Welcome to another recap of The Brief! This week, hosts Markos Moulitsas and Cara Zelaya chatted about what’s happening with the “red wave,” surprising results from recent special elections, and the White House’s long-awaited move to cancel student debt.
With the midterm elections coming up, just how will things turn out? Can Democrats successfully push back? Will abortion be a deciding issue? Read on to hear why this midterm—even more so than past ones—will be a referendum on the president.
Democrats knew, especially after the leak of the decision in May, that Dobbs, the abortion decision, was going to completely change the contours of the race. But not only has it done that—it has done it in a way that has lasting political consequences, Moulitsas argued:
I’ll put it this way for context: conservatives, Republicans, they have two groups of single issue voters, the gun nuts, and the evangelical abortion nuts. They will vote in every single election, no matter what, and they don’t care who the candidate is, what other issues are at play. They are singularly tunnel-focused on either guns or on abortion.
We’ve tried to make abortion an issue, but people thought we were like the boy who cried wolf, right? Like, ‘Oh, they always say that Republicans want to take it away, but it never happens. They’re just exaggerating.’ And now, obviously, it turns out we weren’t exaggerating. And you’re seeing what’s happening with Joe Biden and his approval ratings. They’re going up … in the high 30s, low 40s.
“Since the [Dobbs] decision came out, Democrats are outperforming their [previous] numbers by six points,” Moulitsas emphasized. “That is ‘hold the House’ or ‘increase our majority in the Senate’ numbers.”
Zelaya and Moulitsas pivoted to discuss the results of the primary in New York’s 19th Congressional District, where Democrat Pat Ryan defeated Republican Marcus Molinaro, who was expected to coast to victory. Zelaya offered this analysis of the results: “For this to be continuing the snowball effect we’ve seen since Kansas has been really exciting to behold, and I think, at this point with so many special elections, is a true pattern of what we might see in November.”
Moulitsas added:
What NY-19 did, which none of the other elections has done, is it finally sent the message to the political press, the political establishment, Mitch McConnell—all of them—that this is not a red wave year. It’s a competitive year. Nobody should think otherwise, right? It’s going to be a dogfight, but right now, we have, I think, an even chance to hold the House. Holding the House is actually harder than the Senate—I think the Senate, we’re looking really good to pick up one [seat] for sure, maybe two to three beyond that.
“There has been a dramatic shift in the political climate, and a sort of realization now from everybody like, ‘Okay, it should be a Republican year.’ But clearly, because of abortion, and because of Donald Trump, things are not so clear cut anymore,” Moulitsas posited.
Republicans spent 50 years talking about how they wanted to make abortion illegal, and now they are facing the consequences or are backtracking after having seen the backlash, Moulitsas added, with some Republican candidates even scrubbing mentions of abortion bans from their candidate platforms on their websites.
Zelaya made note of the momentous nature of the President Biden’s executive action:
We’re finally [acknowledging in a real way] that there is an environmental crisis, that there is a student debt crisis. So that comes through, it’s a huge, wonderful bill, [the Inflation Reduction Act]. People are pretty happy about it—it’s a big win for environmentalists. NY-19 happens, and then student debt cancellation … this executive action is huge. First of all, Joe Biden of January 2021 was saying he wasn’t even sure if this was a legal thing he could do, and has just now decided, ‘we’re doing it.’ It is $10,000 [of debt forgiveness], and then $20,000 for anyone who has had even a cent of a Pell Grant.
While the $10,000 in student loan forgiveness is a good start, it still does not address the systemic issues at play, and further action on this front will likely be needed. “Okay, you forgive $20,000 now, but what does that mean for the next generation?” Moulitsas pondered.
The election, as it stands today, is far from being determined. The outcome will depend on how much we push for Democrats everywhere, up and down the ballot, across the line, Moulitsas noted, adding that with the early results looking promising, it is our job as activists to help fuel that increased engagement and attention. This can happen through fundraising, volunteering, rallying, and getting friends, families, coworkers, and social circles to realize what’s at stake.
“We haven an opportunity to not just win in November, but reshape the core elements of elections. People are realizing that abortion is always on the ballot, and that government can make our lives better, protect our rights, and do things like student debt relief,” Moulitsas emphasized. “We’ve got a couple of months—two months, just about—left, and we’re excited to carry this across the line.”