The Battle Lines for the 2022 Elections
The Biden administration may have been in office for only six months, but it’s not too soon to begin thinking about the 2022 elections. In fact, Republicans began planning for the 2022 elections back in 2018 when they started tinkering with the 2020 census to wrest election districts away from blue states. They also began proposing legislation to suppress voting in heavily Democratic districts even before President Biden was inaugurated. Only this week we were given three new reminders that the nation’s political parties are already in full-combat mode. The first was the nomination by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of five members of his caucus to serve on the House’s Select Committee to investigate the January 6th insurrection, all five of whom had voted against forming the Select Committee as well as against a bipartisan commission to conduct such an investigation. The second was the straight party-line vote that took place in the Senate blocking a motion to begin debate on a so-called “bipartisan bill” to improve the nation’s infrastructure even though it enjoys the support of over 70% of Americans. The third was Senate Minority Leader McConnell’s threat to block an upcoming vote to raise or suspend the national debt ceiling, the failure of which would be devastating to the nation’s currency and economy. No, both political parties are already well underway in positioning themselves for the 2022 elections although their strategies differ greatly and their tactics often seem counter-productive.
Part I—The Republican Game Plan
Republican politicians recognize that they are at a disadvantage in terms of the number of their registered voters (29% to 33%) and that does not even take into consideration that their Democratic counterparts have a large untapped supply of potential voters who are not registered. On top of that demographic trends are working against them as older voters who tend to favor Republicans are dying and are being replaced by younger voters who tend to favor Democrats. Thus, the overall strategy of Republican politicians is based on three elements: (1) maximizing the number of voters who will cast a ballot for them, (2) limiting the number of voters who will cast votes for their Democratic opponents, and (3) convincing unaffiliated voters that they represent the lesser of two evils. While this overall strategy has changed little over the past 20 years, how it will be implemented will. In addition, the Republican politicians are holding a couple of additional tricks up their sleeve which they will likely employ if they become in danger of losing.
Getting Out the Republican Vote. Over the last two presidential election cycles it has become clear that Donald Trump is a powerful force when it comes to motivating Republican voters. Despite his toxic personality and his disastrous handling of the coronavirus pandemic he garnered over 74 million votes in the 2020 election which is 12 million more than any prior Republican presidential candidate. Equally important is the fact that his negative qualities did not seem to adversely affect down-ballot Republican candidates. Therefore, an important part of the Republicans’ 2022 election plans is to keep the nation’s 45th President fully motivated for the forthcoming elections even though he will not be running for office.
Although other Republican candidates did not seem to pay much of a price for supporting Trump in the 2020 election, that may not hold true in 2022. That’s because Trump’s favorability rating has declined markedly since the 2020 election. He gave birth to the “Big Lie” that he actually won the 2020 election and has continued to repeat it despite mounting evidence that it has no factual basis. Trump also instigated the Capitol insurgency which caused the deaths of five people and inflicted injuries upon 140 law enforcement officers. Trump’s oft-repeated praise of the patriotism of those who participated in this insurrection is also likely to prove harmful for those who seek his support. This will be underscored by the public criminal prosecutions of the over 500 participants in that event who will be rushing to excuse their actions on the basis that they were misled by Trump and his allies into trying to stop the nation’s electoral process.
While Trump will gladly agree to stay involved in political activity leading up to the 2022 elections as he thrives on the adoration of the crowds at his rallies, Republican candidates may have to pay a heavy price for obtaining his participation. First, those seeking his backing will have to endorse his Big Lie and the price of doing so will go up as more details of the 2020 election are revealed. Even the so-called “audits” of the vote now underway in Arizona and being discussed in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin will do little to remove that stain. Secondly and perhaps even more importantly, Trump is seeking to torpedo the re-election efforts of those Republicans who have not supported his Big Lie. This will either result in their being replaced by less electable candidates or being weakened in the general election should they survive a primary challenge.
