A Blue Week

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.  This year's elections have turned out badly for the GOP.

Julia Manchester at The Hill:

Republicans are feeling spooked by recent special elections losses and underperformances in party strongholds, as the White House ramps up President Trump’s presence on the campaign trail ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

On Tuesday, Democrats flipped Miami’s mayoral office for the first time in nearly 30 years and won a conservative-leaning state House district in Georgia that Trump carried by 12 points last year.

Those victories came after Republicans gave up ground to Democrats in a special election for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District last week and lost by wide margins in Virginia and New Jersey’s gubernatorial races last month.

Republicans note that while the off-year gubernatorial losses were not necessarily a surprise, upsets in GOP strongholds such as Miami and the Georgia state House district have them on edge.

“Republicans losing in Republican areas? That’s a different story. I think that’s got people freaking out,” one former Trump White House staffer said

Andrew Egger at The Bulwark:

“It’s not a secret. There’s no sugarcoating it. It’s a pending, looming disaster heading our way.”

“We are facing almost certain defeat.”

“The chances are Republicans will go down and will go down hard.”

“You hit the nail on the head. This is an absolute disaster. No matter what party is in power, they usually get crushed in the midterms.”

These pessimistic assessments of Republicans’ chances in next year’s midterms are the sort of thing you’d expect to hear from disgruntled GOP operatives outside the MAGA camp. This week, however, they’ve been coming from someone way crazier: Joe Gruters, the Trump-diehard chair of the Republican National Committee, who has been barnstorming conservative radio this week.1

Gruters isn’t throwing Trump under the bus. Quite the opposite: As Democrats overperform in special election after special election and Republican confidence in the midterms craters, he’s trying to set expectations low—way low. After all, he says, the guys in power nearly always lose the midterms. And as once-unimaginable cracks have begun spiderwebbing across the MAGA coalition, he’s making a specific case to his party: “The only person that could bring the nose up and help us win is the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.”

Still, it’s remarkably abnormal to see the chair of the institutional Republican party—the head of the party’s campaign apparatus!—openly predict doom for his candidates. It risks further depressing GOP voters and encouraging lawmakers to retire early. And, beyond that, it’s far from clear that the Republicans who actually need to get elected next year share Gruters’s assessment of how to fix their electoral predicament.

This week, I spoke to a number of swing-state GOP operatives about Trump and the midterm environment. And they were pretty blunt. To them, the biggest reason Republicans seem bound for disaster isn’t historical midterm trends. It’s the world the president has built for them to run in—particularly when it comes to affordability. (To encourage them to speak openly, including in ways that contradict top-down GOP messaging, we agreed not to disclose their names.)

“His message sucks. It’s absolute trash. ‘Affordability is a Democrat hoax’??? Give me a break,” said one strategist, a veteran of presidential and congressional campaigns. “It’s the non-college-educated version of the Biden message, and we saw how well that worked. . . . Nobody believes the economy and particularly affordability is getting better.”

Uncontested Elections

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

Brianna Ryan at Ballotpedia:

Sixty-five percent of more than 40,000 elections across the country on Nov. 5, 2024, were uncontested, meaning that the sole candidates on the ballot were virtually guaranteed to win each election.

In five states—Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, and Michigan—more than 75% of elections were uncontested. Iowa topped the list: of the 1,902 elections held there, 1,614 (85%) were uncontested. Conversely, the five states with the lowest uncontested rate were New Jersey (0%), New Hampshire (11%), Virginia (19%), Connecticut (23%), and Utah (26%).

The map below shows the percentage of uncontested elections by state out of the 40,646 elections we covered on Nov. 5. Of those, 26,218—or 65%—were uncontested.

Congressional and state elections made up 15% of the roughly 40,000 elections covered. Thirty-one percent of those elections were uncontested.

That leaves local elections as the largest group of elections on a given major election day and the level of government with the highest percentage of uncontested elections.

For several office types—including district and city attorneys, who prosecute crimes, and clerks and auditors, who often run elections—more than 90% of elections were uncontested.

Overall, on Nov. 5, a majority of elections were uncontested across every type of local office we covered, except those for boards of regents (46% uncontested), fire boards (46%), and school boards (45%).

Incumbency Wins

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

Ballotpedia:

This year, 90% or more of incumbents won re-election in 43 states. In 2022, it was more than 90% in 41 states, and in 2020, it was at or above 90% in 47 states.

• Ninety-eight percent of congressional incumbents were re-elected in 2024, the same percentage as in 2022 and slightly higher than the 96% re-elected in 2020. In 41 states, all congressional incumbents who sought another term were re-elected. In 41 states, all congressional incumbents were re-elected, the same as in 2022. In 2020, voters in 38 states re-elected their incumbents who sought another term.
• At the state executive level, 96% of incumbents were re-elected, while 93% of state-judicial incumbents and 97% of state legislative incumbents who ran were re-elected.
• Local-executive incumbents had a 93% win rate, local judicial incumbents had a 98% win rate, and local legislative incumbents, such as city council members or other officeholders who write laws at the local level, had an average win rate of 90%.

Good Night for Dems

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and local elections.  Republicans have lost ground in big cities.

Caroline Vakil at The Hill:

Democrats had a lot to celebrate on Tuesday night.

In one of the most closely watched races of the year, Democratic candidate Heather Boyd beat Republican Katie Ford in the special election for a Pennsylvania state House seat outside Philadelphia, allowing them to keep control of the lower chamber.

