Could the coming 'red wave' election become a 'red tsunami'? | TheHill
By: Larry Sabato (TheHill)
Why yes. Yes it could...........
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
© Greg Nash
It seems President Biden can't buy a good headline these days, which is a wonder. He's been using taxpayer money to try to buy just about everything else. But his legislative overreach - trying to do too much, too fast, with too little support - is tanking, as are his poll numbers.
There's a growing conviction in the media, and even among Democrats, that the coming November election could see a "red wave" of Republicans winning their respective races in the House and perhaps the Senate.
But by comparing the coming election to the red waves of 1994 and 2010, we may instead be looking at a "red tsunami."
A recent analysis in "Sabato's Crystal Ball," produced by Larry Sabato at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, looks at potential outcomes of the November election in light of the fact that a president's party usually loses seats in the first midterm election. "With some key national factors seemingly in their favor, Republicans could win a healthy majority in the House in 2022 — perhaps even their biggest in nearly a century," the analysis states.
The past two red waves were 1994, when Republicans won 54 more House seats than they had won in the previous election, and 2010, with 64 more Republican House seats.
But if we look at what caused those huge Republican victories, we may get an even better glimpse at Democrats' dismal prospects.
In 1992, Democrat Bill Clinton won the presidential election with just 43 percent of the popular vote. Incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush won 37 percent, with third-party candidate Ross Perot taking 19 percent. Even though it was far from a majority of the popular vote, Clinton's 43 percent was enough to win the Electoral College.
Bizarrely, Democrats immediately claimed Clinton had a "mandate" from the voters to make major changes, especially in the health care system. What came to be called ClintonCare would have been a massive federal restructuring of the U.S. health care system. And unlike President ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaBarack Obama wishes a happy 58th birthday to 'best friend' MichelleVoting rights is a constitutional right: Failure is not an optionFlorida looms large in Republican 2024 primaryMORE and ObamaCare, Clinton never tried to con the public with a "if you like your health plan, you can keep it" promise — PolitiFact's 2013 "Lie of the Year."
Health care reform consumed Clinton's first two years in office, and it failed — miserably.
Clinton was, however, able to pass several major tax increases in 1993. He increased individual income tax rates for the top two brackets, removed the 2.9 percent cap on the Medicare payroll tax, raised the corporate income tax, increased the taxable portion of Social Security benefits and increased the gasoline tax by 4.3 cents per gallon — all with 43 percent of the popular vote.
In the 1994 election voters registered their strong disapproval.
When Obama took office in 2009, Democrats again claimed to have a mandate for major changes. Obama immediately started pushing health care reform that consumed and divided the country for his first two years — and beyond. He was able to get ObamaCare passed in March 2010 only by going through a very convoluted legislative process because he did not have enough votes to pass it in the Senate. (Sound familiar?)
Oh, and ObamaCare included 21 new taxes.
So the two largest Democratic defeats in modern history came after massive health care reform efforts and multiple new taxes — and with virtually unanimous Republican opposition.
Now comes Biden's first midterm election in which Democrats have a five or six seat majority in the House and no majority in the Senate (unless the vice president weighs in). And they are once again claiming a mandate and putting their Democratic-overreach approach on steroids.
His nearly $2 trillion Build Back Better bill would vastly restructure and expand the welfare state and impose lots of new taxes at a time when the public is much more concerned about inflation and the pandemic.
And his voting rights push, backed up with over-the-top claims that opposition to the Democrats' efforts is tantamount to a return to Jim Crow laws and maybe the Confederacy, is playing even less well in the country.
These are staggering overreaches, plopped on the back of staggering failures, such as the Afghanistan withdrawal and growing Russian and Chinese aggression. That's why so many analysts are predicting a red wave.
But there's one big difference between the 1994 and 2010 overreaches and the coming November election that could see a red tsunami: Clinton and Obama were masterful politicians who were enormously popular with much of the public and appeared to be at the top of their game — even if the game didn't always go in their favor.
Biden appears hapless, confused and stymied. He won the presidential election not because of who he was, but because of who he wasn't. And that means the November election might not only be a rejection of the president's agenda - a red wave - but a rejection of the president himself.
Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, Texas. Follow him on Twitter @MerrillMatthews.
TagsBidenBiden; Joe Biden;Barack ObamaBill ClintonJoe BidenAffordable Care ActBuild Back BetterWave election
Tags
Who is online
453 visitors
We can hope..............................
Yes, we can!
"Biden appears hapless, confused and stymied. He won the presidential election not because of who he was, but because of who he wasn't."
The Dems can't accept this
America is a degraded nation right now. Giving congressional power back to Republicans wont do a thing to change that.
Keeping Congressional power with the Democrats will simply continue the slide to third world status.
Sorry, Democrats had their chance; and they completely fucked everything up. They will not be rewarded for it.
opinion
The truth.
They always fuck up everything and leave it to the Democrats to clean up their fucking messes.
What a shithole we have to clean up after this time.
No I don't.
Leaving it the way it is will only make it worse...
Interesting article , definitely something to think about .
but personally In my opinion the author didnt go back far enough ,
My feeling is we are repeating the carter years and not the clinton years , with some definite changes and differences .
So i will sit back and watch .
Don't both parties proclaim a 'mandate' when they come in with a majority in both the House and Senate AND the WH? I seem to remember during Trump's first two years that there were some Republicans going around talking about their mandate... Seems to be normal partisan projections.
With that said, I do expect Republicans to take the majority in the House and in the Senate in November. My concern is that they will be more focused on partisan crap and waste their time with investigations and such... IMO if they do that they will lose in 24, if they actually put forth good laws (good for the people that is) AND publicly show all they are doing for the good of the people, then I suspect they stand a very good chance of increasing their numbers in both the House and Senate as well as winning the White House in 24. Crazy world...
But it all goes to hell if they focus too heavily on partisan shit.
And that is not an unreasonable expectation , and its is supported by what has happened in the past , over the past 40-50 years .
A year into Trumps administration he was averaging 35% approval rating. Did conservatives have such a sour outlook on the rest of the Trump presidency because of those low numbers back then? Was the sky supposedly falling and the administration in freefall because of the low poll numbers?
Funny how just a couple years ago conservatives were screaming about how inaccurate the polls are and how they shouldn't be trusted. Now that they seem to be showing lagging support for their opponents conservatives are jumping behind them as if they're proof of Biden's failure and incompetency yet nary a word was said by conservatives back when it was Trump polling in the low 30's other than how you shouldn't trust polls.
Thanks for the reminder that Americans think Trump was a better President than Biden.
In just one year....