Besides keeping Trump on the campaign trail, Republican politicians will continue to keep their voters motivated through their culture war campaigns which will include attacks against the LBGTQ community. Their present focus is on stopping transgender children from competing in sporting events and requiring them to use bathroom facilities corresponding to their sex at birth as opposed to their self-identified gender. While they purport to be concerned with the freedom of individuals who don’t wish to be vaccinated or be required to wear a face mask, Republican politicians seem to have no problem with limiting the freedom of those with gender issues. Their attacks have nothing to do with protecting the public, only with appealing to the hates and fears of their voting base.
Also at the heart of these culture wars is their current crusade against teaching Critical Race Theory (or “CRT”) in the nation’s public schools. As pointed out in my last article (“Racism in America”), CRT, a graduate-level study program, has never been taught in public schools and no one has ever suggested that it be included in public school curricula. This is simply a manufactured issue designed to arouse racial hatreds harbored by many registered Republicans.
To some extent, the issue of abortion has lost some of its importance to evangelical voters now that the Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority and is expected to deliver a death sentence to Roe v. Wade during its next term. Nevertheless, Republicans legislators seem intent on pressing this issue in an effort to keep their evangelical base motivated. Earlier this month the State of Texas enacted legislation that bans abortions after a mere six weeks of pregnancy and offers cash rewards for information that leads to the prevention of an illegal abortion while at the same time imposing heavy penalties on those who provide those services. Leading up to the 2022 elections, there are likely to be a large number of other draconian anti-abortion statutes introduced, if not enacted, in state legislatures controlled by Republicans.
Limiting Democratic Turnout. This strategy has traditionally been implemented through the use of three tactics: (1) limiting the success of Democratic administrations in improving the lives of Americans; (2) discouraging Democratic voters from participating in elections; and (3) impeding Democratic voters from voting. Because of the Democrats’ success in the 2020 election, Republicans are currently in the process of adding a much more powerful weapons in their election arsenal: they are enacting legislation creating the possibility of removing the outcome of elections from the hands of the voters.
The party in control of the nation’s government is generally at a disadvantage in mid-term elections as a result of its candidates being easy targets for all that has gone wrong while their party held the reins of government. Republicans generally anchor this approach with a concerted effort to block all attempts by Democratic administrations to help improve the lives of Americans. Typically, Democratic voters disappointed by their party’s inability to improve their lives have spent election day at home. Republican obstructionism was demonstrated earlier this year in the voting on the American Rescue Plan, a COVID relief bill, which was passed by the Senate without a single Republican vote. We can also expect similar obstructionist efforts in the Senate with respect to Democratic proposals to protect voting rights and the two infrastructure bills that are currently being discussed. Even if the Biden administration is successful in securing the passage of these important pieces of legislation, Republican office-seekers will likely complain that their Democratic opponents no longer believe in bipartisanship. It’s reminiscent of the child who sought sympathy for being an orphan after killing his parents.
Unwilling to chance that Democrats might again succeed with their single-vote majority in the Senate, this past week Republicans sought to kidnap the vote of Joe Manchin, the most conservative member of the Senate’s Democratic caucus, by arranging for him to be feted by a group of their major donors at a fundraiser held in Texas. While it’s by no means clear that even sizable campaign contributions will be sufficient to cause Senator Manchin to abandon his Democratic colleagues when these important pieces of legislations are being voted upon, from the Republicans perspective, this ploy involves relatively little costs and could turn out to be their most effective campaign tactic of the 2022 election.
Republicans also seek to discourage Democrats from voting through information and disinformation campaigns targeted at the more vulnerable members of the Democratic coalition. This will likely consists of trying to convince Blacks and other people of color that Democratic politicians have placed their interests at the bottom of their priority list. Republicans were particularly successful in employing this tactic in the 2016 election when they caused many Black voters to stay away from the polls on election day with messages raising doubts as to whether Democratic politicians cared about their issues. At the same time, they were successful in causing many Progressive Democrats not to vote in that election, pointing out that the Democratic Party had treated their champion, Senator Sanders, unfairly in the primary elections. While we can expect to see similar tactics employed in the 2022 election, they are not likely to be very successful as both minorities and Progressive Democrats are being given a large role in shaping the policies of the Biden administration.
