The Choice Before Us
The Midterms are upon us. Some of us have already voted. In California, vote-by-mail is now the default option. My wife and I have both voted, turned in our ballots and received confirmation that they are now in the custody of election officials.
Conventional wisdom states that the Democrats will suffer a defeat this year, that they will lose the House and perhaps the Senate as well. If that happens, the United States will have a divided government for the next two years, and very little legislation will get passed.
We should not consider this to be a foregone conclusion, however. To borrow an expression from sports, you don’t play the game on paper. There’s only one poll that matters, and that’s the one that we start counting on November 8th.
Political pundits have been “playing the game on paper” for over a year now. One of the stats they look at is the “likely voter.” This is a person (like me) who voted in the last three election cycles – 2016, 2018 and 2020. “Likely voter” polls are trending towards Republicans right now.
The obvious problem with this statistic is that there have been millions of voters added to the rolls since 2016. My younger daughter, the Parkland kids, none of them would yet be considered “likely voters” because they were too young to vote in 2016.
Women are registering to vote in large numbers across the country, and I doubt they will be voting for the party that took away their reproductive rights. Republicans have gotten very good at gerrymandering away black voters, but they can’t get away from women or young people.
Another point which I have not heard any pundit raise: there are people who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 who will not vote in 2022 because they have died of COVID-19. As I pointed out in an earlier blog, the pandemic hit Republican areas of the country hard. Some of those who rejected vaccines and masks paid with their lives. A 5%-10% drop in Republican voters may not matter in deep red states and districts, but it could matter in “purple” ones.
Typically, about 40% of eligible voters turn out for the midterms. In 2018, however, turnout was around 50%. This was the Blue Wave that put Nancy Pelosi back as Speaker of the House. Turnout in presidential elections is typically around 60%. If turnout is 50% or higher in 2022, the Democrats could score the upset.
What will happen if the Republicans take control of the House? Let’s take them at their word. They are threatening investigations into Biden’s COVID-19 policies, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the president’s surviving son, Hunter. They will shut down the January 6th Commission and stop the House investigations into former president Trumps’ finances. They want to stall implementation of, if now outright gut, the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature piece of legislation. Their starting point will be to stop the IRS from beefing up enforcement. The last thing they want is for the IRS to go after wealthy tax dodgers like Donald Trump.
The most radical members of the GOP, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, are already threatening to impeach Joe Biden and Merrick Garland. Not because those men have abused the power of their office, but simply in retaliation for the Democrats impeaching Donald Trump.
If the Republicans come to power, there will be no effort to rein in health care costs. The little progress we are making to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will stop. The rights of women will continue to be stripped away. And don’t expect an assault weapons ban any time soon. The most we will get is thoughts and prayers the next time there’s a school shooting.
Don’t turn the country over to the insurrectionists and the servants of the billionaires. Show up and vote on Tuesday November 8. Vote because it’s your right and your privilege. Vote like your country, and your planet, depends on it.
Conventional wisdom states that the Democrats will suffer a defeat this year, that they will lose the House and perhaps the Senate as well. If that happens, the United States will have a divided government for the next two years, and very little legislation will get passed.
We should not consider this to be a foregone conclusion, however. To borrow an expression from sports, you don’t play the game on paper. There’s only one poll that matters, and that’s the one that we start counting on November 8th.
Political pundits have been “playing the game on paper” for over a year now. One of the stats they look at is the “likely voter.” This is a person (like me) who voted in the last three election cycles – 2016, 2018 and 2020. “Likely voter” polls are trending towards Republicans right now.
The obvious problem with this statistic is that there have been millions of voters added to the rolls since 2016. My younger daughter, the Parkland kids, none of them would yet be considered “likely voters” because they were too young to vote in 2016.
Women are registering to vote in large numbers across the country, and I doubt they will be voting for the party that took away their reproductive rights. Republicans have gotten very good at gerrymandering away black voters, but they can’t get away from women or young people.
Another point which I have not heard any pundit raise: there are people who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 who will not vote in 2022 because they have died of COVID-19. As I pointed out in an earlier blog, the pandemic hit Republican areas of the country hard. Some of those who rejected vaccines and masks paid with their lives. A 5%-10% drop in Republican voters may not matter in deep red states and districts, but it could matter in “purple” ones.
Typically, about 40% of eligible voters turn out for the midterms. In 2018, however, turnout was around 50%. This was the Blue Wave that put Nancy Pelosi back as Speaker of the House. Turnout in presidential elections is typically around 60%. If turnout is 50% or higher in 2022, the Democrats could score the upset.
What will happen if the Republicans take control of the House? Let’s take them at their word. They are threatening investigations into Biden’s COVID-19 policies, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the president’s surviving son, Hunter. They will shut down the January 6th Commission and stop the House investigations into former president Trumps’ finances. They want to stall implementation of, if now outright gut, the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature piece of legislation. Their starting point will be to stop the IRS from beefing up enforcement. The last thing they want is for the IRS to go after wealthy tax dodgers like Donald Trump.
The most radical members of the GOP, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, are already threatening to impeach Joe Biden and Merrick Garland. Not because those men have abused the power of their office, but simply in retaliation for the Democrats impeaching Donald Trump.
If the Republicans come to power, there will be no effort to rein in health care costs. The little progress we are making to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will stop. The rights of women will continue to be stripped away. And don’t expect an assault weapons ban any time soon. The most we will get is thoughts and prayers the next time there’s a school shooting.
Don’t turn the country over to the insurrectionists and the servants of the billionaires. Show up and vote on Tuesday November 8. Vote because it’s your right and your privilege. Vote like your country, and your planet, depends on it.
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