Democrats didn't have that bad of an election

Given the adverse presidential playing field, Democrats won a lot of races, nationally and in Arizona, that they easily could have lost, and arguably should have.

I keep reading about what a terrible election Democrats had, nationally and here in Arizona.

As a libertarian conservative, I don’t think I’m prone to gilding the lily for Democrats, although, as a Never Trumper, perhaps I am. In any event, given the circumstances, I don’t think the 2024 election results were that bad for Democrats.

A lot of this will cover ground cited in a previous column making the case that the election results were more a repudiation of the Biden administration than a mandate for Trump and MAGAism. Given the persistence of the “Democrats-had-a-terrible-election” narrative, perhaps there is some benefit to twisting the political kaleidoscope and viewing the results more from a Democratic perspective, rather than a Trump mandate perspective.

The “given the circumstances” was a political playing field tilted strongly against the Democrats this election cycle. There was broad dissatisfaction with the performance of the Biden administration, strongly undergirded by the issues of inflation and immigration. For a critical mass of swing voters, concerns about a second Trump term weren’t enough to get them to vote for a continuation of the status quo, which Harris represented.

So, Democrats lost the presidency. Republicans also took over the U.S. Senate and retained control of the U.S. House. Hence, a very good election for Republicans.

However, given the adverse presidential election contours, Democrats arguably over-performed in congressional races.

Republicans picked up four U.S. Senate seats. Three of them, however, were in deep red states in which Democrats were already defying political gravity, even in an election cycle favoring them rather than one tilted decidedly against them: Ohio, West Virginia, and Montana.

There were five U.S. Senate seats up for grabs in swing states, all of which Trump carried in the presidential race. Despite the adverse trend at the top of the ticket, Democrats won four of the five. Pennsylvania was the only GOP U.S. Senate pickup in a swing state.

And in the U.S. House, Democrats actually picked up two seats, leaving the GOP with such a slender majority that the joint will probably be unmanageable.

In the context of losing the presidential election by a large Electoral College margin and a narrow popular vote margin, these are not electoral accomplishments to sneeze at, or dismiss in a throw-away characterization of the Democrats having had a terrible election.

This notion of the Democrats having had a terrible election is even weirder in Arizona. Democrats lost the biggest prize, Arizona’s presidential Electoral College votes. However, they won the second biggest prize, and the second biggest prize by a considerable margin: the U.S. Senate seat on the ballot. Despite Trump carrying the state by five percentage points, Democrat Ruben Gallego defeated Republican Kari Lake in that contest.

This was widely expected, so has tended to be overlooked in post-election analyses of how the respective parties fared. Supposedly, this victory doesn’t really count for the Democrats because Lake was a so uniquely bad candidate.

It’s worth recalling that just three years ago, Lake was widely touted as the future of the MAGA movement, possibly even Trump’s running mate in 2024. Before the 2022 election, I wrote a skeptical column about this for CNN Opinion, pointing out that the only political skill Lake had demonstrated to that point was the ability to wow a MAGA audience, and Trump himself.

As it turns out, that was the only political skill she ever evinced. However, for a Democrat to win a high-profile U.S. Senate seat in a swing state in which the GOP turnout advantage swells to nine percentage points requires Democrats doing some things right, not just the Republican candidate being unlikable. Lots of unlikable candidates win elections in favorable circumstances, and the circumstances couldn’t have been more favorable for a GOP U.S. Senate pickup in Arizona this election cycle.

The post-election evaluation of how Democrats fared in the state legislative races is colored by the full-court press Gov. Katie Hobbs made for Democrats to actually take over one or both legislative chambers. That didn’t happen. In fact, Republicans picked a few seats. Hence the terrible-election-for-Democrats narrative.

Hobbs picked the wrong election cycle to put on such a full-court press, although that wasn’t really fully evident when she made the decision to mount it.

Again, considering the circumstances, a political playing field tilted decisively against Democrats, the legislative election results weren’t that bad for Democrats. There are only five of ninety legislative seats not held by the party having the registration advantage in that district. Democrats won four of them.

It may be healthy for Democrats to think that they had a terrible election in 2024 and need to make some fundamental changes to better compete in future elections. Healthy for both the party and for the country.

Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch recently expressed a hope for the Democrats to be a pragmatic center-left party and the Republicans to be a pragmatic center-right party. That would certainly be better for the country than the Democrats being a woke, progressive party and the Republicans being a populist MAGA party.

However, it probably isn’t the case that Democrats have to fundamentally reform to do better in future election cycles. They are now the other guys in the body politic’s serial dissatisfaction with the political status quo.

In 2016, Trump inherited a GOP majority in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House. After two years of Trump, voters gave Democrats control of the House, and by a remarkably large margin. After four years of Trump, voters gave him the boot, retained Democratic control of the House, and also gave Democrats effective control of the Senate with VP Harris’s tie-breaking vote.

There’s little reason to believe that a second Trump term will wear on the body politic any better than the first.

We seem stuck in a cycle of swing voters serially toggling between dissatisfying options. A party that moved toward Goldberg’s hope might break the cycle and achieve a more prolonged period of governance tolerated by a restive electorate. But it’s hard to see how, organically, we get from here to there.

Reach Robb at robtrobb@gmail.com.