MTG, Midterms, And GOP's Math Problem

The GOP's 2022 Hopes Rest With Suburban Reversion

So, here is a list of things that we can predict with a high degree of certainty about the 2022 midterms:

Turnout will be down compared to 2020

The falls in turnout will be across the board, but strongest amongst rural whites without a college degree

The share of the electorate that is white, and does not have a degree, will go down.

We know these three things are highly likely because of history - the share of the electorate that is white and non-degree holding always falls as you decrease turnout. This was true in 2008, when the Georgia runoff became a comparative GOP landslide because of rural, non-college white turnout dropping off more than educated, urban white turnout. This was true in 2014, when 39% of voters were white degree holders, a number that plummeted to 30% in 2016. This was true in 2018, where educated whites made up 33% of the electorate, more than either 2016 or 2020 (31%).

We know this from the Georgia runoffs and Virginia, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Mississippi Governors elections, held in off years. We know this from Lak's county turnout metric, which shows the trends for Democrats. We know this from the south of Texas, where the number of voters skyrocketed, and whose voters broke overwhelmingly right in a way they never had before. So, if those low propensity voters don't turn out in the same numbers, that hurts the GOP.

If you hold 2020 margins, but assume a 2018 electorate, Biden's 4.5% popular vote win turns into a win closer to 6% - the nation moves 1.3% left, just by tweaking the weights, essentially. If you attempt to correct for the other half of that equation - that the 2020 voters → 2022 non-voters are Trumpier than the groups at least, you realize that Democrats should be favoured to exceed their 2020 margins with non-college whites and Hispanics, because the pool of those voters will be more Democrat friendly, as all those low-propensity Trump voters don't come out, so throw on an extra half point to the notional environment.

So, you're the GOP, and you need to get a D+6.5 notional environment down to a D+2, say, to win the House. You can't get anything more out of non-degree whites unless you get Clinton-House D 2018-Biden voters to finally switch en masse, which is unlikely, and your options with Hispanics are limited. (The reason it's unlikely that you'll see those hardened Democrats finally break right? They are wildly supportive of Biden's agenda, at least so far.) So, what's left? You could make substantial gains with culturally conservative, religious Blacks, I guess, but between the race baiting about Warnock's church, the voter suppression laws, and just the general fact that the GOP have tried to do the "we can get 15% of the Black vote" thing a million times and failed, I'm not buying that as a viable path. You could get urban, educated, socially liberal Hispanics to vote with you, but there's little evidence that that's where you made any gains in 2020. And so, what's left? Oh, yes, the ~1/3rd of the voting electorate that's white, and holds a degree. That's literally the only pool of voters the GOP could win back to get to a D+2, or even moreso, a Republican leaning year.

Friday, Punchbowl News had news on the formation of the American Nazi Caucus - oh, sorry, the America First Caucus - who really sound like Nazis. They talk about forced cultural assimilation, a "common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions," and really, really seem stuck on finding ways to not say "America is a white country, forever and always" while communicating this point. It comes on the heels of Tucker Carlson spending the last week defending anti-vax conspiracies and calling out Democrats for a conspiracy claiming that Democrats are intentionally trying to reshape America, and also on the heels of a literal terrorist insurgency that tried to kill Mike Pence and install Trump as an unelected President anyways.

The GOP are, far from moderating, being dragged further right by a base of cranks, invalids, and anti-vaxxers, and they're going to run into a brick wall called well-off white social liberals in 2022. Again, the most likely way to make the math add up on a good Republican year is suburban reversion - it is for Democrats to go from winning educated whites by 7% (as they did in 2020) to losing them by 5%. Now a 12% swing isn't out of the question in a vacuum, but please lord, explain to me why a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, secular (or, at least, not-actively-religious) social liberal will vote for the party of Amy Coney Barrett. Please, I'm begging you.

Spare me all the nonsense about the past, and answer me that basic question - why will people with socially liberal views on abortion and marriage who were not persuaded by the actual lived experience of a substantial tax cut in 2018 to stay Republican come back to a political party that has only gotten more radical? The only realistic way you can get to a neutral environment is by getting large, systemic reversion back to past partisanship of well off white social liberals - people who in 2018 and 2020 decided they couldn't vote for tax cuts for themselves at the expense of the humanity and rights of their friends and loved ones. So, someone, please explain to me how that will happen while the House GOP are defending sex pests like Matt Gaetz and letting Nazis like MTG run around talking about the need to “weed out those who could not or refused to abandon their old loyalties and plunge head-first into mainstream American society.” Nope, that's not a fake quote.

So please, someone, anyone, explain to me how the GOP gets to a neutral or R-leaning political environment in 2022. I'm begging for the argument, because right now, I'm just seeing math that doesn't add up to anything other than a midterm "miracle" that ain't miraculous at all.