As Election Day nears, the change that Americans have been desperately seeking will finally be realized: No more campaign commercials.
It’s bad enough they dominate the airwaves, but salt in the wound is that, with few exceptions, most are laughably bad, succeeding only in comic relief.
Note to both sides: hire consultants who don’t take the cookie-cutter approach, and you’ll fare better.
Much to analyze before the votes are counted, so let’s get started:
Overall picture
On paper, this year’s contests favor Republicans, if solely because the party out of power historically outperforms in midyear elections. Throw
in favorable redistricting, and it looks even better.
Icing on the cake are the two pressing issues that should — key word “should” — spell doom for Democrats: soaring inflation and rising
crime.
Add chaos at the border (where a record 3 million have crossed, and which is a conduit for deadly fentanyl), tanking stock markets, a looming recession, and numerous foreign policy fires, and you have a perfect storm for the GOP.
Yet despite all that, many races are still so neck-and-neck that they could go either way.
Part of that is due to the country’s hyperpartisanship, where the pool of undecideds, independents and cross-over voters has become smaller, and part is due to controversial Republican candidates.
Given that situation, it’s not very bright for Republican leaders to continue predicting a “red tsunami.” Sure, that could, and very well may occur, especially since most undecided voters usually break for the challenger (and since Democrats hold power, they are the “incumbent,” even in open-seat races).
But here’s the thing: polls and predictions don’t win elections. Votes do.
As this column pointed out earlier, exuberant predictions are not just unhelpful, but counterproductive. Instead of rallying the troops, they often have the opposite effect, creating a mindset that since everything is in-hand, the base doesn’t need to do anything, from donations to volunteering to getting out the vote.
And for some, that which is paramount, voting, takes a backseat since “it will be a landslide” anyway.
The turnout issue
It’s no secret that turnout wins.
So let’s look at Pennsylvania’s numbers:
Of the 1.4 million requests for mail-in ballots thus far, a whopping 70 percent are from Democrats, while just 20 percent are Republican.
Translation: the GOP absolutely, positively needs its base, as well as independents and unaffiliated voters, to turn out en masse on Election Day.
If just a small fraction stays home — because of weather, long lines, or feeling that “Republicans will win anyway, so my vote isn’t needed” —
the results could be devastating for the GOP.
So it defies belief that supposedly smart leaders would continue making unwise predictions of victory given what’s at stake, and the unpredictability of turnout.
The proof is in the pudding, as the 2021 Georgia runoffs illustrate.
Despite the monumental importance of those two seats — since they would determine who controlled the Senate — neither base turned out in force.
But the Democrats got just enough to win, fueled, ironically, by Donald Trump’s lackluster involvement and his casting doubt on the election process.
Early voting
Early voting has gotten completely out-of-hand, given that some have cast ballots a staggering five weeks before the election. Hey, under that
rationale, why not just open voting for 2024 the day after this election?
Not to be naive — clearly, mail voting is here to stay — but the practice needs to be significantly reformed, since it’s inefficient, leads to
questions of election integrity, and adds considerable expense to local governments.
From a common-sense perspective, what happens when citizens vote weeks before the election, and subsequently learn something distressing about their candidate?
In 2016, the FBI director’s announcement about Hillary Clinton’s emails comes to mind, as does the Trump “sex tape” revelations.
And now, questions are swirling about John Fetterman’s health after his debate performance, creating reverberations both statewide and across the nation.
A remedy for “voter’s remorse” doesn’t exist, so, by definition, early ballot casters are making crucially important decisions without a complete picture.
Many died for our right to vote; the least we could do is respect their sacrifice by granting more weight to our choices.
Fetterman stroke
Did John Fetterman’s stroke doom him, as some gleeful Republicans believe? Not so fast.
First, as mentioned, hundreds of thousands had already voted before the debate, so those ballots are a done deal.
Second, Pennsylvania, mirroring the nation, has become not just very partisan, but equally partisan. In other words, Republicans will, in near totality, vote for Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Likewise, most Democrats will pull for Fetterman, regardless of his stroke.
Is doing so the ultimate in political partisanship?
Absolutely, many Republicans say, as they attempt to take the moral high road. But that’s disingenuous.
Let’s be very honest: turn the tables, and virtually all GOP voters would do the same if it were their guy with a medical affliction.
Why? Because we are at a point in American history where the middle ground is quickly disappearing, having been overrun by extremes on both sides.
The real question is whether the undecideds will be swayed to vote for Oz (or at least not cast a ballot for Mr. Fetterman), which is something we won’t know until the dust settles.
But one thing is clear: Fetterman’s stroke doesn’t help him in any way, since, in real life, virtually no one is likely to vote for his “courage” in debating.
Maybe it’s a net neutral, and maybe Oz benefits, but either way, it’s an advantage for Republicans because the debate emphatically stopped whatever
momentum Fetterman had.
Add to that the general feeling that Republicans are surging down the home stretch, and the prospects for an Oz victory have grown significantly.
Polls
Polling is an inherently error-prone business, since it’s impossible to know which side will generate better turnout. Republicans have often under-polled, such as in 2016, but that’s no guarantee for this election.
Since the tight races are within the margin of error, there could be significant election surprises for both sides.
With that said, a combination of gut instinct, anecdotal evidence and historical precedents — such as the last time inflation was this high, and
undecideds almost universally breaking for the challenger — points to, at least for this author, a Republican advantage of at least 2 points more
than what most polls are reporting.
While predictions in this environment are a fool’s errand, should that edge be realized, the GOP will likely end up with at least 228 seats in the House, where the majority is 218, and win Senate seats in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia, earning them control of that body.
New Hampshire, where the Republican was written off by some, will likely end up much closer than expected, but remain Democrat.
And while Dems will likely survive close races in New York for governor and Washington State for Senate, they will now have to spend considerable money in those typically liberal strongholds — that otherwise would have been spent elsewhere — in upcoming election cycles.
Campaign messaging failures
The Republicans have done a decent, though not superb, job of hammering inflation and crime.
But they would have been in an even better position had they been running a montage ad, all year, showing a host of problems under the Biden Administration: pure chaos during the Afghanistan withdrawal, a huge jump in health care costs, the border crisis with graphics showing where and how fentanyl is coming into America, a gas pump price gauge spinning rapidly, and a supermarket checkout superimposed with exorbitant food prices, compared to prior years.
The Democrats made a calculated choice to focus almost exclusively on abortion, at the expense of addressing inflation and crime.
Sure, the GOP would still have had the advantage on those issues, but smart, well-focused messaging by Dems — what went wrong and how to fix it, even if that meant criticizing their own party — would have somewhat mitigated Republican momentum.
Should nail-biter races break Republican, the Democratic party’s failure to broaden its message will have been the difference.
And that will lead to vitriolic intraparty slugfests as Democrats battle one another for the soul of their party heading into 2024, just when they can least afford disunity. And who said politics was boring?
Let the vote counting begin!
Chris Freind is an independent columnist and commentator whose column appears every week. This column is a special edition. He can be reached at CF@FFZMedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrisfreind.
