Artículo de Philip Elliott publicado en Time el 28 de diciembre de 2022
FROM THE OUTSIDE, THE DEMOCRATIC Party has enjoyed a good run lately: beating historical trends in the House, holding the Senate, and expanding its power in state capitals. That doesn’t mean Democrats actually merited that success in November’s midterm elections—or can depend on it going forward.
The party’s image remains in fixer-upper mode, and its agenda isn’t terribly popular. As one sharp strategist put it in an election-eve memo, “if Democrats manage to hold on to the House and Senate, it will be in spite of the party brand, not because of it.” To channel President Joe Biden: that is not hyperbole.
The warnings were manifest. One Democratic research project ahead of Election Day found that the party was seen as rejecting capitalism. Others warned that Democrats were taking voters of color for granted. Yet another survey showed a 55% majority of all voters saw the Democratic Party as preachy and too extreme, and none too loving of the US of A.
The main reason Democrats prevailed was this: Republicans came off as more extreme in specific places, communities where 7% to 13% of typically reliable GOP voters just couldn’t pull the lever for Senate nominees in competitive races
But hoping the GOP keeps nominating unelectable candidates just isn’t a responsible strategy. There has to be something better, and it has to start in Democrats’ own tent.
From Labor Day to late October, Republican-allied groups spent $115 million on ads criticizing Democrats on crime and immigration in the top eight Senate races, a 3-to-1 ownership of that space. Public safety—a.k.a. “open borders” and “defund the police”—accounted for 45% of Republicans’ messaging in the final weeks. And, absent some bad GOP nominees, it might well have worked. Nationally, voters who said crime was their top issue broke roughly 2 to 1 Republican. On immigration, that lopsided result was
3 to 1, according to exit polls. Had it not been for a 53-point Democratic advantage among voters who put abortion rights at the top of their list, this election’s results—and the new Congress—would have been far different.
Democrats had braced for a walloping that never arrived. They’re still staggering and stammering, but equally unready for the sequel.