Midterm elections in the second year of a presidency nearly always go against the party in power.
Often the reason for that is simply that people who were unhappy with the new president are more motivated to vote and those who were satisfied tend to stay home.
It’s a little like the story about the family who had a child who never spoke in the first four years of his life. Doctors couldn’t find anything wrong and his parents were baffled. Then one night at the dinner table, he shocked them.
“The peas are cold,” he said.
His parents were delighted that he could talk, but they were confused.
“How come you never said anything before this?”
The kid shrugged. “Things were pretty much OK till now.”
If one thing was apparent this year, it was that the intangibles seemed to be favoring Republicans. Inflation was at its worst since the 1980s, and the GOP was almost constantly yammering about immigration and crime. The right wing echo chamber never stopped attacking Joe Biden.
Just about the only thing potentially favoring Democrats was reactions to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization repealing Roe v Wade and taking away the right of women to choose to have an abortion.
It was a dream come true for the anti-abortion crowd, and whether or not they were whistling past the graveyard, Republicans believed inflation, immigration and crime would outweigh opposition to Dobbs.
Democrats were concerned they might be right.
Boy, were they wrong.
I can’t remember the last time a party’s expectations were so far off from the way things actually turned out. Democrats held control of the Senate and may actually improve by one seat depending on next month’s Georgia runoff. They may still lose the House of Representatives, but if they do, it will be by a much smaller margin than expected.
Why? Call it the two D’s.
Dobbs and Donald.
One of the first signs something might be happening came this summer in Kansas, when an abortion ban was on the ballot along with the primary elections.
Voters in Kansas — yes, that Kansas — defeated an amendment to the state constitution that would have said women do not have the right to have an abortion. They didn’t just defeat it, they crushed it by a 59-41 margin.
This wasn’t California or Massachusetts.
This was ruby (slippers) red Kansas.
So it was clear three months ago that abortion rights would be a wild card. The only question was how wild.
Then there was Donald. With Trump getting set to run for president again, he had been supporting election deniers and other radical types all over the country, pushing an agenda that state officials should be allowed to reject the will of voters if they disagreed with it.
It might be an exaggeration to call him an American Hitler, but those who have jokingly called him the Mango Mussolini may not be that far off. Calling Trump a fascist is hardly an exaggeration.
So with all that in mind, something strange but wonderful happened.
People voted.
People who don’t usually vote, specifically younger voters. Many people have speculated that the cause of this was Dobbs, that for the first time in their lives, a right had been taken away.
There are really three positions people taken on the question of abortion. Those who call themselves pro-life believe abortion is murder and should not be allowed. Many of those who call themselves pro-choice believe it should always be up to the woman to decide what to do.
But the third position is people who would never have an abortion themselves and might even try to talk people they know out of having one, but still believe it should be an option for women.
Statewide referenda on abortion were on the ballot in half a dozen states last week. Some states wanted to protect the woman’s right to choose while at least one wanted to assert there was no right to an abortion.
In every instance, those wanting to make it more difficult for women to have abortions lost. Kentucky — yes, that Kentucky — defeated a constitutional amendment that would have made it clear women had no right to have abortions.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas didn’t do Republicans any favors after Dobbs when he said the Court could revisit rulings allowing contraception and same-sex marriage. That might have been the single thing that motivated younger voters the most.
Sorry, Clarence. Voters under 40 now have majority support for same-sex marriage and other LGBTQ rights. It used to be a big deal for a state to elect a woman governor. Last week Kansas — yes, that same Kansas — didn’t just re-elect a woman governor. They re-elected a Democrat.
Massachusetts elected an LGBTQ woman governor.
Trump must be spinning in his grave.
Ah, if only.
Let me leave you with this. The last time the Democrats did this well in the second year of a Democratic president’s first term was 60 years ago, when they lost four seats in the House and gained four in the Senate.
It was the last national election cycle when Joe Biden was too young to vote.