As we have detailed over the last several hours, Republicans and Donald Trump suffered a major rebuke in the midterms. Voters clearly expressed their deep dissatisfaction, especially younger voters, who turned out in higher numbers than expected. From Texas to Maine, from South Carolina to Kansas, Republicans got the boot in their worst midterm cycle since 2006.
But what does that really mean? Did we just see a normal midterm rebuke, or a genuine political realignment? Democrats and the media will argue the latter, and not without legitimate justification. Losing Texas was perhaps the greatest shock to the GOP last night, not just in the Senate race but also watching Greg Abbott lose what looked like a very safe seat until Election Day.
Still, evidence exists that the results may have less to do with ideology and more to do with a failure to deliver. And that evidence relates directly to Donald Trump's own priority on election security in eight states that flipped Senate and gubernatorial seats last night to the Democrats.
In Ohio, voters rejected Vivek Ramaswamy and John Husted, choosing to send Sherrod Brown back to the Senate and hand governance of the state to Amy Acton. However, two-thirds of voters also chose to harden the state's voter-ID requirements by creating a constitutional amendment, ensuring Acton can't undo it:
Issue 3 was the only statewide issue that appeared on Ohioans’ ballots. The constitutional amendment will leave Ohio’s photo ID requirements largely unchanged but makes them harder for legislators to alter in the future.
With 88% of votes counted as of 11:50 p.m., 66% of voters approved the measure, according to the AP. ...
Ohio law already mandated absentee voters to provide a copy of their photo ID, Ohio driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number, along with a signature.
Adding Issue 3’s language – which reflects Ohio’s current voter ID law – to the Ohio Constitution means that voters would have to approve any future changes to those constitutional requirements. If voter ID requirements remained solely in state law, legislators could have potentially changed them in the future without voter approval.
Does that sound like an electorate that has suddenly shifted to the left? Or does that sound more like an electorate that got unhappy with the status quo and wanted to take control of its own destiny for a while?
We can ask the same question about Kansas, where warning alarms had rung for weeks in the Senate election. Adam Hamilton defeated incumbent Roger Marshall to flip the Senate seat to the Democrats, and Cindy Holscher appears poised to win the open gubernatorial seat from GOP nominee Ty Masterson. However, the very same electorate also added a constitutional amendment requiring voters to verify their citizenship status, again by a two-thirds majority:
The amendment modifies Article 5, Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution to clarify that only United States citizens are eligible to vote in the Sunflower State.
The current wording says: "Every citizen of the United States who has attained the age of eighteen years and who resides in the voting area in which he or she seeks to vote shall be deemed a qualified elector."
The new language will say: "No person shall be deemed a qualified elector unless such person is a citizen of the United States; has attained the age of eighteen years; and, unless a residency exception applies, resides in the voting area in which such person seeks to vote."
Supporters of the amendment argued that the change will prevent noncitizens from voting, while those opposed argued that the amendment was unnecessary and could lead to voter disenfranchisement if proof of citizenship becomes a requirement at the polls.
NBC's voting data shows that the amendment passed 64/36. That hardly appears analogous to an electorate that has suddenly realigned to become progressive. Just as in Ohio, it looks more like an electorate that has become frustrated with the status quo and wants to act locally to achieve conservative policies. That argument becomes stronger when married up to David's observations about the outcomes of ballot initiatives to protect women and girls' spaces in athletics, education, and intimate areas.
It wasn't just Ohio and Kansas either, as NRO's Tanner Nau reports:
Eight states approved referenda targeting election security, a longtime focus of the Trump administration and Republicans in general — even while electing Democrats.
North Carolina and Ohio passed referenda amending their state constitutions to require photo ID to vote while electing Democrats statewide. ...
Nevada, which unseated its Republican governor on Tuesday, passed a constitutional amendment to enshrine photo identification to vote in person and require voters to provide the last four digits of their driver’s license number or Social Security number to vote by mail. It passed by nearly 25 points.
In addition to voter ID referenda, four states — Kansas, Arkansas, South Dakota, and Alaska — approved ballot measures to require proof of citizenship in order to cast a ballot.
The only places where such ballot measures may have failed are California and Arizona. Those races have not yet been called, either.
This points up a risk for both parties if they assume that the midterms reflected a genuine realignment rather than just acted as a referendum on the current leadership. General elections are binary choices; voters unhappy with the status quo only have one choice to express that dissatisfaction. It does not necessarily mean that they have suddenly become progressives. Both parties can make serious mistakes if they make that assumption. And both parties have real opportunities over the next two years if they can get back to granular, retail politicking that involves real contact with voters and allows for realistic approaches that reflect the true core values of the electorates.
We'll see which party figures that out first ... if either does.