Election Day Postmortem—August 2, 2022

A Kansas earthquake, high comedy in the Michigan governor's race, and the Arizona GOP falls furthest down the populist rabbit hole

Blake Masters, Republican nominee to the U.S. Senate, speaks during his election night watch party on August 02, 2022 in Chandler, Arizona. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

I’m posting this week’s third item on Thursday because it’s keyed to Tuesday’s elections, and in today’s hyperactive news cycle it seemed ill-advised to wait until Friday to publish it. So this is the last you’ll hear from me until Monday, when I will be back with some reflections on the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, which starts Thursday and runs through the weekend, including analysis of speeches by Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump. Now to the election postmortem….

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Best news from the vote: The resounding defeat in Kansas, by 18 points, of a constitutional amendment that would have let state legislators ban or significantly restrict abortion in the state.

I am far from being an abortion-rights absolutist, but I’m cheering on this outcome because the right very much needed a slap in the face to remind it of the reality that considerably less than 20 percent of the electorate is strictly pro-life. That’s a low enough number that a significant chunk of the GOP base, even in a conservative state like Kansas, is at least moderately pro-choice. Put those voters together with highly motivated Democrats, who are overwhelmingly pro-choice, and we end up with this kind of result.

With pro-life activists pushing to enact maximalist abortion restrictions around the country, this outcome may have the salutary effect of instilling much-needed caution into Republican legislators who might otherwise be willing to do the bidding of these activists. If that dynamic sounds familiar, it should. It’s the same kind of thing that’s been going on for years on the left: Progressive activists pushing the Democrats to adopt maximalist language and policy commitments only to have it burn the party in elections, which leads analysts on the center-left to propose the party defy the activists by adopting a more moderate, “popularist” approach. I think it’s refreshing that the Republicans now have to struggle with analogous problems on their side of the aisle.

One thing I don’t think the Kansas outcome tells us, however, is that the Democrats have measurably improved their prospects for the midterm elections in November. Democratic turnout may end up being higher than it would have been without Dobbs. But GOP turnout will be high, too, and a pro-choice Republican is still a Republican. I doubt very much the kind of people on the right who voted “No” on the abortion amendment will desert the party down the line on Election Day.

Second-best news from the vote: Republican Eric Greitens going down to humiliating third-place defeat in the Missouri Senate race.

The former Missouri governor, who resigned in 2018 amid accusations of sexual assault and allegations of campaign finance violations, was hoping for a political comeback. He undoubtedly also hoped to receive a boost from a last-minute Trump endorsement, but on Monday the former president ended up (after a bizarre, typically Trumpian lobbying spree) endorsing “ERIC” in a race with two Erics. Since the victor on Tuesday turned out to be Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, Trump can (sort of) claim a win of his own. But not the other Eric. It couldn’t have happened to a nastier guy.

Good news from the vote: GOP Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse of Washington state, both of whom voted to impeach Trump after the January 6 insurrection, surviving their primaries to advance to the general election.

As The Bulwark’s Amanda Carpenter points out, they managed this unusual feat because of Washington’s untraditional electoral system, which includes a “jungle primary” with candidates from all parties. The only other Republican congressperson to vote for impeachment and make it through a primary is Rep. David Valadao of California, who did so back in June in another jungle primary. So if you were looking for evidence that adopting unorthodox (by American standards) electoral rules can thwart the ambitions of political extremists, here’s a good bit of evidence in its favor.

Absurd news from the vote: Republicans thinking manly men should whine and cry when they lose.

Businesswoman Tudor Dixon finished first in the Republican primary for Michigan governor, with roughly 40 percent of the vote. Real estate broker Ryan Kelley finished fourth, with 15 percent. Yet as of Wednesday evening, Kelley is refusing to concede, claiming he was a victim of election fraud. I’m sure he thinks he’s demonstrating his Trumpian toughness in promising to fight on. But really, since when is it a sign of manliness to blubber and stomp around like a second-grader in the face of a loss that wasn’t even remotely close?

Bad news from the vote: Democrats helping a full-spectrum nutjob prevail against a normie Republican in a House race in Michigan.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) knew that running against Republican Rep. Peter Meijer, who voted in favor of Trump’s second impeachment, would be difficult in the general election. They also knew that running against his election-conspiracy-promoting opponent John Gibbs would be far easier. So they made a calculation other Democrats have repeatedly made through this election cycle: They decided to run a blitz of “negative” ads against Gibbs during the primaries—in the process, spending more than Gibbs’ own cash-strapped campaign managed to do—in the hopes of boosting his name recognition and putting him on the radar of the Trumpy voters who show up for primary elections these days in Michigan. And it worked like a charm. Meijer went down to narrow defeat, and now Democrat Hillary Scholten will face Gibbs in November.

Democrats who defensively point the blame at the Republican electorate certainly have a point. Such tactics can only work when primary voters find the unacceptable not just acceptable but downright appealing. Why shouldn’t the Democrats take advantage of that, lining up a more vulnerable opponent for themselves in the general election? Because the Democratic message over the past 18 months hasn’t just been that candidates like Gibbs are bad, but that they’re an existential threat to American democracy. They’ve been right about that, by the way. And it’s horribly reckless to play a game of chicken with an opponent whose victory could kill you.

I suspect I feel so passionately about this topic right now, in part at least, because I’ve been reading Tim Miller’s important and disturbing book Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell, which thoroughly lays bare the mindset of the consultant-class nihilists on the right who inadvertently set the stage for Trump’s successful run for the White House in 2016 and then quickly made peace with his hostile takeover of the party. Those types can be found in both parties, and they certainly have an influence at the DCCC.

The act of intervening in a Republican race to ensure the victory of a man you know full well is unfit for office, all in order to make your job easier over the next few months, is something only a hack-for-hire could endorse. I bet a lot of them were enjoying high-fives on Tuesday night when Meijer’s defeat was announced. If Gibbs manages to pull out a win three months from now, I hope you’ll pause for a moment to remember those gleeful celebrations.

Worst news from the vote: Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Arizona Republican Party.

Trump-backed Capitol-Hill rioter Mark Finchem won his race for secretary of state, the office that overseas the counting and certification of election results. Trump’s choice for governor, local TV news personality Kari Lake, holds a narrow lead in her primary contest. But maybe worst of all, Peter-Thiel-protégé Blake Masters won the GOP Senate primary.

For those who don’t know much about Masters, or who want to learn more, I can’t recommend Sam Adler-Bell’s latest essay for The New York Times highly enough. For now, I’ll merely note that anyone worried about the state of the Republican Party and the liberal-democratic future of the United States should be watching this race very closely on the evening of November 8—along with JD Vance’s equally important Senate race in Ohio.