AMAC Exclusive – By Shane Harris
One of the most detailed state-by-state breakdowns to date of the 2022 midterms points to Democrats’ money advantage and their mail-in voting and ballot harvesting operations as a primary cause of Republicans’ underperformance last November – factors that could advantage Democrats even more in 2024 if the GOP doesn’t learn its lesson.
The analysis comes from political science professor James Campbell of the University of Buffalo, SUNY, and was released last month on Real Clear Politics.
Following what was in many ways a disappointing night for Republicans last November, most mainstream pundits were quick to pin the blame on specific issues at play in the race, like backlash to the Dobbs Supreme Court decision, weak GOP candidates, or a supposed rejection of former President Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda. But Campbell argues that those explanations ultimately fall short of explaining the significant gap between polling results and the actual outcome on Election Day.
“All grounds for expecting a big red wave remained intact to Election Day,” Campbell writes. “What changed in public opinion to account for the startling difference between the midterm’s widely expected outcome and the actual outcome? Nothing. The implication of this is inescapable: looking to public opinion for the cause of the November surprise is looking in the wrong place.”
Campbell zeroes in on eight states in particular where GOP expectations fell particularly flat: Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin. In these eight states, all 14 Democrat Senate and gubernatorial candidates fared better on Election Day than they did in pre-election polls – in many cases much better.
Of these 14 races, 11 were competitive. Democrats won nine of them, an impressive 82 percent success rate. The only GOP candidates who won were Senator Ron Johnson in Wisconsin and Joe Lombardo in his Nevada gubernatorial bid. Democrat House candidates in these eight states similarly overperformed.
“Whatever happened to the red wave happened substantially, though not entirely, in these eight states,” Campbell concludes.
Campbell next identifies five ways in which these states differ from the other 42 states: their partisanship, their competitiveness in 2022 statewide races, their extensive use of mail-in voting, their level and party division of campaign spending, and their relative voter turnout rates. Mail-in voting and campaign spending are of particular importance for Republican voters and campaigns to understand.
The eight states where Democrats far outperformed pre-election polls stand out for their extensive use of mail-in balloting – a factor which maximizes the effectiveness of Democrat ballot harvesting operations. In Pennsylvania, Campbell reports, Democrats won a stunning 78 percent of all mail-in ballots. In Michigan and Wisconsin, that figure was 72 percent and 73 percent, respectively.
Democrats’ mail-in voting and ballot harvesting operations in those races were so effective in part because of the massive amount of money Democrats allocated to them. “In all but one of The 8 States’ races,” Campbell writes, “the Democrat outspent the Republican. The median spending difference in The 8 States favored the Democrats by $21 million.”
In other words, Democrats identified which states they could most effectively ballot harvest in, and then devoted significant financial resources to doing so.
From this emerges what Campbell calls the “Breakwater Theory.” In short, the Breakwater Theory contends, “Republicans in 2022 were caught flat-footed in securing reasonable limits to easy/early mail-in voting and were badly outspent by Democrats who used the rules and their resources for rounding up enough votes in the right places to block the red wave.”
Democrats did not, Campbell writes, “do relatively well because they convinced skeptical voters late in the campaign they had governed successfully through the first half of President Biden’s term, or because the midterm had morphed into a ‘choice’ election. There was no epiphany.”
This analysis suggests that Republican pundits and strategists who view the 2022 midterms as a referendum on the GOP’s agenda or Trump’s continued influence over the party are mistaken. Republicans’ true weakness was not their messaging strategy or policy platform (although some argue that also could have used work) but their failure to match Democrats’ voter turnout system – an operation which Campbell explicitly compares to “a 21st century incarnation of the machine politics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.”
The question now becomes what Republicans will learn from this moving forward.
As Matt Towery, the co-founder and chairman of polling company Insider Advantage reported in a piece for Real Clear Politics late last month, so far the answer seems to be, “not much.”
“The failure of the GOP to flood nursing homes, bingo halls, and mortuaries (OK, that one is a joke, of a sort) in search of voters willing to cast early ballots remains, as of today, unaddressed,” Towery writes. “They [Republican leaders] must come to understand that in our post-COVID era, the rules for who votes when and where, and under the aegis of ‘voter outreach,’ has changed forever.”
“Democrats know how to spend buckets of money to advance what could best be termed ‘selective democracy’… The GOP has only months remaining to create armies and methods to match those efforts.”
