The Biggest Factor No One is Talking About

AMAC Exclusive – By Daniel Berman

The 2022 midterms were not the national “Red Wave” many in both parties expected, but neither were they any sort of “Blue Wave.”

In fact, there are indications that while solid red states got redder, and solid blue states got redder, many purple state voters turned out seemingly to keep their state governments from one-party rule of any sort.

While it will take weeks or even months to reach full conclusions about how each party fared this November, one way of understanding this potential trend is by looking at the role of incumbency – and whether Republican or Democrat, incumbents faired exceptionally well.

At the heart of that pattern is one of the greatest differences between the last midterm cycle in 2018 and 2022. In 2018, 21 of 36 gubernatorial races, and 26 of 35 Senate races featured incumbents. Of those incumbents, six lost – one governor and five Senators. By contrast, in 2022, 29 of 36 gubernatorial elections featured incumbents and only one, Democrat Steve Sisolak in Nevada, lost, and that was by a margin of less than 2%. In turn, not a single incumbent Senator of either party was defeated.

There is, as we will see, a clear correlation between incumbency and the outcome of key races. Incumbents tended to win. But not all incumbents won by the same margins. Here is where another interesting pattern occurs. Republican incumbent governors, almost across the board, did much better than in 2018, especially in “red states.” Democrats, however, were a mixed bag. In “purple states,” Democratic incumbents did much better than in 2018. In safe Democratic states, however, incumbents generally did worse, but open-seat Democratic candidates much better.

That pattern becomes clear if we divide the nation’s states into three loose categories: “red states,” “purple states,” and “blue states.” “Red states” can be defined loosely as those in which Republicans enjoyed uncontested control of the state government, including the governorship and both houses of the legislature, and this control was not in serious question in 2022. The only relevant issue on the ballot was federal representation. Blue states are those where Democrats enjoyed unfettered control of state government, and where it was generally assumed this would not change no matter what happened this past week. That leaves the “purple states,” those with split control between a legislature (generally Republican), and a governor (generally a Democrat) of the opposite party, or where there was a substantial likelihood that control could shift from one party to another. That would mean that it was widely perceived that there was a real possibility that the Republican Party could take control of the entire state government in 2022.

Perception is important. Both Florida and Texas were safe Republican states, but Democratic voters perceived, wrongly, that Beto O’Rourke had a chance (making it a “purple state” in their minds at least), whereas few Democrats in Florida believed there was any chance to defeat Ron DeSantis. Equally, with hindsight, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington were likely safe Democratic states, but polling created the impression that the GOP was competitive, and in the case of Oregon could potentially win not just the governorship, but the legislature.

A rough classification of the country will produce the following (in the minds of the states’ voters if not in fact):

Red States: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Kentucky,  Nebraska, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming

Purple States: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, Wisconsin

Blue States: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island

Let’s take a look at the 2018 and 2022 results for the gubernatorial races in the red states. While there are variations in how seriously contested they were, with a few exceptions it did not matter. Democrats did not seriously expect to win the governorship in Idaho, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, or Tennessee in 2018, and both analysts and pollsters believed they had a serious shot this year in Oklahoma and South Dakota, while they ran a former congressman in South Carolina. It did not make a difference. Democrats crashed to historic lows.

(In states without a governor’s race I have used a Senate contest if one is available with an *. If none was available I used the most recent, marked with ***.)

While the shift varies, states where Democrats put up respectable showings in hopeless races (Alabama, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Tennessee) saw their support collapse between 2018 and 2022, often by as much as 10%. States where Democrats made desperate last stands in 2018 and failed to prevent them from slipping away into “red state” status, including Florida, Iowa, Ohio, South Carolina, and South Dakota, ceased to even be competitive. The Democratic collapse continued down ballot in most, with Democrats losing seats in the legislatures of all of these states, as well as two of their three remaining statewide incumbents and their only remaining member of congress in Iowa. In these states, where control was not at stake, the voters did not surprise.

It is, however, the “purple states” where the upset of the election took place.

The first thing that stands out is how many more incumbents there were in 2022 versus 2018. Incumbents were relatively rare in 2018, but mostly performed well. In Arizona, incumbent Republican Governor Doug Ducey won reelection by 15% even while Democrat Kyrsten Sinema won the Senate race by a 4% margin. Only one incumbent Governor was defeated in 2018, Republican Scott Walker in Wisconsin, and that by less than a percentage point.

In turn, there were a whole lot more incumbents of both parties around in 2022 than in 2018. What this meant is that most of the “purple” states which had Democratic incumbents were exactly those where Democrats outperformed. In turn, being a Republican incumbent helped, albeit seemingly less so in “purple states” where Brian Kemp enjoyed a net 2% swing in his reelection race, but Greg Abbott saw the same swing against him in Texas.

What is striking when we bring in “blue states” is how this incumbency advantage became something of a mixed blessing.

The first obvious standout is the strong performance of Republican incumbents in “blue states”. Almost by definition any Republican who won election in such a state was relatively strong. In turn, the absence of a Republican incumbent in Maryland and Massachusetts hurt the GOP badly. But beyond that, Democratic incumbents did not receive uniform benefits. In Rhode Island, it was a wash, perhaps because the Democratic “incumbent” in 2022 was the lieutenant governor who succeeded when his predecessor was appointed to the cabinet, and had never won election in his own right. Elsewhere, Democratic incumbency proved to be a liability. In California, Illinois, and New York, Democrats did worse in 2022 than in 2018.

How do we reconcile this data? Perhaps the answer lies in the role of Democratic governors in “purple states?” In those states, the elections were not just about the governorship, or who voters would prefer, but also who would control the entire state. In a number of states, including Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, “abortion” was on the ballot insofar as all three states had pre-Roe total or near total bans on abortion that Democratic governors were refusing to enforce, but their Republican opponents pledged to allow to go into effect. In “red states” the elections would make little difference to the legal status of abortion, nor would a loss by Gavin Newsom or Kathy Hochul have led to a change in its legal status with heavily Democratic legislatures. But in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin it could have been the difference between near total bans.

The influence of abortion as a single issue should not be overplayed. It is one of many. But the evidence is that when faced with a choice for divided or united government, many voters did not act as if Biden and the Democrats actually enjoyed united government to an extent requiring a check. Perhaps the very disorganization of national Democrats aided them here, as did the perception that conservatives already wielded institutional power through the courts and filibuster. Combined with the extent to which legislation over the past two years has been driven at the state level, a large portion of voters seem to have concluded that the more important place to defend divided government was at the state level.

Furthermore, control of a given state being in the balance made ideology more important than governance. In New York, the abject failure of governance in New York City was the only issue, as the ideological orientation of the state was not at stake. In Michigan, by contrast, the competence of Whitmer became less important than what her Republican opponents would do. Whether Whitmer executed her agenda incompetently was beside the point.

One conclusion that can be drawn by the strong performance of GOP incumbents everywhere, and the poor performance of Democrats in safe states of both blue and red hue is that the GOP wins when its elected officials focus on governance issues. The only place where Democrats overperformed tended to be where the GOP spent the last four years battling for political power rather than governing. This implies that good government and ideas for good government must come first. Because the evidence from New York and Alabama alike indicates when the GOP just focuses on who can better govern rather than who should rule, they do well.

Beyond that, we should be hesitant to read any sort of endorsement of Joe Biden into the data. Only one incumbent governor or Senator lost this year. There just happened to be a whole lot more incumbents around.

Daniel Berman is a frequent commentator and lecturer on foreign policy and political affairs, both nationally and internationally. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics. He also writes as Daniel Roman.