceveryone’s probably most interested in the turnout,\u201d he cited data from the CIRCLE at Tufts University<\/a>, which defines voters between 18 and 29 as \u201cyouth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe see that the turnout this year among young voters was 27 percent, the second highest in the past 30 years \u2014 nothing to sneeze at,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s less than the last midterms in 2018 where it was the highest in the past 30 years at 30 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
This World War II\u2013era propaganda poster urges Americans to exercise their right to vote. (Chester Raymond Miller, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/item\/2008680174\/)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The issue that young voters prioritized, said Ba\u010dovsk\u00fd, was a woman\u2019s right to choose. \u201cForty-four percent of young voters prioritized\u201d a woman\u2019s right to choose. \u201cAnd the overwhelming majority of them trust Democrats more on this issue than Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added, \u201cInflation was their second-highest issue, 21 percent. And even in older demographics, abortion was the still the second-most important topic, behind inflation. So absolutely: This was a situation where the electorate, especially the young electorate, has gone for a party that they think would protect the women’s right to choose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SCOTUS doesn\u2019t care \u2019bout elections<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

In terms of the Supreme Court, \u201cI don’t think that the election results will matter that much,\u201d said Engel, professor of politics and associate dean of the faculty who specializes in constitutional law, judicial politics, LGBTQ politics, and U.S. political development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dI don’t think the election actually changes their calculus in any way. The court will still be taking on considerations of race and higher education. It will still be taking on a key case regarding the tension between the First Amendment and same-sex marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"HEC\/33900\/33957a.tifVotes
In October 1936, Lucy O\u2019Leary of Arlington, Va., has signs on her one-horse shay telling of her first-ever vote at age 79. (Harris & Ewing \/ Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, loc.gov\/item\/2016878660\/)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In fact, he said, \u201cthe court seems pretty unconcerned with the decline of its own institutional legitimacy, as measured in public polling in the wake of Dobbs<\/em>. They don’t seem to particularly care about this right now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democrats might not lean into abortion rights issue for political gain<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Despite voters siding with Democrats on abortion access, said Engel, \u201cI don’t expect Democrats to lean into this in a political way that might parallel, for example, the way Republicans kept putting bans on same-sex marriage on the ballot in 2004, 2006, and 2008 as a kind of get-out-the-vote mechanism. I don’t think Democrats have the bandwidth or the stomach to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans did not tell voters what they would get<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Engel pointed to a public scholarship essay by Julia Azari<\/a>, where she argues that Republicans failed to tell voters what they would get if they put Republicans in power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe only thing that people knew they would get was probably some kind of anti-abortion access policy,\u201d Engel said. \u201cAnd that was clearly rejected by the voters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is not surprising. \u201cIf you had followed public opinion polling on abortion access, it’s not surprising to me that the American public rejected restrictions on abortion access that were on the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Codification of same-sex marriage doesn\u2019t make sense from a constitutional perspective<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Senate is taking steps to protect same-sex and interracial marriages through federal law<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a constitutional scholar, I do not understand this strategy or what it accomplishes,\u201d said Engel. \u201cAs political optics, I get it. It pushes Republicans into the uncomfortable position of hating on same-sex marriage, which now has overwhelming public support. It pushes Republicans into dealing with the fallout of Dobbs<\/em>, which they clearly do not want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But any federal law, Engels points out, \u201ccan still be held by the Supreme Court to be unconstitutional. So if the court really wanted to overturn Obergefell<\/em> [the SCOTUS case that requires states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and to recognize same-sex marriages], a federal law codifying Obergefell<\/em> does not stand in their way.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not a good look for a candidate to encourage election denying<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

In its reporting, the news media has agreed that denying election results is not a winning strategy for political candidates and that voters overwhelmingly rejected election deniers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that that’s right to a certain extent, but there\u2019s more,\u201d said Lisa Gilson, an assistant professor of politics who specializes in political theory, particularly theories of protest and criticism, and who also teaches the politics of the American far right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s significant that the overwhelming majority of the election deniers who were running for secretary of state, the office that administers and validates elections, lost their elections, which suggests that voters, or at least most voters, do not want the people who are supposed to be certifying the election to be denying the validity of these elections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"https:\/\/hdl.loc.gov\/loc.pnp\/fsa.8c18110German-Russian
German-Russian farmers wait to vote on Election Day in 1940 in McIntosh County, North Dakota. (John Vachon \/ Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, loc.gov\/item\/2017811048\/.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of the reasons why election denying didn’t work, said Gilson, pointing to a recent article in The New York Times<\/em><\/a>, is because it \u201creduces the turnout of voters who were concerned about or were buying into conspiracy theories about voter fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telling voters that their vote isn\u2019t going to be counted \u201cis not actually a really good strategy to get people out to vote. Those voters tend to be disillusioned with the whole process anyway, so you’re actually turning away voters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2024 looks good for the Republicans<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

