Voting for Dems is necessary
The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake analyzes the reason why Republicans aren’t doing better in what should be a good year for them. Basically, it’s because their candidates are such jerks. Yes, I know we all know that. Steve M. adds important context to that observation. He quotes this part of the WaPo article:
… these popularity gaps are often bigger than the margins in the actual head-to-head matchups. And there’s one main reason for that: partisanship.
As The Post’s Philip Bump recently wrote, the CBS/YouGov poll showed Fetterman led Oz on several key issues when it comes to voters’ decisions, often by double digits. Yet Fetterman led by just five points on the ballot test. That’s because party often wins out on voters’ decisions.
Even more telling: The same pollster showed that, in both Pennsylvania and [the Senate race in] Georgia, a majority of people supporting the Democrat said they were doing so primarily because they liked their candidate. But 8 in 10 supporters of the Republican said their vote was primarily about supporting their party or voting against the other candidate.
… what these polls suggest is that if Republicans can win in these states — and by extension win the Senate — it’ll be in large part because of a favorable environment and the ever-present pull of partisanship.
Steve adds:
If “partisanship,” with no party label attached, is the reason unlikable Republicans are competitive in races against more likable Democrats, then where are the examples of the opposite phenomenon? Where are voters embracing Democratic jerks rather than nice, likable Republicans in competitive races?
Maybe there just aren’t any nice, likable Republicans. It certainly seems as if Republicans try harder to be nasty and unlikable. Maybe Republicans in this year’s most competitive races are doing better than their likability scores because some voters are choosing them for their unlikability. (That would appear to explain the good polling numbers for Ron DeSantis, the least likable person on the planet.)
Republican and right-leaning swing voters see an obnoxious Republican and think: He may be a jerk, but he’s our jerk. Democrats don’t seem to do that. (Maybe they did in response to Anthony Weiner and Alan Grayson, but they’re both out of politics now.)
But Republicans also seem to have much more party loyalty than Democrats. It’s not hard to see why: Their favorite media sources have engaged in pure cheerleading for their party (and relentless demonization of the other party) for decades. The rest of the media is described as “liberal,” but it’s always ready to shiv a Democrat. (Was there a single positive news story published about Joe Biden between the fall of Afghanistan and the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act?) The entire political world hits the fainitng couch when a prominent Democrat issues a blanket condemnation of Republicans, while Republican politicians call Democrats treasonous Marxist America-haters every day.
So it’s not surprising that Republican jerks can be competitive. They’re Republicans. There’s simply more Republican partisanship than Democratic partisanship.
That is true. But I wonder if it’s changing a little bit. I know there are plenty of Independents and progressives who don’t like the Democrats. That’s been true for a long time. But we are in a new world where holding on to institutional power — however imperfect it might be — is one of the only lines of defense against these authoritarians.
I mean, did you ever think you’d see this?