By Ray Goodspeed and John Pickard
There is a unanimous view among political commentators that the results of the US mid-term elections were hugely disappointing for the Republican Party, which was expected to make significant gains. A ‘red wave’ was expected (red, oddly, being the colour of the Republican Party) but it did not materialise. The results were a genuine surprise to most commentators, therefore, and a ‘victory’ of sorts for the Democrats.
In the end, the Democrats gained a seat in the Senate, where there are two Senators for each state, irrespective of the size of the population. The Senate represents a massive ‘democratic deficit’ whereby a large state like California has two senators compared to twenty for the combined ten smallest states, whose total population is only a quarter of California’s.
A third of Senate seats are elected every two years, including in these mid-terms. In the end, the Democrats held onto all those that were targeted by Republicans (GOP) including by wafer-thin majorities in Arizona and Nevada. The state of Georgia has an unusual constitution, requiring a run-off vote if no candidate has over 50% of the total vote, so there will be a run off on December 6th and this, too may be won by the Democrat candidate, who is in the lead. Georgia was previously regarded as a southern, conservative state and a ‘safe bet’ for the Republicans, and the victory of the Democrats in 2020 was a surprise. To hold on to it in a mid-term election during a severe economic crisis would be astonishing.
Republicans gain the House of Representatives
Even if Georgia is lost to the Republicans, the Democrats will still have a majority in the 100-seat Senate, because it would be 50-50, and the Vice President, the almost invisible Kamala Harris, has a casting vote.
In the lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives, the Republicans have gained a small majority, probably enough to begin their own investigations into the financial affairs of Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. It will also allow the GOP to block important legislative measures from Biden and the Democrats, but this is actually one of the best mid-term results for a party in government this century.
These results overall represent a significant break with a 40-year tradition, whereby the party of the sitting president is hammered by the voters. The results are all the more remarkable, given the economic problems in the USA, in the middle of a severe inflation crisis and with an unpopular (according to polls) Democrat President.
In addition to Congress, a third of state governors were up for re-election. Here, remarkably, the Democrats had a net gain of governorships, gaining three (Arizona, Maryland and Massachusetts), and losing only one (Nevada). That is the first time that has happened since 1934.
And yet, the Democrats are behind on the national vote for the House of Representatives, by about 3.2%, or three million votes at time of writing, but this may narrow as more results are still being counted in safely Democrat and very populous California. This is not unusual in a midterm “protest vote”. Biden led by seven million votes in the 2020 presidential election year, on a much higher turnout.
Turn-out maintains historically higher level
Again, by historical standards, the turnout was high, at about 47-48%. The mid-terms in 2018 produced a turnout a little higher, at 50%, but before that you would have to go back to 1970 to get a similar figure. The recent high turnouts reflect the intense polarisation of opinion in the USA over the last eight years or so.
An important feature of the vote was that there was a clear repudiation of Trump and candidates who he had endorsed, particularly those peddling the myth of the “stolen election” in 2020. The pro-Trump “election denying” candidate in Pennsylvania was well-beaten by a relatively progressive (by US standards) Democrat. The Governor positions that Democrats gained were all against extreme, “election-denying” pro-Trump candidates. The Republican (a black candidate) who failed to take Georgia was also closely associated with, and endorsed by, Trump.
It seems that many voters made a judgement that they might vote Republican but not for ‘Trumpists’, and this was enough to lose key “marginal” contests where the turnout was high and the anti-Trump voters could be mobilised by passionate Democrat campaigns.
So, this was the net result of the elections. But the big question is why. Why did the turnout hold up at a historically high level and why did the vote buck a 40-year trend of not hitting the incumbent president too hard?
We can be sure that the saving of the Democratic Party was not down to “worker” Joe Biden, whose approval rating is far below the level of support for the Democrats apparent in the vote. What made a huge difference in this contest was the decision of the Supreme Court several months ago that challenged abortion rights in the USA.
Abortion remained a key issue in every state
Marx once said that “sometimes the revolution needs the whip of counter-revolution”. While many commentators thought the Supreme Court decision had ‘faded’ out, in fact it was a decisive issue among women voters and youth and it was their vote that turned this election. Contradicting the ‘expert’ opinion before the elections, exit polls showed that abortion was the second most important issue listed by voters after inflation.
As well as elections to state and federal congresses, many states have propositions of one kind or another on the ballot papers, not unlike referenda. In every single instance where abortion rights were on the ballot paper, the anti-abortion lobby was roundly defeated, and often by large margins.
This was the one issue that galvanised women, especially young women, to vote Democrat.
Three states voted to enshrine abortion into the state constitution, and two more, in very conservative, republican states (Montana and Kentucky) voted against increased restrictions. The Republicans (post the ending of Roe v Wade) have clearly allowed the abortion issue to go too far and have encountered a ferocious backlash from voters.