Another Republican tactic aimed at minimizing support for Democratic candidates is to arrange for and finance third-party minority candidates. This was done in the 2020 election when Republicans recruited Kanye West to run as a third party candidate in the presidential election hoping to siphon votes away from Joe Biden in key battleground states. While this effort failed because West was not able to get on the ballot in the states that proved decisive in that election, it is nevertheless a highly effective tactic and one well-suited for use by a party with an ample number of wealthy donors.
Republicans also have been seeking to pass legislation designed to make it more difficult for likely Democratic voters to cast their ballots. They have been encouraged in this effort by the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Brnovich v. Democratic Nation Committee in which the Court shamefully upheld two laws restricting voting that were recently enacted by the State of Arizona. To this end, Republicans have proposed 389 bills in 48 states seeking to limit voting, particularly in areas with historically heavy Democratic support. These bills have added new requirements for voter registration and made it more difficult to cast a ballot both by mail and by voting in person. They also limit vote harvesting and provide for greater latitude for partisan poll watchers designed to intimidate would-be voters. At the same time Republican election officials will be continuing their efforts to purge voter registration rolls of likely Democratic voters who may have moved or not voted in the previous two election cycles.
Appeals to Unaffiliated Voters. Today, roughly 34% of the nation’s electorate consists of voters with no political party affiliation. The majority of these unaffiliated voters have more than a high school education and reside in suburban areas. Outside of “safe” rural districts, no Republican can win a federal election without winning the votes of a substantial percentage of independent voters. This means that the Republican Party has to develop messaging that will appeal to unaffiliated voters such as: Democrats want to raise your taxes; Democrats are soft on crime; and Democrats they don’t know how to manage the nation’s economy (see “The Myth of Republican Economic Managerial Superiority”). However, it’s not clear that complaints about taxes and the economy will have much traction with independent voters in the 2022 elections since the nation’s economy is likely to continue to grow rapidly through election day. Even messages warning of rising crime rates, while “red meat” to Republican voters, are not likely to sway many independent voters unless crime levels rise in the suburbs.
Other tried-and-true Republican messages aimed at independent voters are that the Democratic candidates are either “radical” and “extremists” or are controlled by radicals and extremist and that they want to lead the nation down the path to socialism. These are messages that resonate when Republicans hold the reins of government and Democrats are protesting in the streets. They are not likely to have a significant impact when the nation is prospering while in the hands of a Democratic administration.
Public corruption and waste are also frequent battle cries in Republican politics because they fit well into their party’s platform of limiting the size and power of the federal government. Limiting the amount of money flowing to the government also limits the amount that politicians can waste or steal. Although the theme of political corruption usually works well for Republicans, following the presidency of Donald Trump who, as President, used his office to steer business to his hotels and resorts and was impeached twice for abusing his power, it may seem a little out of place. Still the Biden administration is creating huge public programs, doling out trillions of dollars, which offer an almost irresistible opportunity for fraud and corruption. Irrespective of whether those programs are laced with corruption, it’s a charge which is likely to quickly gain traction even among those not prone to accept conspiracy theories.
Republican emphasis on cultural issues serves a very important secondary function. In addition to arousing the ire of Republican voters, raising cultural issue tends to move public discussion away from important issues like climate change, income and wealth inequality, criminal justice reform, a porous social safety net and the need to restructure the nation’s healthcare system. These are issues that leave Republican candidates at a serious disadvantage because they conflict with their party’s efforts to appeal to its major donors. Accordingly, the less they are the subjects of public discourse, the easier it is for Republican candidates to win the support of unaffiliated voters.
