Let's be honest, the mid-term elections were worse than expected - perhaps a "pink wave" as women activists and voters came out in force in response to President Trump. Prospects zigged and zagged in the last month: general revulsion of the Democrats for their treatment of Brett Kavanaugh; general revulsion about the pipe bomber who targeted Democratic leaders; concern about the caravans of illegal immigrants making their way through Mexico; targeted enthusiasm from Trump's mass rallies; perhaps just too much Trump fatigue; and a drip-drip counting process that results in another Republican loss or two each day a week after the election. How to think about this as a Republican who was not a Trump supporter three years ago?
Reince Priebus was a little acknowledged, and subsequently mistreated, hero of the Republican renaissance in Wisconsin a decade ago, and in the fortification of the national Republican Party following the defeat of Mitt Romney in 2012. He understood that electoral success is a result of a complicated set of factors. He was able to lead a successful autopsy in 2013 to identify strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats and devise an action plan which included candidate recruitment, establishment of a database (later used by the Trump campaign) to rival that previously assembled by the Obama campaign, and coordination of major donors. It is probably not possible to do that now, with Donald Trump in charge of the party, Rona Romney McDaniel as the party chair, and the political landscape so dramatically changed from 2016. But it should be done.
Did the Democrats win on the merits of policy? Republicans had a robust economy which positively impacted any number of political polling indicators. The Democrats had health care - and particularly "preexisting conditions" - for which the Republicans inexplicably had no coherent message. Credit to Nancy Pelosi and shame on the Republican party leadership. While there was a move to the left, the public was not rallying around Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Did the Democrats win on the merits of better candidates? They did a good job of matching candidates to their districts - Ocasio-Cortez in New York; Connor Lamb in suburban Pittsburg; no requirement to pledge fealty to Nancy Pelosi - in fact dozens pledged not to. But the Republicans had qualified incumbents who fit their districts and had the advantage of years of familiarity with their issues and influence leaders. Somehow a Krysten Sinema could beat a female fighter pilot in Arizona, and an unabashed Irish liberal could give Ted Cruz a race in Texas. The Democrats did recruit a slew of women in a year of #MeToo, bringing the total number of women in Congress to over 100, predominantly Democrats. This message that gender matters is obvious, even once the #MeToo furor recedes.
Did the Democrats win on the basis of fundraising? According to Open Secrets, 89% of the House elections and 84% of the Senate elections were won by the larger spender, and overall, and total Democrat spending by candidates, political parties, Political Action Committees, and outside groups was about $2.5 billion to Republican $2.2 billion. This is some 20% over prior records, and the first time in a decade that Democrats outspent Republicans in total. The success of Trump's relatively cheap campaign in 2016 may have obscured the fact that coastal elites and energized suburbanites can outraise a working class Republican base.
Did the Democrats win on the basis of better campaign mechanics? First, they got more money to the individual campaigns - where it can be spent on professional managers, training of volunteers, phone banks, precinct walkers, media, and literature - through Act Blue, a web site which enabled small contributors nationally to direct contributions to where they would do the most good. Technology was equally available to both parties to support precinct walkers with phone apps which identify key factors (party registration; voting propensity; interests) for each address; remote phone banks were available to allow Democrats in San Francisco to make calls for Beto O'Rourke in Texas, or for Republicans in Ohio to make calls on behalf of Scott Walker in Wisconsin. What was needed was the enthusiasm of volunteers and the money for training. In many cases the Democrats had more of both.
Specific to California, Republican National Committeeman Shawn Steele lays out a clear case that the wipeout (including at least six of the 14 Republican House seats and all state-wide offices) had little to do with ideology or candidates, but rather was the result of over $1 billion in campaign spending, supporting youth voter registration, voter analytics, social media, and opposition research as well as traditional media. While Trump didn't help, the outmigration of over 1,000,000 citizens since 2007 was a larger factor. The next few months will witness a battle to replace retiring California GOP Chair Jim Brulte with the typical moderate / conservative division, and an effort to establish a third party to compete without the taint of the Republican brand. The fact that the highly qualified independent Democrat Marshall Tuck (with the endorsement of President Obama's Secretary of Education) lost the Superintendent of Education race to political hack Tony Thurmond suggests that the problem lies not in the candidates, the ideology, the money, or even the Republican brand, but in the overwhelming strength of the Democratic machine.
In the age of Trump it is unlikely that the Republican Party will engage in a meaningful autopsy like that in 2013, but if it does not, the last decade's gains in the the states and in the Congress will quickly erode. Trump can bring focused enthusiasm, but much more is needed.
This week's bonus is an early report on Palm Beach's voting problems. The report that they found an extra 5,000 Al Gore votes is apparently false.