If President Biden’s suddenly so popular and inflation is no big deal, then why are Democrats afraid to act like they think they’re going to hold the Senate?
The answer is because they’ve been here before and over-reliance on polls that show a tiny separation, within the margin of error, has yielded results that don’t tend to favor Democrats at the state level.
While polls spent the better part of July and August showing good numbers for Democratic Senate candidates in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin, September hasn’t been quite as friendly. As is always the case, the post-Labor Day polls tell a very different story than the August height-of-vacation polls.
There’s one metric beyond polling, however, where the GOP has shined this year and come out ahead. That measure is primary voting participation, a good gauge of which party seems most engaged and more likely to vote in the general election.
According to an analysis by David Byler at the Washington Post, Republicans have done well this primary season and out-voted their Democratic counterparts:
As early voting begins around the country, every political data point would appear to marginally favor the Democrats. Polls suggest they lead ever so slightly in key Senate races and in national House polls. Their candidates are raking in cash, while Republicans struggle financially. And in special elections following the end of Roe v. Wade, Democratic turnout soared.
But one key indicator — primary turnout — looks better for the GOP.
According to pollster John Couvillon, 52 percent of 2022 primary voters cast ballots in GOP races, while 48 percent voted in Democratic races. That’s a good sign for Republicans. High primary turnout signals enthusiasm for the general election — and the party with the stronger primary turnout typically does better in the midterms.
Byler even provides a chart showing the effect since 2006 in which the party with more primary participation tends to go on and win the House and extend their victories around the country:
The quick takeaway is that a number of only R+4 in terms of primary voting participation isn’t the double-digit numbers seen in 2010 or 2014, banner years for Republicans. It’s very likely that Democrats are energized as well and also participated widely in primary contests.
The more thorough takeaway indicates that the GOP is more fired up than the Dems when it comes to an enthusiasm to take back the House and make a serious run at taking the Senate.
A month or two ago, the upper chamber looked like an uphill climb. Herschel Walker was struggling in Georgia to connect, J.D. Vance was having a tough time in Ohio, and places like Arizona and Pennsylvania seemed like they were off the table entirely. For the moment, those storylines have changed with Ohio and Georgia both starting to tip Republican, and other states starting to appear as if they could offer more of a “toss up” status than leaning toward Democrats.
According to more data analyzed by Byler, Republican primary participation hit a record high this year and added to the total from 2018:
Measured by total votes, the GOP is the strongest it has been in five midterm elections.
In 2010 and 2014 — the last two midterm cycles in which Republicans enjoyed a turnout advantage — voter interest was low and Republicans won by out-mobilizing Democrats. This year appears to be different: Voter interest is high among all voters and Republicans have a primary turnout edge.
The GOP surge is broad-based: In 33 of the states that Couvillon tracked, Republicans added votes to their 2018 totals. Democrats increased their vote total in only 16 states.
What Byler is describing appears on paper to be a similar situation to the Virginia governor’s race last year. Both parties were highly motivated yet Republicans managed to eke out a victory in a state that went 10 points to Biden in 2020. Once again, participation by both sides was off the charts, but the GOP actually came out stronger with more people seeming more determined than ever to vote red.
The 2022 midterms could be a different beast, of course, as elections change and narratives change. Candidates also affect this quite a bit. Glenn Youngkin was an excellent candidate for Virginia Republicans in 2021, and candidate quality matters. On the other hand, in wave years, sometimes even problematic personalities can be carried higher by overall frustration and drive from voters intent on expressing support for a “national” agenda.
To feed this analysis, Time ran a story this week about the “blue mirage” of polling data that’s got some Democratic strategists uneasy:
So why aren’t Democrats giddy? Put simply: responsible Democrats know they have been here before—seeing the palm trees in the desert, ordering cocktails with matching umbrellas—and walked away big losers.
The perceived flaws in polling have been manifest in conversations about recent elections. In recent cycles, pollsters supposedly missed the silent Trump supporters who either refused to participate in surveys or lied about their true allegiances. Pew’s deep dive into the problem is a must-read for why nuance matters a ton in this space. Even though the polls were collectively off by about four points, according to an industry autopsy, they weren’t entirely afield; they just missed some of the shading. Still, the hue matters when billions of dollars, control of Washington, and maybe the future of democracy itself is in the balance.
Missing some of the “shading” matters in races where less than a handful of percentage points will decide the outcome. In those cases, the side that is just a little bit hungrier tends to win in the end.
With inflation still raging and the Biden recession still looming over the economy, Democrats had better hope they motivate voters in greater numbers than they did during the primary. If not, Republicans will see some surprising numbers on Election Day and the end result will be something few predicted.