Democrats won hugely (73%) among those who support legal abortion, Republicans won (89%) among those who oppose it, though, overall, 60% of voters support it. If the question went to a national referendum the pro-choice side would probably win, as it did in Ireland.
63% of voters under 30 voted Democrat
Abortion is not the only social issue that remains massively divisive in US politics. Two more states (Maryland and Missouri) voted to legalise marijuana. The Republican Party, despite having some black and even gay candidates, is widely seen as being ultra-conservative on all social issues and hostile to people of colour. Of those who support LGBT rights 87% were Democrat, while 78% of those who think social ‘liberalism’ has gone too far voted Republican.
There was a high turnout generally and this seems to have benefited the Democrats, but there was no striking increase in the youth turnout. However, those young people who did vote, voted mainly Democrat in very high numbers: 63% of young people under 30 voted Democrat, including a majority of young white voters under 30 (58%). Older white voters, on the other hand, largely supported the Republicans.
In US politics there is clearly some polarisation by race and class. The Republicans only have a majority among white voters (58%), while black voters, for example, voted 86% Democrat. Poorer voters, (under $50,000 pa) mainly voted Democrat. Those earning above that were mainly Republican. The GOP also led among white voters with no college degree.
What is clear from all of the results is that there is a need for a party that can offer clear, class-based politics. There is enormous potential support for a working class-based party offering progressive social policies. Moreover, explicitly socialist ideas, as opinion polls have shown, have a growing level of support among younger voters.
The PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute) 2019 American Values Survey asked respondents to choose between two statements describing socialism. The first described socialism as “a system in which a government provides citizens with health insurance, retirement support, and access to free higher education,” and the second describes it as a “system where a government controls key parts of the economy, such as utilities, transportation, and communication.” The poll discovered that 57% of younger Americans ages 18-29 agreed that socialism is a system that provides “a stronger social safety net for everyday Americans” and 52% of the general public agreed.
The PRRI website noted that “these attitudes also align with how voters of colour approach these issues. Hispanic Americans (59%) and Black Americans (57%) are more likely to identify socialism as a system in which the government provides key social services than their white counterparts (49%)”.
If there was ever a time when American workers were in need of a “stronger social safety net” it is now. The same applies to universal health care. Where a measure of general health care has been introduced in the US, it has proved widely popular.
Up to now, these kinds of radical ideas have been mainly focused around the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (who was re-elected to the House with over 70% of the vote) and the Democratic Socialists of America, the growth of which is itself an indication of a yearning for new, radical ideas. Indeed, DSA-backed candidates made significant progress, with four more radical House representatives joining the existing so-called “squad”, including one in his 20s. Some of these victories (such as that of Summer Lee in Pennsylvania) were won against massive multi-million-dollar campaign against them by the establishment.
A lot more DSA-Democrat victories were won at the level of state legislatures and a variety of other local, directly-elected positions that they have in the USA. With the very real problems faced by working class people, there is potential for a real party of labour, more potential than there has been for decades.
The Democrat Party as a whole, however, is not able to play such a role in developing a real working-class party. It is deeply rooted in the capitalist system and acts as the ‘liberal’ wing of US capitalism. On all basic issues of economics and foreign policy, the leaders of the Democratic Party are wedded to the status quo.
Primary system works to prop up the two-party system
The modest victories for the Democratic Party might be welcomed by many workers in the USA, but it is an open question as to how far social progress of any kind can be made before a workers’ party becomes necessary and more importantly, how it can be established. The US election system is heavily slanted towards a two-party system and primaries that makes the establishment of a third party, a workers’ alternative, extremely difficult.
However, at the same time, the primary system means that (for the moment) there is a degree of freedom allowed to local left caucuses of the Democratic Party to run ‘left’ candidates if they can win those primaries. In fact, it could be argued that – given a solid basis of local support – left candidates, say from the DSA, have more freedom than the left enjoys in the UK Labour party. There is as yet no central party bureaucracy that is empowered to expel DSA candidates, unlike in the Labour Party. The make-up and structure of the Democratic Party, therefore, provides for the moment an illusory avenue for pursuing ‘socialist’ policies. How long that remains the case, with the tops of the Democratic Party utterly embedded within the capitalist system, is open to debate.
What is clear is that in the longer run, the shifts in US politics – some of which were notable in these mid-term elections – will become more dramatic, as society becomes increasingly polarised and political clashes become sharper and more intense. Perhaps the key issue will be developments in the trade unions, including the increased organisation of new sections of workers and a greater willingness of workers to fight for their rights and living standards.
As it is in the UK, capitalism offers nothing to American workers except more sacrifices and hardships. The mid-term elections have shown a shift in the thinking of millions of workers, beginning with women and youth, but that is nothing to the shifts that will be evident in the future.
The next Left Horizons Zoom discussion, on December 6, will be on the mid-term election results in the USA, details on Facebook and in the Left Horizons Newsletter