The race was seen as particularly critical since Democrats feared Republicans would use a potential majority to push through restrictive measures relating to abortion and LGBTQ issues.

Meanwhile, in Jacksonville, Fla., Democrats scored an upset after Donna Deegan (D) won the mayoral race there against Republican Daniel Davis, who was backed by DeSantis. The election offered Democrats some relief given Duval County’s red leanings, suggesting that Democrats can still be competitive in the state even as Florida has trended Republican in recent years.

Meanwhile, in Colorado Springs, independent candidate Yemi Mobolade won the mayoral race against Republican Wayne Williams, a former Colorado secretary of state. The election delivered yet another blow to Republicans given that El Paso County, where Colorado Springs is situated, was a county that former President Trump won by 11 points in 2020.

With the Jacksonville flip, the largest city with a Republican mayor is Fort Worth, TX (pop.  918,915).

For folks who don't know Jacksonville, the city and county are the same government. Wrong to think this is another "big" Dem city. It has outlying rural areas and a significant number of military retirees. It's a slightly red-leaning bellweather for the state. Why this is a bfd

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) May 17, 2023

Aaron Blake at WP:

All told, according to the Daily Kos Elections numbers, Democrats have overperformed the 2020 presidential results by an average of six points across 18 state legislative races this year. (And again, that was a good election for them.) They’ve also beaten their 2016 margins by an average of 10 points.

And that doesn’t include the highest offices on the ballot thus far in 2023. In a crucial Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, the Democratic-aligned candidate won by 11 points, ending 15 years of conservative control of the court. And in the only special congressional election of 2023 so far, in Virginia, Democrats beat their 2020 margin by double digits.

Mixed News on Local Elections

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and local elections.

 Adam Gabbatt at The Guardian:

Scores of rightwing extremists were defeated in school board elections in April, in a victory for the left in the US and what Democrats hope could prove to be a playbook for running against Republicans in the year ahead.

In Illinois, Democrats said more than 70% of the school board candidates it had endorsed won their races, often defeating the kind of anti-LGBTQ+ culture warrior candidates who have taken control of school boards across the country.

Republican-backed candidates in Wisconsin also fared poorly. Moms for Liberty, a rightwing group linked to wealthy Republican donors which has been behind book-banning campaigns in the US, said only eight of its endorsed candidates won election to school boards, and other conservative groups also reported disappointing performances.

From Informing Democracy: 

Despite prevailing narratives following the 2022 election, more anti-democracy actors were elected to office last year. At the local level, where officials’ hands are literally and figuratively closest to our ballots, potential threats are growing in number and strength. 

In 2022, challenges to our democracy were widespread at the local level and carried out by the people we entrust with the responsibility for administering our elections.

These threats are growing in strength as misguided officials continue to peddle lies about non-existent fraud, probe for vulnerabilities in election law and process, and undermine public confidence about the security of future elections.

Our report looks at 204 of these officials, as a part of our effort to shine a spotlight on the people and processes that determine how our votes are counted and elections certified. 

Extremists Go Local

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.  

 Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins at NBC:

Domestic extremist groups ranging from the QAnon conspiracy movement and the Proud Boys to militia organizations and avowed white nationalists have re-emerged in recent months, frequently trying to effect change at the local level.

But it’s not just the strategy that has shifted. Most far-right domestic extremist movements have also adapted their infrastructure and messaging, according to a forthcoming report by the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, a nonprofit international affairs think tank.

That analysis, which tracked violent domestic extremism and political violence since Jan. 6 via news reports and known extremist networks, found that despite an initial decline, domestic extremist groups have evolved and resurfaced, encouraging local action while recruiting and spreading their messages through culture-war debates including vaccines, race and education.

“The domestic extremist landscape was battered by Jan. 6,” said Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab and author of the new report. “But extremism is dynamic and fluid. It is always trying to adapt to fit the container that it’s in.”

Partisan "Nonpartisan" Races in Orange County

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and local elections.

Brooke Staggs & Alicia Robinson at the OC Register

In theory, elections for dozens of city, county and regional posts are legally nonpartisan in Orange County, with ballots that don’t include party labels next to candidates’ names.

The reasoning is — or, rather, was — that local races are about local issues. Fixing potholes and keeping clean water flowing to your house are government functions that work best when they’re not subject to the kind of partisan haggling that comes with issues like gun control and abortion rights.

And voters used to go along with that. A generation ago, it would have been unheard of for a resident of, say, Irvine, to ask a council candidate knocking at the door about their party affiliation, said Randall Avila, spokesman for the Republican Party of Orange County.

No more. As Orange County’s demographics have changed, and as Democrats have grown in power in a county once dominated by Republicans, party politics and party affiliation are becoming increasingly big factors in local races.

...

Arguably, lingering “don’t ask, don’t tell” rules about party affiliation in local races might have helped Republicans in recent years. Even though registered Democrats have outnumbered registered Republicans in the county since 2019, the GOP has held its long-standing majorities in most local jurisdictions. Republicans now hold nearly 55% of county and local seats while Democrats hold just over 33%.

But with party labels increasingly attached to candidates in nonpartisan races, and with county voters leaning leftward, the GOP edge is slipping. Democrats are winning more seats on city councils, school boards, and library, sanitation and other special district boards,

“At the local level last year, we took 20 seats from Republicans,” said Ada Briceño, chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County. Those wins, she added, extended into traditionally GOP communities such as San Clemente and Fountain Valley.