Now that the 2022 midterm election is in the books, what can we learn from the results – not just with an eye to this year, but also to future elections to come?
Election observers say the 2022 midterm points to some long-term trends that could benefit Democrats – but some others that could benefit the GOP.
“It was sort of an interesting situation where it was a surprising outcome, but the polls were right,” says Public Policy Polling director Tom Jensen. Pre-election surveys correctly suggested that Democrats might out-perform their early expectations, but many pundits forecasted a strong Republican showing anyway.
That’s largely because the President’s party is usually at a disadvantage in midterms when it comes to voter turnout. But this year proved to be an exception, as Democratic and Republican voters turned out in similar numbers.
Jensen says that’s partly because GOP voters were unimpressed with their own candidates. “They disapproved of the job Joe Biden was doing,” he says, “but they also didn’t like the Republican candidates in a lot of the key races.” Likewise, Jensen says Democrats may have been more inspired to vote against Republican candidates who were “getting too far to the right” on issues like abortion and election denial.
Beyond that, though, Jensen says Democrats may also have a structural advantage that could help them in future elections too – an advantage they didn’t have until recently.
“We’ve had this resorting of the parties along education levels in recent years,” Jensen says. In previous decades, better-educated voters tended to lean to the GOP – but now, Jensen says, “more well-educated voters are almost universally Democrats … (and) less well-educated voters – especially less well-educated white voters – are almost universally Republicans.”
And that shift gives Democrats a built-in advantage in midterms, Jensen says, because “historically, more well-educated voters are more likely to come out for elections that aren’t presidential elections.”
But while November 8 was a good night for Democrats nationally, it was a better night for the GOP in North Carolina – where Republicans won an open U.S. Senate seat, swept all the statewide judicial races, and nearly secured a veto-proof majority in the General Assembly.
Jensen says that may have been due in part to a built-in Republican advantage in the northeastern part of the state, which has long been a Democratic stronghold. That’s where Republicans made nearly all their gains in the state legislature, and nearly pulled off an upset in a U.S. House race.
“This is the least well-educated part of the state,” Jensen says, “and White voters (there) have been getting more and more Republican with each passing election.” Democrats had remained competitive there largely because the region has a high percentage of Black residents, usually a reliable part of the Democratic base. But Jensen says that means the party’s candidates there “are really dependent on high Black turnout…and it just didn’t happen this year.”
Jensen says the Democratic Party will need to pay more attention to that region in the coming years in order to prevent similar losses in future elections. “Black voters were not engaged,” he says, “and I think there’s a deeper lesson for the Democratic Party. I think they need to be running a 24-month field program in those parts of the state, where turnout really is so much more important than persuasion. I don’t think you can just go in in August or September, right before an election, and get out the vote.”
Otherwise, Jensen concludes, “Democrats are really going to have structural problems for the legislature moving forward, if they can no longer win in those places where historically they’ve been very strong.”
Tom Jensen shared his thoughts about the 2022 midterm election last week on 97.9 The Hill’s “This Morning with Aaron Keck.” Click here to listen to the full conversation.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines