Experts Give Analysis of the 2022 Midterm Elections

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington on Nov. 9, 2022. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Now that Washington is officially divided, with Democrats having a larger-than-expected majority in the Senate and Republicans controlling the House, analysts are trying to decipher what happened during the midterm elections.

According to most of the post-election data that exists, particularly that from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago which polled tens of thousands of voters for The Associated Press, Independents broke for Democrats by at least 4 percentage points.

But the question remains, why?

“When I first began in politics 30-plus years ago, the rule of thumb was to assume your opponent has a 40 percent base and make sure you can rely on a 40 percent base and then fight to win more than half of the 20 percent in the middle,” Matt Angle told The Epoch Times, director of the Lone Star Project, a political action committee dedicated to helping Democrats win congressional and state races.

“I do see things changing, though. Trump’s four years … has pushed some fair-minded Republicans to the middle making them available to Democratic candidates … This has created a small but meaningful ‘undecided’ vote that is crucial in close races. Biden wouldn’t be president and Democrats wouldn’t be in the majority without them,” he added.

There are even some Republicans who support that theory. Retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) recently told CNN’s Erin Burnett: “We were in a moment, we were in a cycle, we were at a time when it’s good for Republicans for the race to be about President Biden, who is not popular, whose policies have failed. And instead, President Trump had to insert himself and that changed the nature of the race.”

Voters fill out their ballots at Bedford High School in Manchester, N.H. on Nov. 8, 2022. Scott Eisen/Getty Images

Example of Michigan

Those who have supported former President Donald Trump in the past, however, like Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute (which describes itself as an “action think tank”) told The Epoch Times the midterms were more than just a referendum against Trump.

“I don’t think Republicans were ready for Roe v. Wade to be overturned and didn’t prepare voters and didn’t even prepare their own legislatures for what that meant. For many Republicans, they would rather be right than win,” said Caldara, who identifies as a Republican but is presently unaffiliated.

“Take for instance, Michigan what a perfect example,” he said. “Michigan had two spectacular reforms over the past several years including getting right to work, they have a crazy liberal governor, and when Roe v. Wade is overturned, they go back to whatever law is on the books which is from 1930s, which I believe is a nearly complete ban on abortion.”

Caldara believed that was too much for many middle-of-the-road voters, even some conservatives, to handle, who had been living with Roe v. Wade for nearly 40 years.

“Well, what happens next? The entire Republican legislature gets kicked out. So for the first time in a long time, there’s a trifecta of Democrats in control in Michigan. So now, because of the abortion issue, there’s a Democratic governor, a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate,” he said.

Ballots are processed by an election worker at the Clark County Election Department in North Las Vegas, Nev., on Nov. 10, 2022. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Latino and Youth Vote

Independents were not the only demographic of voters that helped to decide the 2022 mid-term elections; there were plenty of others, including the Latino and youth vote.

According to polling data collected by Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), young voters and Latinos had an enormous turnout on Nov. 8 and largely favored Democratic policies.

“Republicans way oversold their outreach to Hispanic voters. There has always been a Republican base of 30–40 percent support for Republicans among Latinos. It never grows much beyond that because Republicans motivate their most ardent supporters with sometimes veiled but usually explicit hostility to Latinos,” Angle said.

“Democrats have failed to do important political work within the Latino community but are right on the health care, education, jobs, and human dignity issues that directly affect Latino lives. Republicans pretend to do outreach and try to peel off Latinos around cultural issues but ultimately act on their anti-minority instincts,” he added.

“You can’t separate the youth vote from the Latino vote. The Latino population is young and not instinctively partisan. All young voters are more accepting of differences, more optimistic, less cynical, and less insecure than voters generally. The MAGA base of the Republican party is very unattractive to them.”

Yet there are some Latino groups for Trump, such as “Latinos for Trump,” whose Facebook group has 83,000 followers and describes itself as the “The Official Latino Coalition of Save America PAC.”

A voter casts her ballot with her child at a polling station at Rose Hill Elementary School during the midterm primary election in Alexandria, Va., on June 21, 2022. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Looking Ahead

Most experts agree Democrats indisputably have a lot of momentum after the 2022 midterms; they lost the House by a razor-thin margin and now have a 51-seat majority in the Senate. The question is, can they keep the momentum going?

“It is remarkably fragile because the underlying reasons for the expectation of a ’red wave' haven’t gone away,” Caldara said. “Our foreign policy is still weak, crime is still rampant, inflation is still high, and chances of weak economic growth, perhaps even a recession, are still with us. And Democrats will not be able to run from that.”

He said Republicans could make a good comeback in two years if they can handle the “Trump issue.”

“For me personally, I’m really fascinated by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis because I wonder if DeSantis could be a plausible replacement for Trump," Caldara said.

“If DeSantis gets the nomination, he could still get most of the Trump supporters because he’s still Trumpy enough. He’s willing to send illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, he still was able to govern Florida during COVID-19, and he still is willing to take on the world. So I think he'd still have a lot of appeal to Trump supporters,” he said.

Even Angle agrees this isn’t a time for Democrats to pat themselves on the back.

“Trumpism has infected the entire structure of the Republican Party and won’t go away, even if Trump himself fades or finally implodes,” he said.

“Democrats have the opportunity to expand our reach by being pragmatic problem solvers who identify with and address real problems as a true coalition party that still believes in freedom and democracy.”