- by New Deal democrat
Tomorrow we’ll get the as usual very important consumer inflation report. There’s no big economic news today, so let me fire off some additional thoughts, and graphs, about last Tuesday’s midterm elections.
1. Victory has many parents
Let me start out with this Bluesky post that was repeated by Dana Houle:
I’ve seen posts saying that massive voting by Blacks, especially Black women, powered last Tuesday’s victories. That was true:
I’ve also seen posts saying that massive turnout by Hispanics powered last Tuesday’s victories. That was also true:
I’ve seen posts saying that younger voters, and in particular younger educated White voters, powered last Tuesday’s victories. That was also true:
I’ve seen posts saying that a majority of White women finally voted for Democrats. That was also true:
And finally, I’ve seen posts saying that the utter disgust by some GOP-leaning voters, repudiating the corruption of the T—-p Administration, were a crucial part of last Tuesday’s victories:
That was also true:
The point here is that you don’t suddenly get a D+13 electorate just by turning out the same people you did in 2022 and 2024. There was increased turnout by Blacks, Latinos, and young people (and there is considerable overlap between the last two, since in the past several decades more Hispanics have been born than Whites). And there were several other important demographic components, which I’ll note further below.
2. The incoming Congress will be in opposition; don’t expect it to be able to enact significant legislation.
I’ve already seen lots of posts insisting that Democrats must enact this or that social or economic legislation.
That isn’t going to happen. The most likely scenario over the next 2 years is that the only thing that is going to be enacted into law are new budgets and nothing else. That’s because the GOP in the Senate will likely continue to filibuster every progressive piece of legislation that passes the House, and even if the Senate provides 60 votes, T—-p will almost certainly veto that legislation, and Congress won’t be able to overcome those vetoes.
What the incoming Congress can do is hold lots of investigative hearings, and pass in the House, and get 50+ votes in the Senate, for progressive legislation, thus providing a template for Democratic candidates in 2028, including for President, to promise the American people if they are elected. There may also be a few cases where enough GOP Senators defect that particularly incompetent and/or corrupt members of the Administration can be impeached and removed.
That’s what we should expect of the new Congress. One other, open, question, is how they handle their subpoena power. Since we should expect wholesale flouting of subpoenas by Administration-aligned witnesses, the question is whether the Congress responds by going mewling to the Federal Courts, or whether it reinvigorates its power of inherent contempt.
3. The GOP will be hobbled in 2028
Will T—-p try to run for a 3rd term? Maybe, if he thinks he can get away with it. But the signs are that he does not expect to live much longer, so the more likely scenario is that he allows for a successor. But there is no way he is going to allow any daylight between his positions (whatever they may be at any given hour) and the GOP Presidential candidate. This is always a problem for those of the same party running to succeed a two-term President, but it will be exacerbated in 2028 as T—-p continues to demand slavish obeisance to his cult.
And, like most authoritarian regimes, competency has been selected against in favor of bootlickers. It’s clear that both Vance and Rubio want to run, as well as DeSantis; but all three are wooden imitations of T—-p without the charisma. This does not bode well for the GOP in 2028. Their best chance is if a member of the “never-T—-p” faction is able to secure the nomination; but again, the cult is likely still to be a majority of the GOP primary electorate.
4. The 2028 electorate is not going to be the 2026 electorate
That being said, let’s return to the issue of demographics. Because the one group that still voted overwhelmingly GOP in 2026, by 80% White evangelical Christians, did *not* have any increase in turnout. In fact, I have seen one estimate (based on a Fox News poll) that they only constituted 17% of the 2026 electorate, vs. 23% in 2024.
They will be back in 2028, as will the Wall Street ‘tax cuts uber alles’ crowd.
In short, while there is 2 full years of news and history ahead of us, at least preliminarily we should not expect a D+13 electorate in 2028. It is going to be a harder slog.
5. Demographics is still destiny
But progress will still be made, one funeral at a time. Let me re-run several graphs from 10 years ago that I have returned to a number of times.
Here is the 2016 vote by age group:
And here is the historical graph of voting in Presidential elections by age group, defined by the year in which they turned 18:
The very blue Greatest Generation is all but gone, as is most of the Silent Generation. The tail end of that generation that was born during WW2, has always trended Blue. The first part of the Baby Boom trended red, while the middle group (basically 1951-57) that came of age during Nixon’s Administration, has always been very Blue. But then along came “Generation Jones” and at least the first half of Gen X - those born roughly between 1958 and 1972, who were disgusted with Carter and have always venerated Reagan, viewing the ‘Alex Keaton’ character from the 1980s sitcom ‘Family Ties’ as their role model. They are rock-solid GOP, and they are all now over 50 years old, the demographic of peak voting.
As an aside, that may explain why Florida, the 7th oldest State in the country, resisted the Blue wave:
Finally, every age group which has followed, with the possible exception of those who were disenchanted with the Biden Administration, has trended deep Blue:
The first few years of that age group have also reached age 50. In other words, we can expect a Bluer and Bluer electorate over time for the next several decades.
The trek back from the deep Abyss is not guaranteed to succeed. But it had to begin with a first step. That’s what last Tuesday was.
