Why Democrats Lost the 2010 Midterm Election

The midterm elections of 2010 brought a wave of new politicians into power. The House of Representatives, which has held a large Democratic majority over the past 4 years, is now solidly Republican. Many writers on blogs and in news organizations have tried to analyze the election and formulate reasons for the election results and prescriptions for what the Democrats should do in the next two years to win back the House and retain power in the Senate and Presidency. This article is similar in that it will try to explain the reasons for the Democratic losses, recommend what the Democrats should do to regain the House in 2012, and look at the influences of Fox News and the Citizens United decision on the election. The first part of this article will discuss the reasons that the Democrats lost and what they should do in the next Congressional term, based on what polls say about American views on the budget deficit, health care, foreign policy, and income distribution. The second part will discuss whether liberals or conservatives were more important in the last election and examine the effects of Fox News and Citizens United.

On November 3rd, Frank Newport of Gallup posted an analysis of the 2010 midterm elections, citing many reasons which combined to form the "wave election" for Republicans. Newport states that there were various structural factors that affected the election. Historically, midterm elections favor the minority party. Additionally, the Democrats had a number of uncertain seats which they had picked up in the 2006 and 2008 elections and were not in reliably Democratic districts. Compounding these issues were the facts that Congress had low approval ratings and that most Americans are dissatisfied with "the way things are going" in the country. The last structural factor was that Americans had a negative perception of the economy. Besides structural factors, Newport also cites other reasons for the 2010 election results. The economy was definitely the top issue in this year's election, which, combined with the negative perception of the economy that most Americans held, did not bode well for the incumbent Democrats. Differences in belief about the role of the federal government were also important in this election cycle, with the Tea Party movement and Republicans advocating a reduced role. Many of the above factors created an enthusiasm gap which favored the Republicans and resulted in a high turnout of Republican voters. Furthermore, President Obama's job approval rating was below 50% at the time of the election, which also portended that his party would lose seats. Gallup's research is nonpartisan, supported by many polls, and goes quite far in explaining the results of the election. However, the question remains, what could the Democrats have done to mitigate these factors and what should they do in the next session of Congress?

Evan Bayh, a retiring Democratic Senator from Indiana, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times immediately after the election which argues that the Democrats have been too liberal and need to return to the center to win in 2012. Bayh blames the losses in Congress on Democratic overreach in many areas. He believes that Democrats paid too much attention to health care, but should have focused on economic growth and creating jobs. According to Bayh, the Democrats were too deferential to their liberal base, which hurt their chances among the moderate and conservative voters. Democrats spent time dealing with gays in the military, immigration reform, and the Bush tax cuts, which are not issues that motivate moderate voters. Bayh recommends that the Democrats take a more centrist approach in the next two years. He believes Democrats should focus on economic growth as their primary goal and try to evade their stereotype as "taxers and spenders". According to Bayh, Democrats should reduce corporate taxes, ban earmarks, freeze federal hiring and pay increases, and reform entitlements. Adopting these policies would allow the Democrats to take the center of the American political debate and force the Republicans into an extremist position.

However, there are many on the left who disagree with Bayh and argue that the Democrats should have pursued a more progressive agenda. Mark Weisbrot, the Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Social Policy Research, argues that the Democrats erred in not passing a larger stimulus. The CBO estimates that the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act saved between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs by the middle of 2010. Weisbrot claims that a much larger stimulus was needed and that such a stimulus would would have lowered unemployment and helped the Democrats in the election. Karen Dolan, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, states that liberal Democrats were more successful in the last election, noting that Blue Dog Democrats lost more seats in Congress than did Progressives. The Blue Dog Caucus in the House decreased from 54 to 26 members, while the House Progressive Caucus decreased from 78 to 75. If the Democrats had been guilty of overreach, then why did the most liberal Democrats win their elections? If the American people wanted Democrats who valued economic growth and fiscal discipline above all else, then why did the Blue Dogs lose so many seats? Norman Solomon, a co-chair of the Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign, writes that contrary to Bayh's claim, the Democrats actually suffered from a "tragedy of under-reaching". Solomon argues that the Obama administration has undermined itself by not following progressive policies. The administration, along with many Democrats, have accommodated wars, wavered on Bush tax cuts, allowed high unemployment, not stopped foreclosures, and permitted environmental destruction. These policies, writes Solomon, have empowered the Right and weakened the Democratic Party.

