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There’s no point in beating around the bush: The Democrats had a good midterm. They won a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, and if they hold on to their seat in Georgia, they will end up plus one in the Senate (and if they lose Georgia, they still keep their majority with the vice president as the tie-breaker, just as they did in the 117th Congress). Democrats also gained a net of one governorship. And as for the U.S. House, that’s still in play; yes, it seems likely that Republicans will win control in the 118th Congress, but only by the narrowest of margins.
Still, we can see silver linings for Republicans, and they point to sunnier skies for the GOP in future elections, including the presidency in 2024.
The Enthusiasm Gap
In 2020, Joe Biden won the popular vote by more than seven million, garnering 81 million ballots compared to Donald Trump’s 74 million.
Yet this year, Republicans beat Democrats in the total vote for the U.S. House. GOP candidates received 52,142,213 votes (as of November 13), while Democratic candidates received just 47,127,174. That’s a gap of five million. In other words, the margin for the GOP shifted from minus seven million in 2020 to plus five million in 2022. That’s a margin-shift of 12 million votes.
We should hasten to say that it’s normal for total turnout to fall from presidential elections to midterm elections. According to data compiled by the U.S. Elections Project, the drop-off in the last five decades, presidential to midterm, has been about a third. Yet the Democrats’ vote total fell by more than a third from 2020 to 2022—by 42 percent, in fact. By contrast, the Republican vote fell by just 29 percent. (Yes, it is a bit mysterious as to how Republican candidates managed to do so poorly relative to their voters’ enthusiasm.
