What could Democrats have done to improve their midterm fortunes?
We are less than two weeks out from the midterms. I will have one more post before November 8 on where things are, but that is not what this post is about. No matter what happens, there will be some very bad takes said and written. I am here to pre-emptively shoot them down.
As is always the case leading up to midterms, there have been plenty of discussions about what Democrats could have done better to improve their fortunes. Some of those discussions have been substantive and intelligent, but most have been incredibly dumb. The short answer to whether Democrats could have done things between January 2021 and today to improve their odds come November 8 is not really.
Earlier this year, I wrote a piece about midterm elections and what influences their outcomes. Contrary to what some might believe or hope, midterm elections are the simplest thing to understand. The single biggest factor by far in determining which party has the advantage is knowing which party IS NOT in the White House. That question was settled the second Biden was sworn in last year. From that moment, the broad contours of this year’s elections were set and that favored Republicans. Anyone writing about Democrats’ woes that does not mention that fact is telling you they are clueless and should not be listened to.
It is very unsatisfactory to know that the moment a party wins the presidency, the next election is stacked heavily against it. It sounds so pre-determined because it is. That does not mean every midterm goes against the party in the White House. Occasionally, history is defied, but that is the exception. Anyone who is not aware of those facts has no business commenting on midterm elections.
Just because the broad contours of the midterms are set does not necessarily say anything about any specific races. Individual candidates can win unexpectedly or do better than they look on paper. It is also possible, as we have seen plenty of this year, for the party not in the White House to potentially lose winnable races because they nominated bad candidates. While the party in the White House can catch some lucky breaks, that, too, is the exception.
Right now, the biggest problem Democrats have is that they are the party in the White House and there is 8% inflation. Anytime people are unhappy about the state of the economy (or anything at all), the party in charge will bear the brunt of it. It does not matter that it was not their fault and that there was nothing they could have done about it. That is what happens when you are in charge. Fairly or not, you get blamed for things going wrong and credited for things going right even if you had nothing to do with it.
Before I go any further, I want to dispel the notion that culture war battles have anything to do with Democrats’ current woes. As much as I strongly dislike wokeness, the idea that it is the cause of any current discontent is beyond laughable. If bashing it would cause inflation to go down, Democrats would be doing that non-stop. There will be plenty of takes written after November 8 about how wokeness cost Democrats, mark my words on that. Anyone writing that is a clown who should not be listened to. I think wokeness is a problem for Democrats, but more of a chronic one that should and I think will be fixed because it appeals to almost nobody and Democrats do not want to be associated with something that is a loser.
With respect to inflation, are there things Democrats could have done to avoid it or mitigate it? Many argue that the stimulus passed early last year under Biden was too big and contributed to the high inflation we have now. I am not going to get into any technical details about that in part because it is way beyond my expertise. This piece argues that it may have made up 2% of the 8% inflation we have now. For the sake of argument, I will grant that premise.
The author acknowledges that if we had 6% instead of 8% inflation it would still be a big problem and I wholeheartedly agree. With or without additional stimulus, inflation was going to be a problem. It is happening right now in most other countries. In fact, it is hard to find a country where it is not happening. There is no way the US was going to escape it. We can debate how much excessive stimulus made it worse, but there is no universe where it is not a significant problem.
Beyond arguments about how much stimulus contributed to inflation, it is important to remember what was going on when it was passed in March 2021. The pandemic was still raging. Vaccines were only just beginning to become readily available. It was unclear then how quickly the economy would reopen and how fast or slowly unemployment would go down. In 2009, Democrats passed a stimulus package that was good but inadequate and unemployment stayed high for years. Democrats in 2021 were scarred by that experience and did not want to repeat it.
None of this is to say all the reasoning then was right. There were concerns that excessive stimulus could fuel inflation, but there were also plenty who believed otherwise. There was a widely held belief that there was a greater risk of under stimulating than over stimulating. It is also hard to overstate the impact of the Delta variant. Between messing up supply chains around the world, delaying a return to normal and sending many people into a panic, it wreaked a ton of havoc. Omicron, too, was a problem for some time. Delta and Omicron were going to happen no matter who was in charge.
With respect to stimulus checks, some have argued that they were excessive and went to people who did not need them. That may be right, but, again, the context is important. The runoffs in Georgia decided who controlled the Senate. The dominant theme during the final weeks? Stimulus checks. The Democrats running both campaigned on it as did Biden. For Democrats to win and not deliver on it was not seen as politically acceptable. Voters decide elections, not economists, and voters wanted stimulus checks.
While inflation in general has been a problem, a particular problem has been gas prices. The article I linked to discussing 8% versus 6% inflation notes that upon taking office, Biden cancelled the Keystone pipeline and has halted drilling leases on federal lands. On substance, I think obsessing over one pipeline has been a big waste of time. It is a poor reflection on much of the environmental movement that they have spent the bulk of their efforts over the last 10+ years trying to block one pipeline from being built and acting like it will make or break the planet. I think it should have been approved long ago. There is a segment of Democratic elites who want to bankrupt the oil and gas industry and I think they are bad and should not be listened to. Biden and other Democrats finally seem to have realized that.
What I disagree with is the idea that there was anything realistic Biden could have done to reduce gas prices. Granting pipeline approvals is nice and well, but building pipelines takes years. Had Biden approved Keystone it would not have been built by now, probably not even close. Anyone who points to that decision as a reason for high gas prices today is telling you they are clueless and you should not listen to them.
With 20/20 hindsight, it would have been good if Biden had pushed for subsidizing oil production last year. Realistically, though, that was never going to happen, certainly not in 2021. Again, context is important. When Biden took office in January 2021, vaccines were only just becoming available and thousands were still dying every day. The number 1 priority was getting vaccines out and rightfully so. After that, it was making sure the economy did not fall apart. Gas prices at the time were low and Russia had not invaded Ukraine.
