New Mexico 1st Special: Expected Victory

On A Special That Shouldn't Be A Surprise

Democrats have won a big victory in the special Tuesday night in New Mexico 1st, the seat that was held by the now Secretary of the Interior. A Biden +23, Deb Haaland +16 seat centered around Albuquerque, the seat was never at any risk, and the only people who ever thought it could be are the same unimaginative hacks who thought that Democrats were drawing dead in Georgia and could potentially even lose the California recall. And yet, the narrative tonight, after a good night for Democrats, seems to be that this is some huge win for the party, and I don't really get it?

I mean, that's a lie - I do get it, I completely get what this is, it's just stupid. This result - which looks to be a slight overperformance of Biden's result and a more considerable one of Haaland's - is the logical consequence of the world we're living in, and yet people are shocked by it. The GOP are now the party of lower propensity voters who are less likely to show up on a random Tuesday and vote, and that's the kind of result that we're getting - one where GOP turnout lagged behind Democratic turnout, and where Democrats outran 2020 partisanship. This result is the kind of result that everyone would have expected if this seat had opened up in a hypothetical Trump second term, but now, because Biden is in the White House, the expectations were a 10-15% win for Democrats. This was matched by the sole poll of the race (once again, crowdfunded polls show themselves to have no value), for what it's worth. And then Democrats just raced home.

I'm not saying this isn't a good result for Democrats - it's a very good result for them. What I am saying is that this is the result you'd get if you just looked at education, turnout, and partisanship, and didn't throw in the traditional Midterm Penalty. If you didn't know the Midterm Penalty was supposed to exist, you'd look at this result and say "the GOP didn't get their low propensity voters out and they lost a few points," which is a totally reasonable analysis of what happened here. I'm uncomfortable with the idea that Democrats intentionally did this, but the fact of the past ten years is that Democrats have traded low propensity voters - both white and Hispanic - for high propensity educated whites with socially liberal views. They've traded Youngstown for Southlake, Floyd for Forsyth, and this is the logical consequence of that trade. New Mexico - a state centered on a major metro area - should be trending left, and it is, and it is in large part because Democrats have gone from winning this seat by the mid teens to the 23% Biden won it by. There was no universe in which this seat would be competitive, and yet, here we are.

Does this result mean Democrats will win the House in 2022? God no, don't be absurd. I wouldn't even say it means anything for the race for the House, because 2022 is a long ways away and the political mood could change greatly between now and then. What this does mean, however, is that Democrats are not doomed in 2022 by the mere fact of a Democratic President in the White House, as so many have wrongly claimed. 2010 and 2014 were about propensity - low turnout Democratic voters of all races took a pass, and high propensity educated whites voted - and voted overwhelmingly for the GOP. The story of the Global Fucking Realignment - what, did you seriously think I'd get through this whole column without that phrase - is a story of consistent, regular, dedicated voters trending left, and more marginal, less frequent voters trending right. That trade works great for the GOP when you have Trump on the ballot, as 2016 and 2020 showed - two elections where they did better than they had any right doing, in all honesty. It also doesn't work anytime he's off the ballot, as 2017, 2018, 2019, and Georgia 2021 show.

The only way you get to a R leaning year in 2022 - or, even, a neutral year - is by assuming that the GOP will get either a reversion in their fortunes amongst well-off white social liberals or all of their low-propensity Trumpian supporters will turn out without him on the ballot - which, again, they've literally never done. Neither of those were logical in the first place, and this special just adds whatever small sliver of reassurance to the pile of evidence that I've spent a not-insignificant part of this year chronicling. The New Mexico result does not mean Democrats will win in 2022, but it is a necessary, but not sufficient, step, and Democrats should sleep well tonight.