By Howard Wayne
SAN DIEGO — More than a week has passed since the last ballot was cast in the 2018 election. We know that Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and that Republicans strengthened their numbers in the Senate with a net increase of one or two members. Democrats have a net gain of seven governors and an equal increase in the number of legislative chambers they control. But what does it all mean?
First of all, past election returns were a harbinger of the results. In 2016 Hillary Clinton won in 23 House districts that elected Republican members. This year 19 of those districts elected Democratic House members. Democratic House candidates also won ten out of 13 districts (the other three have not yet been decided) that voted for Clinton in 2016 and Mitt Romney in 2012. Why is this important?
It means that voters are re-aligning, but also, America is growing further apart. The Democratic House gains were largely in suburban districts and were fueled by college-educated white women leaving the Republican Party. Many of the newly elected members in those districts are women. Former synagogue leader Jackie Rosen defeated an incumbent Republican senator in Nevada, a state carried by Hillary Clinton. Another Democratic woman won an open senate seat in Arizona, a state that appears to be trending away from being solid Republicans as the Latino population increases.
In the Senate, three moderate Democratic senators representing states that Trump carried by double percentage points in 2016 lost their re-election bids. A fourth, in a state Trump narrowly carried, is in serious jeopardy of losing.
President Trump played to those red states. In the weeks leading up to the election the news was dominated by stories of pipe bombs mailed to his critics, an increase in hate crimes, and mass murder in a Pittsburgh synagogue. Trump needed to change the conversation. He did this first by a spurious assertion he could use an executive order to repeal the constitutionally guaranteed right to birthright citizenship, and then by claiming a migrating band of barefooted, impoverished Hondurans is an invading army of gang members and terrorists. Was Trump just aiming to turn out his base supporters? Or is he simply a one-trick pony who believes stirring up fears about immigration won him the 2016 election and can win for him again? The fact he only campaigned in states he previously won suggests he knows the reach of his message – and that suburban Republicans viewed him as toxic.
More and more, states are lining up as either blue or red. The cities and the suburbs are voting Democratic while small towns and the rural areas mirror this for Republicans. Minorities – racial, religious, gender – are solidly Democratic. White Protestants, particularly evangelicals, identify with the Republican Party. The tribes are forming up. Fewer people read newspapers or get their news from mainstream media. People feel free not just to have their own opinions, but their own facts.
In this atmosphere Trump can proclaim, without evidence, that Democrats in Florida are engaging in election fraud. The constitutional test may be what happens if he loses re-election and refuses to accept the outcome. Trump made repeated claims in 2016 that the “system was fixed,” said he would not accept the outcome unless he won, and then asserted that illegal votes cost him the popular election. Add that to his fraud claim this year, and one can ask if he has conditioned his followers to reject a 2020 defeat as illegitimate.
Politics in America use to be viewed as an interminable baseball game. A team would have its turn at bat and, after a sufficient number of “outs,” the other team would be up. The party that was no longer “up” had no reason to change the rules of the game, because under the rules it would, inevitably, be up again. Now some view politics as a football game in sudden death. Fail to gain ten yards after four downs and give up the ball? No, because that would give the other side a chance to score and end the game. So take five downs, take six downs, and don’t ever give up the ball because the enemy could permanently defeat you.
Meanwhile, in the words of television’s “Murphy Brown,” welcome to the next two years. There will be a constitutional check on Trump so that the Republicans cannot repeal the Affordable Care Act, but gridlock that will prevent it from being strengthened. The Democratic House will launch meaningful investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and will be met by resistance. What will happen to the Mueller investigation? “See you in court” may be the watchword.
The 2020 Campaign Begins
A cast of thousands (or at least a couple dozen) are looking at running for president. Seeing that Trump came from nowhere to win in 2016 has many thinking “why not me?” The early list of front runners includes Senators Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and former Vice President Joe Biden. But this may only be because they are the most well-known now. That will change.
The underlying question is the nature of the Democratic nominee. Can Democrats only win the presidency by nominating a candidate who excites their base voters, or is it necessary to reach out to those who voted for Obama and then Trump? The 2018 elections produced a mixed verdict. Ideological candidates lost governorships in Arizona, Georgia and probably Florida, and a senate race in Texas. But moderate Democrats in red states were defeated for re-election. In Ohio, long viewed as a bellwether state but one that went for Trump by eight points, a Democrat was defeated for governor while another was re-elected to the Senate.
On the Republican side, do not be surprised if outgoing Ohio Governor John Kasich and outgoing Senator Bruce Flake play with challenging Trump for re-nomination. But it has been a long time since the incumbent president was denied re-nomination, and it took a war for that to happen.
California
To little surprise, Democrats won every state-wide office and have super-majorities in both houses of the Legislature. In voting on propositions, voters demonstrated exacting judgment. They approved two bonds for housing and one for hospitals, but rejected an eight billion-dollar proposal that primarily would have benefited agriculture. Voters also rejected a tax break for well-off seniors that would have created a $1 billion hole for local government, and also decided not to repeal a 12 cent per gallon gas tax that finances roads and mass transportation. If one wants to drive one needs to pay for roads.
San Diego appears to be moving from purple to blue. Democrat Mike Levin won a competitive congressional seat that straddles the line with Orange County they narrowly lost in 2016. But Ammar Campa-Najjar, an Arab-American who had worked in the Obama administration lost a congressional bid in a Trump district to Republican incumbent Duncan Hunter under federal indictment.
Nathan Fletcher, a Democrat, was elected to the otherwise all-Republican Board of Supervisors (look for at least one more Democrat to win in 2020). Voters ousted from the San Diego City Council incumbents Myrtle Cole and Lorie Zapf, and in the process created a veto-proof Democratic majority. Unknown is how that new majority will interact with Republican Mayor Kevin Faulconer in a strong mayor form of government. Voters saw through a developer land grab masquerading as bringing professional soccer to San Diego, and instead voted to entrust that prime city-owned property to San Diego State University.
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Wayne, a Democrat, is a former three-term California assemblyman.