The Conventional Wisdom's Asymmetrical Bias
Something's Gotta Give
On Monday, the former Governor of Missouri, who is credibly accused of sexual misconduct with a woman he previously had an affair with, Eric Greitens, announced he was going to run for the state's open Senate seat next year.
And the collective response of Democrats? "Oh God, please don't win the primary," because we all know that we aren't beating him, no matter how bad he is, in a state as red as Missouri.
Remember, I've got the race, even with him as the nominee, as Safe R, because even if Democrats could get Jason Kander to run, I don't think he gets over the line, and that's not a slight on Kander, who I hold in the utmost respect as both a man and a politician. Missouri is just too red, and everyone who acknowledges that Missouri is too red is also implicitly acknowledging that the past is fairly meaningless in predicting the future. We saw what Greitens-level bad candidates can do, even in otherwise bad years. We've seen the way that truly horrible candidates can upend partisanship - after all, remember when the Indiana GOP primaried Dick Luger for shits and giggles and then they lost the seat? Remember when Bill Nelson won by double digits in 2012, the same day Barack Obama won Florida by less than 1%? Remember the litany of Senate seats the GOP threw away in 2010 with horrible candidates? Greitens is arguably worse than any of them, and at a minimum as bad as any of them, and yet, now we're just shrugging off the chances that his candidacy could matter enough. And we're right to do so.
That bit of the conventional wisdom is correct - Missouri is too red. But, at the same time as we are implicitly saying that polarization is too much to overcome, many are also saying that the midterms are going to be bad for Democrats because, well, Biden midterm and history, and the usual shit we always hear about why 2022 will be bad for Democrats, that I've previously debunked here. The problem, of course, is that if you believe that the levels of partisan polarization are high enough such that Missouri is uncompetitive even with an alleged abuser and blackmailer who had to resign from public office over these allegations in the past, then the logical position for you to have is that the sorts of bad midterms - created, as they were, by high number of swing voters - are a thing of the past, because polarization is so high. Put another way, "polarization means Missouri is too red even with a Greitens candidacy" cannot coexist with "large amounts of voters still consider voting for both parties", but somehow, we're at this point where the Conventional Wisdom, such as it is ever wise, selectively, and asymmetrically, only cares about polarization when it can help a Republican.
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If you believe Joe Biden will have a bad Midterm, fine, make the argument, you very well might be right. Enough smart people believe it will happen that I have to give it more than a courtesy amount of intellectual space, but every time I go to write about it, I find myself unable to actually make a coherent argument I actually believe - mostly because of the (*all together now*) Global Fucking Realignment which is changing politics not just in America but across the world. Yes, when the bottom falls out there can be wild results, but in areas where the realignment has already hit - like Missouri - you're not seeing it not come, and we rightly don't think the race is competitive. But for some reason Americans seem convinced that something like the current Kansas 3rd will be vulnerable in a year. Spoiler alert, it won't be if it looks anything like this. A Biden +10.6 district is not, in any real or substantive way, competitive as a rule of thumb, and yet, that is the kind of seat you'd need to be in play to get to a very bad Democratic year of the kind many think are possible. Go down the electoral pendulum and you hit the Biden +7 New Jersey 11th, which is also not suddenly going to lurch back to the right. The realignment means that those kinds of seats aren't really in trouble in the way that, say, similarly partisan Obama or Clinton seats were in past midterms.
Nathaniel Rakich, who I respect, tweeted some more about his belief that Democrats need a big Biden Approval number to win the House, based on a 538 article from a colleague on the historical relationship between these things. I QT'd him the Political Salad article I link above, and his response was reasonable, respectful, and considerate - it unfortunately suffered from the slight problem of being wrong, in my view.
I'm not surprised by the argument, I'm really, really not, but I do get a great amount of glee out of someone reading my work and going, "he might be onto something, but God, he's really leaning into this global realignment thing a bit too hard." Like, yes, this is my brand, you've been warned.
My actual substantive response to his argument is that in 2020, my gravest error was not buying into the realignment enough, because if I had, I wouldn't have been screaming about how Democrats didn't have a Hispanic problem or buying into them winning Ohio or Iowa. I didn't buy into the hyper polarization and the intense partisanship that the realignment is fostering, assuming - wrongly - that there were a lot more people willing to switch their votes and cast one last vote for a Democratic Presidential or Senatorial candidate. Largely, they weren't. And yes, the Hispanic swing is a function of the realignment - culturally conservative Hispanics were the ones to go, which makes sense if political coalitions are realigning on a cultural, and not economic, axis.
In Georgia, freed from the auspices of giving a single, solitary fuck about what the polls said, I focused more on what turnout and demographics and yes, the realignments said, and I was consistent in seeing Democrats as the favourites. The problems the GOP faced in Georgia - an electorate that was Blacker, more educated, and less Trumpy - will all exist again next year, so to win, they need to get a swing back to them with educated whites, or finally get the breakthrough with Black voters that is oft-hoped for, but never comes.
Can they get their vote back with well-off white social liberals? Not on masse, no. I've been writing the same message for two months now, begging someone to explain to me why white, socially liberal Americans who make a lot of money, who live in Southlake, Texas, or Forsyth, Georgia, or Huntington Beach, California, or any of these rich, white enclaves, would be willing to betray that social liberalism - and, frankly, their gay and/or non-white friends - for the prospects of a tax cut in 2022, when the lived experience of the Trump tax cut didn't stop them from swinging heavily to the left in 2018. I've been begging for an answer for two months, and nobody has it.
Nobody has it because the realignment is real, and the GOP aren't making any efforts to stop it. Tucker Carlson has gone anti-vax and MTG and Boebert have gone full Q, and it's just an absolute fucking shitshow on a daily basis on the GOP side of politics. And this is the political party that is going to get a sizable swing back to it in places like Forsyth and Southlake and the rich suburbs of Philly and Phoenix, both of which currently have a GOP Congressman in a seat rapidly moving away from their party at the top of the ticket. And yet, because the conventional wisdom is what it is, Democrats are underdogs to win the House. And you know what? I'm fine arguing from weakness, I'm comfortable here. But the conventional wisdom can't both be "polarization is a bitch, Missouri is Safe R no matter what" and "polarization isn't high enough to preclude large scale swings back to the GOP with degree holding whites." One of those two statements is wrong, and it isn't the one that says Missouri is uncompetitive.