Subsidizing oil production was probably not on anyone’s radar in early 2021. The biggest reason why oil companies are not drilling has nothing to do with policy. It has everything to do with what drillers went through in 2014 and 2020. When oil prices tanked, they lost a ton of money. They do not think prices will remain high and so are skittish about drilling. That would be an issue no matter who was in the White House. Absent a guarantee of making a profit, oil companies are unlikely to start drilling in large amounts right away. I will also note that despite Biden supposedly waging a war on oil, oil production is now at 12 million barrels a day, up from 11 million in January 2021.
Long story short, when it comes to inflation in general and gas prices in particular, there was not much Biden or Democrats could have done differently. Even if additional stimulus contributed to inflation, it may also have contributed to growth and lower unemployment. Maybe without it inflation would be lower, but unemployment would be higher? It is hard to say with any degree of certainty. If that is true, though, it means people would still be unhappy with the economy. People do not like inflation, but they do not like unemployment either.
We went through a pandemic that caused global disruption on a scale not seen since World War 2 and economic disruption not seen ever. The US government and other governments effectively stepped in to make up for plummeting demand and all but froze their economies in place. That had never been done before. There is no precedent for global supply chains being nearly as messed up as they are now. There is no way, no how that going through something like that will not have lasting, lingering effects that people will be unhappy with.
Let’s say that Democrats got lucky and/or did everything perfectly and the economy roared back to life with low inflation and low unemployment like it was 2019. Would Democrats be doing great now? All else being equal they would probably be doing better, but not necessarily by much. That is the blessing/curse of midterms. There is always something for voters to be unhappy about. One lingering effect of the pandemic has been an increase in crime nationwide. Contrary to what some bad faith actors would have you believe, it has happened almost everywhere, not just in places with “progressive prosecutors.” There are places that have done criminal justice reforms that have seen an increase in crime and places that have not done any reforms that have also seen an increase in crime.
The increase in crime has been highlighted frequently in ads by Republicans across the country. If voters were not mad about the economy, they would likely be mad about crime. Is the increase in crime Biden’s fault? Not at all. The federal government does very little on crime anyway and the surge began in 2020 before he was in office. Does that matter politically? Not really. When people are unhappy, the party in the White House bears the brunt of it, whether that is the economy or most anything else.
If crime was not an issue, then something else likely would be. Immigration has gotten much less attention than it did a year ago, but if nothing else was going it would get much more coverage. The same is true for education. Another lingering pandemic effect has been widespread learning loss, including declining test scores nationwide. If voters were not mad about crime or immigration, they might be mad about that. See the pattern? There is almost never not going to be something to be upset about. The midterms in 1986, 1994, 2006, 2014 and 2018 all had economies doing alright, but the party in the White House still did poorly because people were upset about other things.
Was it worth it?
If Democrats were not the party in the White House, this cycle would probably be shaping to be great for them. Every Democrat running for re-election in the Senate would be a shoo-in. Senate seats in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin would probably be sure pickups. Other pickup opportunities would be Georgia (had the runoffs gone the other way), Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa and even Utah. There may have been some additional seats, too, that nobody was thinking of earlier in the cycle. As for the House, Democrats would likely be looking to expand their majority a good bit. The same is true for the number of governorships and state legislative seats held by Democrats.
Since Democrats are the party in the White House, little of that is likely to happen. Has winning the White House been worth sacrificing that? It should be obvious that the answer is yes. Preventing a second Trump term alone makes it worthwhile, but much more than that has been accomplished since January 2021.
It is easy to forget, but the end goal of politics is not to just get elected. That is necessary, but only the beginning. The end goal is to get enacted good things that make the country better. Despite having the narrowest majorities, Democrats have done that. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) alone makes the last two years 100% worth it. Although it has been overshadowed by economic discontent, this current Congress will go down in history as one of the most productive and consequential.
It reminds me of where things were in 2010. Democrats had passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the first ever piece of comprehensive healthcare legislation in US history. It took years to get there and the backlash was vicious. Democrats lost badly in November that year.
Fast forward to 2022 and the ACA is still here. Since it was passed, Democrats have lost the White House and Congress and gained them back. The one constant was that the ACA remained in place. After spending the better part of 7 years of railing against it, Republicans have thrown in the towel on trying to repeal it. From 2010 to 2017, Republicans talked about the ACA like it was the antichrist. Since then, it has been a rare moment when any of them even mention it. That is what victory looks like.
The point is that presidents and majorities in Congress come and go. Legislation tends to stick around for much longer. The ACA is now part of the US healthcare system and is here to stay. That was the goal of passing it in the first place. I remember Democrats being vilified at the time for focusing on healthcare and not the economy, but I would say their decision has been vindicated and millions of people are better off because of it.
The same is likely true for what Democrats have accomplished this Congress. The IRA is a landmark bill. Its effects are likely to be substantial, particularly as it pertains to boosting clean energy and potentially overseeing the creation of a massive number of new industries. A decade from now, the IRA may well be seen as one of the most transformative pieces of legislation ever enacted by any country. It could turbocharge whole new technologies and industries and make the US the leader on all those fronts. It could also help to restructure global supply chains with the US as a central player leaving China in the dust.
No matter what happens on November 8, Democrats have succeeded. They have presided over the passage of substantial amounts of legislation that will have a big and positive impact on peoples’ lives and the country will be better for it. Not only is the US leading the charge on clean energy, but it is now poised to substantially upgrade its infrastructure and make a proactive effort to become a semiconductor powerhouse. Those things will not matter much next month, but they will when the history books are written and that is what counts.