Since Towery published his piece, there have been some encouraging signs that GOP leadership is heeding his warning. Earlier this month, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel announced a new “Bank Your Vote” campaign to increase Republicans’ “absentee return rate, early in-person voting, and ballot harvesting success.” Many Republican campaigns are also beginning to build-out mail-in voting and ballot harvesting operations of their own.
What remains to be seen is if these efforts will succeed in countering Democrats’ early vote advantage, or if they will be too little, too late.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @ShaneHarris513.
The voting machines are still in place, and the developers and clandestine operators are even more tenured at their wicked trade. The operations like Dominion are only emboldened now by their law suit against the ultra veneer non-conservative FOX News.
The methods and the mayhem that is now on record and displayed in 2020 have not gone away. If anything it is more complete, motivated and manipulated than ever before. The left has managed to Out Think the GOP, Out number and Out spend the GOP. The 2022 Red Wave which was so predicted should have prevailed as the author suggests, yet one turn of the screw and we see the left still standing as if nothing happened. It was quite frankly humiliating to me to believe that what we were seeing and feeling and believing was not developing or even beginning to rise. I truly felt let down. I questioned and wondered for weeks after what happened, and now in this article we may see the real truth. The GOP was not prepared, was not fully grasping what the left is capable of. therein not being able to push back at any level. YEA OLD GEORGE IS OUT THERE IN FULL FORCE LAYING DOWN HIS BILLIONS TO DESTROY AMERICA. He is at it again now and that is why BEDEN does not have to worry about a campaign he and his cronies “LEFT LEANING BARBARIANS ” will do it once again if the GOP DOES NOT WAKE UP IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS.
Hello. I want to respond to AMAC article re: 2022 Election Autopsy. The GOP has such weak leadership that still thinks and develops archaic strategies. I suggest that they establish 2 fronts in the 2024 campaign. One front promote the future with solid conservative proven governance approaches . Stop talking about 2022. 2nd front must confront the election voting numbers addressing harvesting, early voting – mail in balloting etc.
Read
Every time I read one of these articles it always seems like the bottom line is that we need to adopt the Democrat way of winning. Cheat any way you can. It has nothing to do with money or the values of American voters. This was clearly shown by the last general election where counting was stopped when the Democrats feared they would not win and all of a sudden in the middle of the night vans pull up to the counting houses with tons of ballots just discovered. All for the Democrat candidates. Since Republicans do have values and believe cheating is wrong we must find ways to stop the cheating and make some hard and fast rules about ballots such as those found in the trunks of cars, in the linen closet or in boxes under the counting tables to be pulled out if needed. Ballots coming in at the last minutes mostly for the Democrats must be closely analyzed and not assumed they should be counted. And then there’s the ballots thrown away in dumpsters, in the middle of the desert or wherever usually for Republican candidates. Those need to be verified and counted since many people were saying their votes for the Republican candidates were not being counted. Since elections of late have had terrible consequences we need to make sure every legitimate vote is counted and all illegitimate votes, of which we know there are many, are not.
Here’s a news flash, the GOP is under poor management and there are too many RINO’s that don’t give a flying flip about freedom because they have all the money, they need to buy their freedom
Save America vote out all Democrats and RINO’S!
Voting by mail for anyone who isn’t a service member or away at college or on disability, bedrest just does not seem right. It’s certainly a way for others to abuse the system.
For the conservative group that you claim to be, this article was a joke. Shane Harris needs to quit relying on the lying main stream media and do some real journalist research. There is a lot of evidence of the cheating that was done by the left if you look for it. Start with The Gateway Pundit, Mike Lindell’s website, the full report of the Arizona audit of the 2020 election for the information the MSM cherry picked out of the report. If this is where AMAC stands I will be cancelling my membership!
The only way voting should be is show up on election day and cast a PAPER ballot you have marked. ABSOLUTELY NO EARLY VOTING AND ABSOLUTELY NO MAIL IN BALLOTS. THAT WILL STOP MOST OF THE SHENANAGANS.
