Moderate Democratic candidates were the big winners of swing congressional districts in the 2018 midterm elections, flipping most of the 28 key House districts from Republicans’ control and winning key gubernatorial races, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Illinois. Democrats’ net gain in the House was 26 seats.
Progressive candidates flipped few of those seats. For the most part, the biggest upsets for the left occurred during the summer primaries; most of those districts were already blue and primed to elect Democrats. Many of the left-wing candidates who tested the theory of turning out their base, even in more conservative districts, lost on election night.
Friday, November 9, 2018
Moderation Wins
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3 comments:
I think these results should put paid to attempts to explain Trumpism as the result of a generalized, non-specific frustration or desire to overturn the system, to just "see it burn down" or whatever. It's pretty clear that by now tens of millions of Americans know what they're getting in Trump, and love what they know. Likewise, it's pretty clear you just can't get the same numbers for a left-wing burn-it-down message.
I still think a lot of people are voting against liberalism at least as much as for Trump. They support Trump because they think he will fight for them against what they see as an attack by liberalism on their way of life. The Times had an interview with a bunch of Evangelical women who essentially said they think the Democrats want to rid the country of church-going, Bible-believing, stay-at-home moms, and they don't care what else Trump does because they need a champion to defend them against atheistic feminism.
I think you're making a distinction without a difference. But anyway . . . ill fares the land.
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