We can also expect that Republicans will try to rewrite history. This can already be seen in efforts to portray the January 6th insurrection as just another tourist event at our nation’s Capitol. Another example surfaced this past week when Stephen Miller, a close aid of Donald Trump, in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News stated that President Biden was “dealt a better hand on day one than any previous commander in chief.” These efforts go well beyond simply shading the truth, they are undertaken on the belief that if you repeat a lie often enough, no matter how outrageous it may be, people will start to believe it. It has certainly been borne out in the case of Trump’s Big Lie.
In the final analysis, appeals to independent voters are going to have to be very persuasive in order to overcome their general dislike for Donald Trump, his incompetent handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his efforts to overthrow the 2020 election by fomenting an insurrection. The fact that Republican candidates are still courting his favor and echoing his Big Lie is going to make it doubly hard for them to convince independent voters that the dangers of electing Democrats are greater than those posed by electing Republicans who worship at the Temple of Donald Trump.
Other Efforts to Skew Election Outcomes. All of this means that Republican messaging is not likely to be very effective in the 2022 election and that the votes of even a highly energized Republican party are not likely to be sufficient to take back control of either the Senate or the House of Representatives. It’s also not even clear that the ongoing efforts to suppress voting by Democrats will be sufficient to enable the Republican Party to win a majority of seats in either house of Congress. Moreover, current Republican efforts to suppress voting will likely serve to mobilize Democrats to expand their voter registration campaigns and to impress upon their fellow Democrats the importance of overcoming all obstacles to voting placed in their way. These factors will require Republicans to dig deeper into their bag of tricks to enhance their chances of winning the 2022 elections.
To be sure, the 2020 Census offers them more than just an opportunity to reconfigure election districts to their advantage within the 22 states that they control. This advantage will be also magnified because Republican controlled states picked up additional seats in the Congress as a result of the new Census count. This alone could alter the balance of power in the House of Representatives. The math, however, may not be that simple as it could just as easily depend upon how the new election districts are drawn.
Republicans have become master craftsmen at drawing election districts to maximize the number of House seats they control. This is generally achieved by crowding Democratic voters into as few election districts as possible, leaving a majority of Republican voters in the remaining districts. While this creates a limited number of safe districts for Democrats as well as some safe districts for Republicans, it also entails creating a number of potentially contested districts in which Republicans candidates have a reasonably good chance of winning. The question is how much of a margin Republicans will need to assure that they will control a House seat.
Normally, a 5% advantage in the way people in a newly created election district have historically voted will assure victory in that district. The question remains whether that margin of error will be sufficient in an election in which the Republican brand has been so badly tarnished. By raising the margin of safety to 8% or 10%, Republicans will likely be able to control the seat, but possibly at the cost of only being able to count on winning one fewer seat (possibly two seats in highly populous states like Florida and Texas). Thus, even though the 2020 Census has provided the Republican Party with a chance to win at least a handful of additional seats in the House of Representatives, how election districts are actually drawn could change that calculus.
In a further effort to skew the results of the 2022 election in their favor, Republicans have ventured into new electoral territory. They are now seeking to adopt changes to their election laws which go far beyond previous efforts to restrict who may vote, but to also restrict which votes may be counted. In addition, they are seeking to impose severe penalties directed at election officials for even minor infractions of voting laws. Beyond forcing election officials to err on the side of restricting the number of votes that are counted, these provisions are also designed to discourage Democratic election officials from continuing to serve in that capacity. Were that not enough, some states are looking to adopt provisions which enable the determination of the outcome of an election to be resolved by the state’s legislature. This means that the legislature, and not the state’s voters, will decide the winner of elections. These are draconian measures and stand as testaments to the proposition that Republicans value winning elections well above preserving democracy.
It’s still far too early to even venture a guess as to whether the Republican 2022 election game plan will succeed. It is clear, however, that the GOP is not going to lose for want of trying.