Election 2024: Warning Signs for the Democrats

2022 Midterms: What Happened?

Democrats fared far better in the 2022 midterm elections than many had thought. They lost the House of Representatives by a small margin and managed to hang on to control of the Senate. In looking towards the 2024 campaign, what signs does 2022 give us? First, we need to recognize that midterm elections have limited predictive power. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barrack Obama all suffered major reverses only to win re-election two years later.

The Pew Research Center, a non-partisan and respected think tank, recently released the results of a comprehensive study of the 2022 midterms. Pew finds that the GOP takeover of the House was driven by an increased turnout of GOP voters. Seventy-one percent (71%) of those who voted for Trump in 2022 turned out to vote in the midterms, while only 67% of Biden voters made it to the polls. The writers of the Pew study conclude that “Given sharp political divisions in the United States, small changes in voter turnout from election to election have big consequences.” Pew also finds that polarization of American politics is nearly complete with only 1% of both Democrats and Republicans voted for the other party.

The Democratic data firm Catalist also released an in-depth look of the 2022 election concluding that:

The 2022 election defied conventional wisdom and historical trends. In a typical midterm election year with one-party control of the presidency, House and Senate, the incumbent party would expect major losses. Instead, Democrats re-elected every incumbent senator and expanded their Senate majority by a seat, won the overwhelming majority of heavily contested gubernatorial elections, gained control of 4 state legislative chambers, and only narrowly lost the U.S. House.

In many ways, Catalist’s analysis in on target. However, their take may be a little too optimistic for the Democrats. Catalist seems to not account for the fact that Trump voters turned out more in 2022 than did Biden voters.

Nate Cohn writing for the New York Times, looks at the 2022 election and concludes that “The registered Democrats who stayed home in 2022 were disproportionately likely to be those who sometimes vote Republican. The Democrats who turned out, on the other hand, were especially loyal Democrats who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020.”

Diving into the 2022 Data

When you look deeper into Pew’s data there are some troubling findings for the Democrats:

· The Democrats had the advantage among younger voters in 2022 but the margin was less than in 2018 (the last mid-term)

· There was a huge drop off in Hispanic support for Democratic candidates in 2022 compared to 2018. Hispanic voters favored Democratic candidates by a 21-point margin in 2022, compared with a 47-point margin in 2018. Among Hispanic voters who went to the polls in the 2018 election, 37% did not vote in the 2022 midterms.

Both trends should be concerning to Democrats as both younger voters and Hispanics are key components of any winning coalition.

A Changing Electorate

Celinda Lake, one of President Biden’s pollsters made a very valid argument in an op-ed in the Washington Post pointing out that:

The candidates might not be changing — but the electorate has.

· Every year, about 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. In the eight years between the 2016 and 2024 elections, that’s 32 million new eligible voters.

Also every year, 2½ million older Americans die. So in the same eight years, that’s as many as 20 million fewer older voters.

According to Lake’s estimate, this generational displacement will impact roughly 20% of the 2024 electorate. This should give the Democrats an important advantage in the race for the White House.

Bottom Line: Lots for the Democrats to Worry About

A changing electorate is the good news for the Democrats. The bad news is that Democrats have much work to do with younger voters and Hispanic voters. Democrats did well in the 2022 midterms. Their relative success should not dull them to the fact that they face some major challenges as campaign 2024 heats up.