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The prognosticators and pollsters were all predicting a huge blue wave the senate will flip with massive losses in the red country, the house with go 2/3 Dem, state houses will flip blue right and left.
What ended up happening is that 3 lackluster incumbent Senators lost [2 GOP and 1 Dem], the GOP had a pickup of at least a dozen seats in the house including in deep blue CA and NY and the only state house and Governor to flip with to red [NH and MT].
Notwithstanding Trump’s loss [yeah yeah yeah I know he really won and Elvis is still alive, I deal with reality not conspiracy theory] it was a huge red wave, fact is the GOP control the redistricting in PA, FL, TX and NC and that equates to about 1/4 of the house.The question why did the Democrats do so poorly, was it pushback to AOC and the Green New Deal? a reaction to the riots this summer? lack of a message besides Trump? it sure was not a lack of money the Democrat’s outspend the GOP big time.
It had to do with the fear socialism and the defunding of police.
It looks what usually happens during times of turmoil: People vote against those who are currently in control.
Trump lost because he was the guy in power .
The Democrats lost a lot of seats (particularly on the state level) becuase they were the ones in control there.
Midterm elections the Democrats are going to lose more seats. Don’t blame Biden. (I’m sure the pundits will) The party in the White House has almost seats during for the past hundred years. this time it will be worse because the US will still be dealing with the aftereffects of the Corona lockdowns
Propagandists need to avoid being swayed by their own propaganda. There never was a “blue wave”, no matter what the mainstream media claimed. Elections with secret ballot tend to be a check on what the media assert is common knowledege.
Neither side offered a “positive” outlook for America. Red warned of the “darkening of America” with demographic changes translated into BLM/Antifah/Hispanic gang violence and massive wealth transfers from Whites to minorities. Blue warned of government takeover by Fascism, white supremacists etc. with loss of basic freedoms, denial of access to basic health care, housing etc. for tens of millions of Americans who aren’t part of the Stock Market winners Trump uses to measure “success”.
FEAR has always been weaponized by BOTH sides in our electoral processes but never to the extent and with the success we have seen in the past year.CommonSaychel: I think it does….spending $$$ with NO MESSAGE other than fear of the other guys was not going flip senate seats in historically red states or even hold moderate House seats in purple districts. The DEMS fortunately pulled back enough suburban votes to flip a few states where people voted AGAINST Trump rather than FOR Biden. That strategy didn’t work when the target was a lackluster Republican congressional candidate who didn’t benefit from Biden’s coattails since there were no coattails.
That might explain why democrats didn’t do better, but not why polling and media expected them to in the first place.
If the question is why democrats didn’t do better considering how awful trump and trumpism is, I think it’s partly effective branding by republicans tying all democrats to the extreme progressive wing. In Republican telling, all democrats are antifa supporting, police defunding aoc socialists. The electorate is also so polarized that most people just vote for their team. There are few undecided voters and few voters who would consider voting for the other team.
SE2015: Agree with respect to the “disappearing middle” of the electorate and in Congress. We are more polarized than ever in recent times (even here in the CR). Not sure is there is a clear path to bridge the gap, or at least not clear for now.
I think the pollsters underestimated Trump’s support because they underestimated the reluctance of many Trump supporters to admit that they would vote for Trump. The Trump supporters in the Coffee Room may be shameless, but lots of Trump supporters worry about drawing criticism from Trump opponents.
huju, the Shy Trump Voter is probably a myth. It’s more likely that Trump supporters believe polls are corrupt (rather than mere junk science), so they’re even less likely to respond to them. Pollsters have to try to adjust for Trump support and enthusiasm without data. That’s why it’s junk science.
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