Results of the fixed election will be the same over and over as long as the voting system is not fixed There is no low enough to which the motley crew called democratic party will not stoop
The Democratic Party is rotten to the core and like any mafia organization they will do whatever it takes to stay in power even if it means the destruction of this republic…
The article completely leaves out the obvious cheating in AZ during 2022. I voted in person on election day, there were the most people I have ever seen standing in line to vote in a midterm election I have ever seen. And there were so few demoncrat voters in line they couldn’t possibly have broke almost even on that day. How do I know, because we were all talking amongst ourselves, not limited to one or two people, about how corrupt the pig hobbs is, how corrupt maricopa county is and so on. Make no mistake, all the printers, 95% in R districts, going bad on election day, video of the changing of set up after it was illegal to do so, off site third party “verifying” mail in signatures, never to be checked again, makes for an easy cheat. They just throw in however many ballots they need, after the signature check, send those along with the “checked” ones to the counting centers where they are opened and put into the system. Once that happens you have to have a new election or accept the cheating. We know what happened.
if we can make a federal holiday month of gay pride, we can surely make election day a federal holiday and get rid of early voting. If we care enough, we can make it to vote on the holiday.
The GOP approach won’t change until Rona McDaniel is ousted. I was hoping she’d be gone this last time, but guess there were enough RINOs to keep her there. She’s worthless, and has been for a long time. Hopefully local GOP organizations will develop plans to “get out the vote.” Separate issue: I agree with other comments here. Whenever I want to agree with a comment, I’m told I already voted. This has been going on for months, if not longer. AMAC: Please fix this problem.
What is going on at AMAC? How come I cannot vote for a comment? How come I am getting the message that You are not allowed to vote for this comment? Why? I may need to cancel my membership and ask for a refund. Is AMAC becoming woke?
The Turtle – Mitch McConnell – in my opinion, withheld funds from those who would vote against him as MINORITY LEADER – he wanted and did keep his supposed power in the senate (notice the LC) HE is the reason I refuse to donate to the NRC, the turtle holds the funds of that PAC.
I’m confused by this article. How does a party pass out ballots either thru the mail or in a nursing home? That sounds suspicious to me! I thought all ballots have to come from the county and are sent to folks who request them thru the mail, proving they are who they say they are? I think the real problem is that Republicans have given up on the voting system and too many just don’t vote anymore. That is the biggest problem when you have folks running around screaming that Democrats always rig the voting cuz your guy lost one election!!! We can reverse that if ALL Republicans vote! I believe there are more patriotic Americans than leftist but we have to ALL vote to make sure patriotism stays alive!!
“Democrats’ money advantage”
People should be asking(although it is a rhetorical question), why dont they spend all that money on the “equity” and free stuff (socialist, communist causes) they schill for?
It is amazing how stupid people really are, although lenin referred to “useful idiots” way back when.
What’s going on AMAC? I keep getting notifications that I’m not allowed to vote on a comment or that I’ve already voted. I just opened this article and comments a few minutes ago!
Maybe if the GOP would stop shooting itself in the foot by siding with the democrats we would find some enthusiasm and contribute. I’m sick of seeing the democrats stick together like glue no matter the issue while republicans throw their colleagues under the bus. Still trying to get over their involvement in ousting President Trump! They think we’re stupid. And we would be if we believed they had no involvement in that.
As long as the voting system is not fixed results will be that of fixed election There is not low enough to which the motley crew called democratic party will not stoop
Newsom won re election in California with 30% of the mail in votes. Around 22 million ballots were sent to “Last Known Address”. And approximately 11 million were left lying around, unaccounted for.
How many of them got voted illegally?
The demon-communist-cRATS have perfected the art of voter fraud. The proof is 81 million votes for Xao Bai-din. That’s way beyond what even barry hussein sotoro (obama) ever got from his fraudulent votes.
Well, there’s always the unexpected, meaning perhaps its not as bad as it seems. However, if we’re going to use the autopsy theme, let’s acknowledge basic facts: even after nearly two years of a demented man at the helm and the dem party pushing far left policies, all we could muster was a slim majority in the house. Folks, remember that in 2010 in reaction to a trained marxist potus, the Rs gained seventy seats. So, any autopsy needs to splain how the country couldve changed that much so quickly. My take is that as programmed robots take over the electorate we see and will continue to see a lurch to the left. Id like to believe this is manageable for the sake of conservative youth but its not obvious how.
The stage for fraud has been set by the dems in 2020 and is still in place. It doesn’t matter how many voters vote the dems will always win. America has been defeated and destroyed by the WEF. Voting does not reverse that.
And stooping to the same ballot harvesting tactic should be seen as beneath us.
