What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

One wildcard that could actually be helpful for Democrats next year, though, Micah — although it would hurt their agenda in other, maybe longer-lasting ways — is the Supreme Court. The justices heard oral arguments over the structure of Texas’s highly restrictive abortion law on Monday, they’re hearing their first gun rights case in over a decade this morning, and they’re going back to abortion in early December. I could definitely imagine a world where the conservative majority does some controversial and unpopular things, like limiting or overturning Roe v. Wade, and Democrats try to use that to mobilize voters.

Micah, last night’s results do make me wonder how challenging the long tail of the pandemic will be for Democrats going forward. Obviously, many voters did not like how Trump and the Republicans handled the public health side. But I think voters were also primed to care about education because there’s still some lingering anger from parents over last year’s school closures — and tensions around parental autonomy are not going to abate as vaccinations for younger children become a reality. I’ve seen some discussion of whether congressional Democrats’ decision to bag paid family leave as part of the big spending bill will anger parents in next year’s midterms, but I think debates around schools could be a lot more potent.

I said this (ineloquently) on the podcast, Micah, but I agree with you that a lot can just be chalked up to human nature — and, therefore, you can’t easily separate my “it’s all macro trends!” from Nate’s “what are the real-world reasons?”

It’s virtually impossible for a government to do everything well, and because the grass is always greener on the other side, voters (and, to be honest, the media) will fixate on the stuff that isn’t going well, and that becomes the reason (or excuse, if you like) why voters turn against the party in power. Right now, it might be the delta variant; it might be the sluggish economy; it might be lack of action in Congress. But whatever it is, it’s scratching an itch that is inevitably going to be there.