It seems like America is always in the throes of an election, the run-up to one, or examining the aftermath of one. Actually, that is pretty much the truth. 

Years ago, the administration of President Bill Clinton called this “the permanent campaign”, and it has only gotten to be more so since Clinton’s time. This is largely because the country’s electoral cycles require two and four-year cycles for many offices, but there are other elections at the state and local levels that don’t follow that calendar. (And, there is the ever-present need to raise campaign contributions from supporters/would-be supporters. That requires individuals in office to maintain a steady pace of fund-raising dinners, phone calls and other solicitations. Getting elected is not cheap.)

This year, in less than a month’s time, most Americans have returned from their summer holidays after Labor Day and their attention shifts from the pursuits of the ocean, the mountains, or just idling in their backyards or city parks. Then, all-news television broadcasts, online news sources, and other media will fill up with the spiels, charges and counter-charges from candidates, and the near-constant, instant analysis from pundits, former politicians, and even soon-to-be ex-staffers on the prowl for new jobs.

There are, by most counts, some 80,000 positions nationally that are elected in various constituencies. These range from the president and vice president, and on down to the members of local school boards at the city, county, or state levels. In some states, even some judges are elected. In our current contentious political landscape, increasingly, each of these elections is increasingly politicised — right down to school boards.

House of Representatives

To review, of most interest to us for this discussion, every two years, the entire House of Representatives is elected, district by district — for all of the 435 members. The constituencies are apportioned to each state in rough accord with population, although even the smallest states in population have one representative, slightly skewing the demographics. As a result, California, Texas, Illinois, Florida and New York, for example, each have dozens of congressional seats while Wyoming and Alaska have only one each.

The precise delineations of all these districts are done by each of the states, usually by an office responsible to the respective state legislatures and thus amenable to the partisan divisions of the legislatures. The courts and some national laws weigh in when the resulting redistricting becomes too scandalous by lumping as many as possible of the minority party’s adherents into one or two districts to minimise that party’s candidates in all of the other districts, for example. Still, there are other concerns such as creating districts that can maximise minority representation. Congressional redistricting is supposed to take place after each national census count.

The combination of these influences can generate some very strange district dimensions and shapes such as a district strung out along a major interstate highway with bulges each time there is a town, or half a doughnut shape surrounding an urban core. As a result of this kind of gerrymandering, redistricting plans frequently garner court challenges, as entire redistricting maps may be tossed out and the states might require acrimonious do-overs amid a political tug of war.

The very term, gerrymandering, came from a particularly egregious redistricting in Massachusetts in the early 19th century, pushed by then-Governor Eldridge Gerry. Commentators described the bizarre shape of one district as like a salamander, hence the portmanteau word, gerrymander.

This year, being a midterm election, all of the House of Representative seats are up for election or reelection if there is an incumbent seeking reelection. Per the Constitution, a third of the hundred-member Senate is also up for election for their six-year terms. There are two senators per state, regardless of size, a plan set out by the Constitution in 1787 as a compromise between states with larger or smaller populations, to gain the support of all of the 13 states for the new national constitution. 

Primary elections

Right now, the prime topic is the many primary elections across the country. These elections were begun (growing in popularity over time) as part of a wave of progressive political reforms, back in the early 20th century, to give voters (rather than the legendary smoke-filled rooms with party bigwigs making the choices) a more direct say in who nominees would be. This was also designed to allow would-be voters to become more engaged in the electoral process.

By now, primaries are nearly universal electoral tools in America. But the primaries are run independently in each state, along similar, but still separate rules and processes.

Accordingly, over the past several weeks, primaries have been taking place in many states. In some states, there are separate party primaries with only voters who have pre-registered as Republicans or Democrats allowed to vote for the respective challengers. In other state races, the rules allow crossover voting or even for individuals to pick which party primary they are voting in on the day of the vote. In a few races, such as those in Alaska, the candidates — irrespective of party — compete for the top two slots for the run-off in the actual November election.

Looking at what has happened so far, what do these results indicate, and what do they mean for this year’s mid-term and the 2024 general election?

Republican cult

First of all, what we (and the candidates) have learnt is that the Republican Party substantially remains in thrall to Donald Trump and his cult that professes the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Further, by virtue of the rhetoric of many of those successful candidates,  Democrats are an unmitigated evil that must be extirpated from the body politic, lest they hand the country over to the malevolent forces of Antifa, the duplicitous vaccinators, the woke, and those who would have the deep state run everything.

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A majority of the candidates Donald Trump endorsed in their respective races have won their Republican primary races. Moreover, most of the Republican congressmen who voted for impeachment have been driven out of office — or have decided not to run again. A lack of loyalty to the Trump cult has largely meant defeat.

As the online publication, Politico, reported: 

“For House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump, the 2022 primaries have been a bloodbath. Four of the 10 lost their primaries. Another four decided against running again. Just two made it to the November ballot.

