I predicted yesterday afternoon that Democrats would have a rough night with Senate seats and a good night with ballot initiatives across the country. By and large that’s exactly what happened, although few forecasts would have predicted the Republicans to seize as much control as they did.
Kay Hagan, the Democratic incumbent from North Carolina, had trailed in only one poll out of 12 since Oct. 21. Most polls had Hagan favored by one to two points. She ended up losing to N.C. House Speaker Thom Tillis by a point and a half.
Virginia’s election was similarly, and more surprisingly, tight. Incumbent Mark Warner led Republican challenger Ed Gillespie by double digits in most polls, but edged out the race by just over 12,000 votes – approximately a 0.6 percent margin.
Losing seats in North Carolina, Colorado, and Iowa tabled any Democratic hopes of a Senate majority to 2016. But the takeaway for both parties from this election is reflected in ballot measures, not in polls.
Minimum wage increases, which are typically championed by Democrats, passed in five states: Alaska, Arkansas, Illinois, Nebraska, and South Dakota. All but Illinois are deeply conservative states. Alaska passed an increase in the minimum wage with close to 69 percent of the vote. Arkansas supported their measure with 65 percent. South Dakotans favored theirs with 53 percent. By all accounts, Alaska and Arkansas supported minimum wage increases by a landslide.
Voters in Oregon, Alaska, and Washington D.C. chose to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Reliably conservative Alaskans approved their measure by two points. Support for legalization in D.C. approached 70 percent.
Although Florida’s medicinal marijuana effort failed to reach the 60 percent threshold required for a constitutional amendment, 57 percent of voters still supported the program.
The message for both parties during this election is clear: Democrats have popular social policy, an unpopular president, and a dreadful strategy for dealing with both.
Take Colorado, for example. The Colorado GOP handpicked Cory Gardner, pushing more radical Tea Party candidates out of the race, to battle incumbent Democrat Mark Udall. Nonetheless, Gardner also co-sponsored the Tea Party-friendly “personhood” amendment, which would have enshrined unborn babies within the definition of “person” in Colorado’s constitution.
Although Gardner won the election by over four points, the personhood amendment failed by almost 30 points. 2014 marks the third time Colorado voters have rejected a personhood ballot initiative.
Even though voters across the country have community-based reasons for supporting certain ballot initiatives, the 2014 midterms offer proof that Democratic social policy resonates beyond LGBT issues. Perhaps the success of minimum wage efforts foreshadow momentum for Democratic socioeconomic policy too. Unfortunately for progressives, the ground game of the electoral chessboard was handily won by Republicans.
Unlike in 2008, Democrats neglected to empower their most faithful supporters. The 2008 Obama campaign, though using different metaphors, effectively compared Republicans and Democrats to a game of chess. So the narrative went: the GOP is a party of white men who always get to go first. Youth, blacks, and Latinos turned out to the polls with unprecedented fervor.
In 2014, the most influential talking points for Democrats were forgotten. Exit polls show that 78 percent of voters are concerned about the economy; for 45 percent, the economy was the most important issue of the election. Republicans, as usual, focused their economic stance on spending cuts and small businesses.
Democrats declined to make their strong economic talking points the focus of their elections. Though Mark Udall’s campaign on women’s rights may have helped defeat Colorado’s personhood amendment, it did not win him reelection. Reminding Coloradans incessantly of September 2014’s Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment numbers would have helped more; the 5.9 percent unemployment rate is the lowest since the beginning of the Great Recession. An October 2014 Gallup poll similarly indicated that 41% of Americans feel the economy is getting better, which is the highest economic confidence since January.
Generally, Democrats perform more poorly in midterms than in presidential elections. A refocus on which issues they pursue could help reverse that trend by 2018. Young voters, who unsurprisingly mobilize when marijuana appears on ballots, could also be persuaded by student debt reform. And, if the president issues an executive order over the next few months to tackle immigration reform, Latinos could also be persuaded into turning out in numbers.
2014 was not a bad year for Democrats. It was bad for Democratic politicians. Because the ever-increasing crowd of millennial voters are the most liberal and secular demographic yet, Republicans will come around on their traditionally unrelenting social policy.
Most importantly, thousands of Americans will be paid more fairly after 2014. Fewer drug offenses will stink of racism. And the right for women to access contraception in Colorado was reaffirmed.
Not bad for a night’s work.
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