James Fallows/Substack:
The Political Press Needs a Time Out
It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. How about if we waste less time trying: A proposal.
Joe Biden could have a much harder time ahead of him in appointing judges. Or easier. We don’t know.
Here’s what we do know:
First, that the results will not be remotely on a scale with previous first-term midterm wipeouts, especially for Democrats. As a reminder, among post-World War II Democratic presidents...
Every first-term president since World War II (except one) has suffered midterm election losses. The average loss has been around 30 House seats. The one exception is George W. Bush in 2002, then at a height of public support after the 9/11 attacks and before the invasion of Iraq. His party gained 8 seats in the House.2
A lot has changed over this span—including, crucially, that far fewer House seats are potentially “in play” any more, since so many have been gerrymandered into one-party locks. But in historic terms, the midterm results under Joe Biden in 2022 are likely to be far better for the incumbent party and its president than for other modern presidents. As Biden would say, it’s a BFD.
Second, what has happened appears to be entirely at odds with what the political-reporter cadre — the people whose entire job is predicting and pre-explaining political trends — had been preparing the public for.
Kari Lake had a really disappointing tranche of “Maricopa Incoming” (the counted ballots announced by AZ guru Garrett Archer). But there are GOP friendly batches to come and this race is far from over for Governor and AG. That’s unlike AZ SoS and Senator, which are now called for Democrats.
WaPo:
Congressional Republicans panic as they watch their lead dwindle
Private consternation reached a public boiling point Friday as lawmakers in both chambers confronted the fallout from Tuesday’s elections
With control of the House and Senate still undecided, angry Republicans mounted public challenges to their leaders in both chambers Friday as they confronted the possibility of falling short of the majority, eager to drag Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) down from their top posts as consequence.
The narrowing path for Republican victory has stunned lawmakers from both parties, freezing plans for legislation and leadership maneuvers as they wait to see who takes control and learn the margins that will dictate which ideological factions wield power. Regardless of the outcome, the lack of a “red wave” marks a devastating outcome for Republicans, who believed they would cruise to a large governing majority in the House and possibly flip the Senate.
Pro tip: hire more women strategists, who could have told you.
Oh, and listen to them. And ask for directions if you are lost.
Paul Waldman/WaPo:
Why the midterms were the Y2K of elections
Why? There were many factors at play. First, election deniers appearing on ballots talked a lot about fraud, but they didn’t do much. The paranoid fantasies they doled out were about getting supporters energized to vote, not organizing them to do anything disruptive.
Second, the folks who make up the hard core of the election subversion movement — both the leaders and the rank-and-file — are, to put it bluntly, not that bright. There are plenty of smart people in the Republican Party, but these are not them. The movement is led by buffoonish celebrities including MyPillow founder Mike Lindell and Rudy Giuliani, and populated on the ground by people foolish enough to believe them. They’re the Four Seasons Total Landscaping crew, and they aren’t going to pull off an “Ocean’s 11”-style heist.
Indeed, many if not most of these people knew almost nothing about the process of elections other than what they had heard from Newsmax and YouTubers on the far right. They expected to arrive at the polls and see election officials setting ballots on fire and loading voting machines into vans marked “Soros Conspirators LLC.”
Aaron Blake/WaPo:
Why the 2022 election was such a disaster for Trump
We’ll never know for sure — and the results are still coming in — but it’s quite possible that Trump cost the GOP the Senate majority, two elections in a row.
Philadelphia Inquirer:
Republican Pat Toomey blames Donald Trump for GOP’s election failures in Pennsylvania
“The more MAGA a candidate was, the more they tended to underperform even in their own states," said Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.), who blamed Trump for a GOP "debacle" in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
“I don’t think there’s a discrete moment where the party breaks with Trump in one fell swoop,” Toomey said. “I think Donald Trump’s influence gradually but steadily declines, and I think it accelerates after the debacle that he’s responsible for to some degree.”
Henry Olsen/WaPo with a nice mea culpa:
I was wrong about the midterms. Here’s what I missed.
Crow — the avian white meat! I’m eating a lot of it today as my prediction of a big GOP win comes crashing down. The question is why: What did I miss that others caught?
A few things come to mind quickly. First, President Biden’s job approval among voters was higher than among the public. Exit polls gave Biden a 44 percent job approval, about 2 points higher than the major polling aggregators’ averages. That difference alone would have tempered my predictions.
But that wasn’t the main factor. Instead, Democrats did something no one has done in decades: Do well with voters who somewhat disapprove of the president. I noted the importance of this group in a summertime column, writing that since 2006, the president’s party has lost this group by 20 points or more in every midterm House generic ballot exit poll. On Tuesday, Democrats won among this demographic by 4 points, according to exit polling.
US News:
Voters' Message: ‘Thank You, Next’
Defying midterm expectations, Democrats outperformed Biden while Trump-backed candidates lost elections. Yet voters in both parties aren't eager for their leaders to run again.
Biden, on a day when most presidents in his position would be somewhere between relieved and gloating, looked relaxed on Wednesday as he addressed reporters at the White House. While presidents typically lose an average of 28 House seats and four Senate seats in their first term midterms, Biden did much better – the best, in fact, since George W. Bush defied history in 2002 and picked up seats in Congress.
Yet several questions, on what should have been a victory-lap day for the commander in chief, were about public discouragement of another run for office. Two-thirds of Americans in exit polls said they didn't want Biden to run for a second term.
"Watch me," is all Biden would say when asked what he would say to those voters.
Trump, meanwhile, is getting a far more aggressive pushback from fellow Republicans after a deeply disappointing midterm election.
I mean, why isn’t the Democratic party a cult? Like Republicans?? I don’t get it. [snark tag]
EJ Dionne/WaPo:
The GOP offered rage and Trump. The country said no.
The United States remains a deeply divided country, but a substantial majority (58 percent in the national exit poll) dislikes the former president. This majority saved one Democrat after another from defeat. President Biden had one of the most successful midterm elections of any chief executive in history, not because he enjoyed high approval ratings (he doesn’t) but because nearly half of the voters said he was not a factor in their choice. They backed Democrats by a 3-2 ratio to oppose the far right, Trump and the election deniers — and to support abortion rights and gun control.
Biden understood this and was willing to take grief for avoiding most of the competitive contests. He did not ask for the electorate’s endorsement. He insisted instead that they look at the alternative.