Our current system of voting is corrupt and unconstitutional. Non US citizens do not have the right to vote in this country. In order to receive a mail in ballot a voter must be vetted. Ballot harvesting at Nursing Homes should be prohibited period. There should be a method of allowing nursing home patients to cast their votes without any influence from any political party. We should require anyone votes to have a valid Voter Photo ID which must be presented at all polling places. No one gets a mail in ballot without a Voter Photo ID to proves citizenship prior to any election. Voter rolls must be culled prior to an election to remove deceased voters from the rolls. If any political party has a problem with this then they should automatically concede the election.
I am just now trying to agree with comments posted on this article and whenever I hit the +my vote is negated by the “you already voted for this”. Impossible this is the first time I have read the article and read the comments. Please fix this issue
“The question now becomes what Republicans will learn from this moving forward.”
answer: NOTHING!!!!!!
The voting machines are still in place, and operations like Dominion are only emboldened now by their law suit against formerly veneer conservative FOX News.
So how do socialists get brain dead whack jobs like Biden, Fetterman elected?
Good old fashioned ballot stuffing. They have lots of useful idiots to do the groundwork for them while the rest of us must actually work for a living. Many of us don’t have the time or desire to harvest ballots or protest at the polling places. They are very organized with nothing worthwhile to do with themselves.
In my opinion, the Republicans did not realize how important the Dobbs decision was to the voters & the Democrats snookered the Republicans into defensive mode on this issue. And then a couple of candidates that were backed by Trump did not agree with the voters, such as Dr Oz & Herschel Walker.
the main reason big ronna mcdaniel who was caught flat-footed as usual following losses in 2018, 2020 and for her incompetence was voted again to lead the NRC
Upshot: The Democrats went about it professionally. The Republicans followed the failed Ronna McDaniel. In 2024, nothing will have changed.
There are two ways the socialist liberal left are winning this political arena. By deception, never revealing their true intentions to control everything, and by apathy and indifference by conservatives. I wish conservatives were as passionate about saving their country and freedoms as progressives were about destroying and controlling them.
It’s easy to complain about how the dems are cleaning our clocks during the expanded election cycle. The head of the RNC should have been fired in 2020. In the meantime, here’s what I’m doing… I contribute (within my means) to the legal Battalions we’ll need to fight election fraud (such as TrueTheVote and others) And …I assist/volunteer at my local election precinct. Put your money where your mouth is, instead of foolishly thinking that any forceful takeover is an option. We beat them at their own game and win. Thats my plan…join me in your own way…I will not give up on this country …yet!
Let’s jus admit it most republicans are in bed with the democrats and win either way…
I can remember when everyone stood in line and voted on election day. The only exceptions were military serving abroad and a few who were unavoidably. travelling on business. They could apply for an absentee ballot. Over the years every time they have made it easier to register and vote, they have also made it easier to cheat, which is why the Democrats are always in favor of it. Lyndon Johnson cheated in every election where he participated. He bragged about cheating in a college election when he was a student. The past few elections there have been no lines at the polls.
When patriotic AMERICANS vote they need to think about what’s best for AMERICA.not about whats best for themselves.If this doesn’t happen we might just as well kiss our once great country goodby.Today AMERICA is a total disaster,wake up voters and hope that it is not too late to save our country from the destroyers.
This early voting and ballot harvesting is BU!!$#!T !!. We must go back to ONE Election Day. Too bad if it “disenfranchises” (another demorat lie). It puts our elections on a level playing field. If you don’t make it on Election Day, there are absentee ballots available so people are NOT disenfranchised. Otherwise, the current rigged system is going to stay the norm. Our elections are so crooked, we make third world s#!tholes look legitimate. The system needs to go back to what it was, and eliminate the electronic voting as well. Software can be written to do whatever the programmer wants it to do. We see what happened in 2020, and I am sure 2022. The rats are so dishonest and greedy they will stop at nothing to keep destroying this country. It needs to STOP!
In addition to the usual ability to manufacture needed votes in major cities which Democrats own, Biden’s Executive Order of March 2021 enlists the help of every federal agency which hands out money to contact every voter who receives that money and let them know how to vote if they want to keep the “milk and honey” flowing. That’s an advantage Republicans do not have that ability
He forgot the best MINNESOTA, fell extremely flat and copies California and worse, now the politically correct, and right, have defected to out state and continue their cowardly ideology on us.