“The two primary season survivors, Reps David Valadao of California and Dan Newhouse of Washington, have something in common — both ran in states that use a top-two primary system rather than traditional partisan primaries. Alaska Republican Sen Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump but advanced to the general election Tuesday night, was also the beneficiary of an alternative primary format. Her survival in Tuesday’s election was almost certainly due to a top-four ranked choice voting initiative that passed in 2020. (We’re still waiting for results from Alaska’s special election to fill late Republican Rep Don Young’s seat; the election will likely come down to Republican Sarah Palin and Democrat Mary Peltola.)”

And, increasingly, it seems Peltola and Palin are the two finalists, according to the most recent data, as votes continue to be tallied. Peltola would be the first Native American representative from Alaska if she were to win.

But it is important to remember this voting has been in primary races, not final elections. Primaries typically only get about a participation rate of 20-30% of the eligible electorate. In some cases, marginal districts where the gap between those saying they support the respective parties is small, or where the constituency has changed hands repeatedly over the years, a moderate-centrist Democrat with strong local roots may win in November.

Liz Cheney

The biggest news, of course, was the fore-ordained defeat of Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney by Harriet Hageman, a political neophyte. Cheney had become the voice of anti-Trump forces among Republicans, had voted to impeach Trump twice, and she has been serving as the vice-chair of the select committee in Congress investigating the 6 January insurrection, and along the way, excoriating fellow Republicans for automatically embracing all that Trump nonsense.  

What she is doing now, however, is creating the beginnings of a platform to compete in the 2024 presidential primaries, in opposition to Trump. As The New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin described it, “Hours after her landslide loss, Representative Liz Cheney wasted no time Wednesday taking her first steps toward what she says is now her singular goal: blocking Donald J. Trump from returning to power. Ms Cheney announced that her newly rebranded political organisation, the Great Task, would be dedicated to mobilising opposition to Mr Trump. And in an early morning television interview, she for the first time acknowledged what many have suspected: She is ‘thinking’ about running for president in 2024, she said on NBC’s Today Show, and would decide in the ‘coming months.’ ”

However, the Washington Post elections reporting team also noted, “Donald Trump is securing his grip on the Republican Party less than three months before the midterms, with GOP primary voters surging to the polls in Wyoming to oust his most vocal GOP critic, scores of nominees for state and federal offices amplifying his false claims and bellicose rhetoric, and many prominent party figures echoing his evidence-free attacks about the FBI search of his home.”

Democrats

Taken together, what does this mean for the November midterm election? To get a better sense of what might happen, glance towards the Democrats’ side of the field. A few months ago, it seemed almost inevitable the tenuous Democratic hold on Congress would slip away, either by a few seats or a big, crashing defeat. Typically, with marginally popular presidents, that president’s party loses badly in midterm elections.

The list of pain for Democrats in the mind of potential voters seemed big indeed. Inflation was rising and most especially the ultra-sensitive price of petrol was rocketing upward — just as the summer travel season was beginning. The national pain from Covid was only gradually receding, and the conversation over the botched withdrawal of the military from Kabul still lingered as an acrid taste for many. The fact that Congress seemed unable to advance much of the president’s programme made the Biden presidency look even less competent than it was.

But a week is a lifetime in politics, let alone a month. Miraculously, big chunks of the president’s hallmark legislative programme squeaked through Congress once some compromises with a key Democratic senator, Joe Manchin from West Virginia, were achieved. Then the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion restrictions has fired up many (women and men, both) to oppose Republicans in many states who want to restrict it further, state by state. A stunning result in a referendum in Kansas pointed that way.  

Meanwhile, the jobs numbers — new jobs creation, unemployment levels — have been consistently positive for the president, and the price of petrol has started its decline as well. Even foreign policy is largely going Biden’s way as Russia’s adventure in Ukraine has been largely unsuccessful and as most Americans support aid to Ukraine. It is just possible that, building on these points, Democrats will hold one or maybe even both houses of Congress come the November election.   

Trump acolytes

Let’s assume, then, that while Trump acolytes have done well in the primaries, they do not fare so successfully in the actual November elections. Let’s assume further that Donald Trump’s accelerating legal and tax woes become really serious and that the FBI search of his basement in Mar a Lago in Florida generates public awareness that national security was rather loosely protected with those Trump-held documents. Collectively, these assumptions, with any intimations of his failing health or weakening capabilities, could open up the race for the 2024 presidential nomination as a whole posse of younger Republicans wants to try for the brass ring. 

Names like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former South Carolina governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a whole gaggle of incumbent Republican senators, former vice president Mike Pence, and soon-to-be ex-congresswoman Liz Cheney would generate a robust, even raucous competition for their party’s nomination — and, crucially, whether the fight will be over the 2020 results and Trump’s fakery or 2024’s issues.

The Democrats’ bench is a bit weaker — if the incumbent president chooses or is forced to step aside. Vice president Kamala Harris, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, California Governor Gavin Newsom and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker are already itching to run in Biden’s place. There would be others.

In sum, among Republicans, would the nomination be a fight over the fantasies about 2020 — or the challenges of the future? For Democrats, it would be whether a party loosely constructed from feuding interest groups and strident identity politics can coalesce effectively to win the next election. The bottom line? It is still too soon to tell. DM