Red Wave Fails to Materialize in Midterms but Threat to US, African-Americans Persists

Nov. 22, 2022
By Barrington M. Salmon

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The expected Republican tsunami that pollsters, political pundits and Republican analysts predicted would overwhelm and wash away Congressional Democrats failed to materialize in Tuesday’s midterms, with Democrats turning conventional wisdom on its head by putting up a fight – propelled by a $90 million ground game – that left the results up in the air for much of the week and control of the lower house hinging on 21 uncalled House races.

That the Democrats were able to even be in the position of holding on to the US Senate 50-49 – with the Georgia seat to be decided in a runoff in December – didn’t come as a big surprise, said political commentator Charles Ellison. He observed the energy in the early voting and in-person voting before and on November 8.

“I’m not surprised. It was becoming increasingly apparent in the early votes by ballot and in-person voting which typically translate into a tactical advantage for Democrats,” said Ellison, principal of BE Strategy and host of “Reality Check,” a daily public affairs program on WURD based in Philadelphia. “Democrats were able to hold some of that energy from the fallout of Roe v. Wade. I saw Gen Z’ers and heard the chatter. I could see something turning.”

During the night Tuesday, several news anchors, hosts and guests talked about the stunning and unexpectedly high turnout of young people who are often derided for their anemic turnout in elections. It was expected that the pattern would remain the same in 2022 as in the past, with young people between the ages of 18 and 29 opting not to cast a vote. But Ellison and others said the fact that the US Supreme Court brazenly overturned the landmark legislation that gave women the right constitutionally to seek and have an abortion disturbed and animated a constituency of young women, men and more than a few conservative or right-leaning Republicans.

Simone Sanders-Townsend, former spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris and an MSNBC contributor said Tuesday that participation of young people broke records all over the country.

“The grassroots have helped increase the turnout among Black voters, women and young people,” she said. “Black turnout was up 123 percent in Milwaukee and turnout of young people across the state (of Wisconsin) had increased 300 percent.”

At colleges and universities across Wisconsin, there was significant turnout and long lines of people waiting to register and to vote, Sander added, saying that the surprising Democratic response to the GOP was as a result of a visceral reaction of Americans of all ages to the Supreme Court toppling Roe v. Wade, a Democratic ground game fueled by $90 million spent by the Democratic National Committee and turnout by Millennials, Gen Z’ers and other young people.

Journalist and political pundit Anand Giridharadas proclaimed Wednesday that young Americans saved democracy.

“They stood up for freedom — the freedom to choose our leaders, the freedom to control our bodies, the freedom to thrive on a planet that thrives in turn,” he said in an introduction to an online conversation with Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old activist against gun violence who became the first member of Gen Z elected to the House of Representatives and who will represent Florida's 10th Congressional District.

Judith Brown Dianis, executive director of civil rights group Advancement Project, said the record turnout of young people mirrors a survey commissioned by her organization a month before the election and released in mid-October. The survey showed that young people are eager to be a part of the electoral process, wanted information on candidates and issues and were determined to make an impact on the midterms.

“There was a surprise in the polling where they said they want to vote on Election Day. There was an effort to sow seeds of distrust of early voting the drop box which could be a factor,” said Brown Dianis. “Young people do see themselves as this multicultural democracy. They want to know that it (voting) makes a difference and translates into power.”

 

Brown Dianis said the new polling monitored the pulse of how Gen Z voters of color in the four key states of Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Virginia) felt ahead of the midterms. Advancement Project found that these voters are focused primarily on economic issues (inflation, cost of living) as well as issues of reproductive rights and racial discrimination.

 

Young voters helped Democrats dilute the “red wave” that many experts had predicted.

According to Buzzfeed news, exit polls showed that two-thirds of young people who cast a ballot did so for Democratic candidates running for the House. Meanwhile, the majority of 45- to 64-year-olds voted Republican. In addition, new data produced by Tufts University's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, reiterated that young voters were the only age group in which a strong majority supported Democrats which powered the second-highest turnout rate of young people for a midterm in the last three decades.

In an interview before Tuesday’s midterms, Kerra Bolton lamented the likelihood of Democrats getting a shellacking and what that would mean for abortion rights, privacy, Civil Rights and a host of hard-earned gains that African Americans had wrested from the powers-that-be and were prized as a sign of the progress they had made against daunting odds.

“Who will prevail in the midterms and what impact will abortion have? This is such a difficult question. For me it’s a great unknown. 2020 was easy: you were for or against Trump. Trying to predict the outcome is difficult because there are so many things in play,” said Bolton, a writer, visual artist and filmmaker. “Abortion was supposed to be the big issue galvanizing white women. There were all of these women who said they’d march after Roe v Wade but they hardly did anything. There is a quiet group of women who wanted Roe v. Wade to be overturned. It’s not just along racial lines or a certain demographic so we don’t know how they’re going to vote. It goes across all demographics: Blacks, whites, Latinos. I have had to unfriend some of them on Facebook.”

Statistics gathered on the race and gender of voters who voted for Republicans and Democrats bears Bolton out. According to CNN Politics, Republicans won a majority of white women, an important voting bloc the two parties split in 2018. Meanwhile, suburban voters who were evenly split in 2018, moved toward Republicans in 2022.

And an already-strong Republican lead among rural voters got even bigger and Republicans even ate into Democrats’ lead in urban areas, CNN said. Republicans consolidated their support among White voters without a college degree and the GOP built a lead among voters who don’t have a favorable opinion of either party.

Of increasing concern to those like Bolton and Ellison, African Americans – and all Americans – should be deeply concerned about the Republican Party’s wholehearted embrace of authoritarianism, fascism and MAGA and Trump supporters who’re willing to destroy this country rather than let non-whites share power or the considerable bounty America has to offer.

“Republicans have stolen elections and worked to consolidate power and influence since 2021’s election stealing,” said educator, activist and non-affiliated voter Sam P.K. Collins. “They have gerrymandered, stolen seats using redistricting and strengthened voter oppression laws. Republicans are often more daring and brazen in political exploitation, while Democrats have a morality complex which stops them from propagandizing what they’ve done.”

Bolton, Ellison and Collins said even as Americans breathe a sigh of relief about what could have been, former President Donald Trump, Trumpism, White nationalists and other far-right groups and individuals are still a clear and present danger to this country and those who are not white and “Christian.”

The Brennan Center for Justice said the midterms turned out to be a referendum on democracy.

“Voters in battleground states largely rejected candidates who embrace false claims about the 2020 election,” Brennan analysts said. “Significantly, election deniers running for secretary of state – a key election administration position – generally performed worse than statewide candidates from the same party. In other words, the results make it clear that voters really don’t want election deniers in charge of our elections.”

In the aftermath of a tight, tense election, the fight to preserve the best of this country and confronting and defeating these racist, anti-democratic elements begins anew, interviewees said.

“What terrifies me the most is that we've got a real fight ahead that most people who "want to be on the right side of history" are ill-equipped to fight,” said Bolton. “It's not the strategy and tools that are lacking. Black women, in particular, have led the way in community organizing for more than half a century. The real problem is many folks are addicted to their personal comfort. For example, folks post memes about John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr., but these same people forget that both shed blood for freedom.”

Bolton, CEO and founder of Woodbine Films, said it’s imperative that “folks … step up

and continue to fight.”

She said, "You know who you are, and I am grateful for you. But much more work needs to be done … the United States is at a tipping point. Its future direction is up to you."