Say anything you want, it’s all about the vote. Cheating, ballot harvesting are both criminal acts. Going from millions ahead at midnight of election day and waking up 10 million votes behind is criminal. Mathematically speaking, the chance of that happening legitimately is extremely remote, if not impossible…..WAKE UP
Lol reading these comments makes me realize how little these people touch grass and probably live in their mom’s basements and/or live a sad life because they got rejected by every man/woman they came across because i can see based from these comments that these commenters are failures at life. Btw you all sound like the nazi party, these comments make me think that you are no better than Adolf Hitler. I mean you’re all domestic terrorists after all.
That being said, the GOP is straight up naive and arrogant, alienating its voters by advocating for nationally unpopular issues such as abortion, gun control, and idk…backing a traitor who deserves capital punishment? In addition, the gop has clearly shown that they have zero desire to do their jobs. Unless its doing something to oppose the biden administration bc the GOP is filled with snowflake cry babies screaming “but muhhh freedum”
the gop is dying because its essentially a successor for the American Nazi Party. The comments claiming of dems cheating? Get your head of your ass because last i recall, it wasnt the democrats that kicked off jan 6th because ya’ll stayed mad and still stay mad.
idk if its funny or sad, but its something.
We have lived in WA for just a year and I hate voting by mail. It is so totally wide open to abuse. We lived in IL for a few years before moving to WA, where it was against the law to require or even allow someone to show their ID or voter registration card at the polls. Of course, Chicago was legendary for allowing dead people to vote. There was little need for the rest of the state to vote. This was after living in Texas for decades where everyone had to show their ID to vote and all of the honest voters were proud to do so. Our country is in danger of falling to this rampant fraud.
Very disturbing to me is it appears that democrats get campaign funds from foreign entities (maybe GOP does too) like George Soros- and, I thought that there is a limit to what candidates can accept- but the incessant requests, that are sometimes demanding, insulting, fear-mongering, shaming, from politicians, candidates, and political issues come through “Winred” and you can’t even answer a poll or survey without making a donation. The fervent plea’s always say the Democrats are raising so much money that we have to keep giving more to catch up- I’m broke and sick of the amount of money demanded to run a campaign!
McDaniel working in NY to get Republicans to follow the early vote game…smells to high Heaven. She is a back stabbing ????
One “elephant in the living room ” that gets overlooked is Republicans need to do a better job of attracting the “free thinkers” and the “independents.”
Looking at the breakdown of Oregon and Kansas gubernatorial races the independent vote made the difference. If the independent voters would have voted for the Republican who ran against Laura Kelly (who ran in 2018 as a moderate Democrat but really isn’t) in 2022, Kelly would have been sent home. Eight percent of the voters in Oregon voted third party.
Personally I was not too crazy about Mitt Romney in 2012 but I voted for him anyway. If I could have voted in Pennsylvania in 2022 (maybe I should have kept an address a P.O. Box at 30th Street Station) I would have voted for Oz, even though I felt the other Republican who ran against Oz in the Senate primary was a better choice.
Has any group done any “address verification ” in Pennsylvania? I spent a great deal of time in Philadelphia (2006 to 2010) and there are several individuals who work in Philadelphia who actually reside across the river(s) in New Jersey and Delaware. I could see “double voting” in Philadelphia which could have been one of many factors that helped a clown win a Senate race.
Nevada is subject to “double voting ” since there are residents who live in Las Vegas and somewhere else.
The democrat/communist party is poised for another win come 2024. Republicans tell us what we want to hear but then say their hands are tied. With mail in ballots and dominion voting machines we are doomed to lose. Traitors like McConnell, and other rinos have turned many conservatives away from contributing to campaigns and even voting. The MSM continues to lie and the useful idiots continue to vote to their demise.
Meanwhile, election integrity watchers started puzzling in about April as to why so many low-to fixed income seniors were listed as donating as many as ten times per day, and as much as tens of thousands of dollars per year, to the Act Blue platform. First discovered in Maryland, then Alaska, then Illinois, etc. etc. etc. And now the O’Keefe Media Group has published a bombshell report that it all came from China-connected sources. As much as 60% of the funds donated for the last few cycles on behalf of Democrats has come from China. Yet, is anythning at all going to be done about this by the FEC? Unliikely.
It is the end of our constitutional republic when the solution to rigging elections for one party is to rig them for another party.
Of course, this has been a communist dictatorship disguised as a democracy – not a constitutional republic – since November 22, 1963.