2024 could be tough for Democrats in Congress, Gilson believes, because Democratic incumbents are vulnerable in a number of Senate elections in 2024, including West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio. \u201cThese are states that are red or Republican-leaning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Democrats will have few opportunities to pick up seats in Congress. \u201cMaybe in the past we used to think that Florida was a state that you could potentially pick up,\u201d Gilson said. \u201cIt’s not anymore; Florida is very red. Texas, too, hasn\u2019t worked out well recently for the Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s the issue of various states, including Ohio and North Carolina, engaging in redistricting of congressional districts. \u201cThe midterms were run on maps that are relatively favorable to Democrats. And they have been in the process of redistricting,\u201d which may not favor Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elections are about counting, not voting<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

\u201cElections are not just about the voting but about counting,\u201d said Chris Price, a visiting assistant professor of politics, giving a nod to playwright Tom Stoppard’s line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price, who specializes in contentious and violent politics, used the quote to give meaning to the fact that \u201c68 percent of Americans said that they believe that the status of democracy in America was either somewhat or very insecure.\u201d And if such a large percentage of the electorate believes elections and democracy are insecure, that opens the door to a \u201cpotentially violent challenge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
This 1915 illustration shows a torch-bearing female labeled “Votes for Women,” symbolizing the awakening of women’s suffrage, striding across the West, where women had the right to vote, toward the East, where women are reaching out to her. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Henry Mayer https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/item\/98502844\/)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Price is part of a team, which includes colleagues from the University of Chicago\u2019s Project on Security and Threats<\/a>, that has been trying to measure the \u201cpotential mobilizable base of people who say that the election in 2020 was rigged and that they would be willing to endorse force to overthrow the presidency.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His group \u201cestimates that at about 8 percent\u201d of Americans who, under the right conditions, would be \u201cmore than willing to use violence to get their preferred political outcomes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, bad attitudes have not yielded widespread violent behavior, he says. \u201cBut in the run-up to this set of elections, we did see some more very worrying, observable things,\u201d including the armed intrusion into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Arizona, \u201carmed individuals wearing tactical face masks<\/a> were watching ballot boxes in the run-up to the election. While these are all worrying signs for now, I have to say, so far, so good and knock on wood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What will the Republicans rally around in 2024?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the questions going forward about the Republican Party is whether it’s going to coalesce around a coherent fiscal policy,\u201d said Gilson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s speculation, she offered, \u201cbut one of the Republicans\u2019 difficulties is that voters may be partial to Trump, they want to decrease the debt, and they also want to expand Medicare. They want all different things at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, \u201cwill the Republicans have a coherent platform on fiscal issues? Will one even be necessary? It should be, because even if the rate of inflation is decreasing by 2024, we are still going to be dealing with economic fallout.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump announcing his candidacy doesn\u2019t shield him from various investigations, but…<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s official candidacy for president \u201cdoesn’t provide him any kind of immunity\u201d from prosecution, said Engel. \u201cBut again, optically it looks weird for the Department of Justice to be investigating an announced presidential candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baughman suggested that observers watch to see if Republicans begin indicating support for the investigations. \u201cIf Republican leaders really do want to take Trump off the board, they can embrace the investigations, or at least no longer voice the objections they’ve been voicing. That’s one thing to watch for: Does [U.S. Attorney General Merrick] Garland tacitly or even openly gain more support from Republicans?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Trump doesn\u2019t win the Republican nomination, might he pull a \u201cTeddy Rooseveltian Thing\u201d<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe former president is the nominal leader of the party, but Trump doesn’t care about the Republican party,\u201d Engels says. \u201cIt\u2019s not an apropos analogy, but if he doesn\u2019t win the nomination, will he pull a Teddy Rooseveltian kind of thing \u2014 \u2018I’m gonna break off, run independently, and bring my voters with me\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, said Engel, \u201cit’s not clear to me that the Republican party can deal with Trump if Trump is not the nominee.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What the pundits got wrong, why a new same-sex marriage law doesn’t make constitutional sense, and why election denying isn’t a strong strategy;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":149960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,195],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-news-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149957"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149992,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149957\/revisions\/149992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}