Advocates of divergent political philosophies have disparate views on what the Democratic party should do, but what do public opinion polls have to say about public support for various policies? Polls performed by CNN, the New York Times, Quinnipac University, and the Atlantic Review all show that the majority of voters favor many policies that are labeled "liberal" in the current political landscape. Here are a sample of some polls.

Health Care
72% of Americans supported a public health care option in 2009 (link)

Gays in the Military
72% of Americans favor gays and lesbians to openly serve in the military (link)

Budget Deficit
69% think preventing cuts in Medicaid is more important than reducing the deficit (link)
79% think preventing cuts in Medicare is more important than reducing deficit (link)
78% think preventing cuts in Social Security is more important than reducing deficit (link)
61% think preventing cuts in unemployment aid is more important than reducing deficit (link)
43% think the Bush tax cuts should continue for families who make <$250k (link)
35% think the tax cuts should continue for all

Foreign Wars
58% of voters said in 2007 that "it is a dangerous illusion to believe America is superior to other nations; we should not be attempting to reshape other nations in light of our values." (link)
50% say that the US should not be involved in Afghanistan vs. 44% who say the country should be involved (link)

These polls show that a large majority of Americans were in favor of a public health care option during the debate in Congress and are currently in favor of gays serving openly in the military. These are two issues on which Republicans have attacked President Obama for being too liberal. Additionally, media pundits have argued that the budget deficit is an important issue, with Republicans supporting entitlement cuts and tax cuts and Obama proposing the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for individuals who make over $250k. According to Evan Bayh, entitlement reform should be a large priority for the administration, but these polls show that approximately 4 out of 5 Americans believe that preventing cuts in Social Security and Medicare are more important than reducing the deficit. Similarly, large majorities of Americans do not want to cut Medicaid or unemployment aid to balance the budget. However, most Americans would rather let tax cuts expire for families who make under $250k than let the tax cuts expire for everyone. In terms of foreign wars, most Americans are to the left of the Obama administration and many Democrats. The majority of Americans do not favor nation-building nor forcing our values onto other nations. Furthermore, half of Americans do not want the country to be involved in Afghanistan, despite the Obama administration's escalation of the war. When the American public is polled on a variety of other issues such as defense spending and foreign aid, they do not follow a uniformly liberal platform. However, the polls above show quite clearly that when dealing with the budget, health care, and foreign wars, there is widespread support for many liberal policies.

Another survey by behavioral scientists Daniel Ariely and Michael Norton shows that most Americans, regardless of political affiliation, share similar ideas on wealth distribution. The survey asks the following questions:

1) What percentage of US wealth is owned by the bottom 40% of the population?
2) What percentage should the bottom 40% own, in an ideal version of U.S. society?
3) What percentage is owned by the top 20%?
4) What percentage should the top 20% own?

In this survey, wealth is defined as "all property of value, from cash to art to stocks and bonds to homes, minus debts". Try to do the quiz yourself to see what you think. Here are the respondents' estimates, the ideals, and the actual numbers.

Wealth Distribution in America
Income Division............Estimate.......Actual........Ideal
Bottom 40%......................10%.............0.3%.......20-25%
Top 20%............................60%.............85%..........36%

According to this survey, Americans prefer a much more egalitarian society, similar to a Scandinavian country, rather than the unequal system currently present in the US. This indicates that the vast majority of Americans may actually prefer "socialist" policies. If the Democrats want to appeal to the most Americans, they should pursue policies that are at least "left-of-center" and perhaps more liberal, and not completely in the supposed center of the American political debate. They should protect entitlements and work to make the US more egalitarian. They should stop waging wars and embrace civil liberties. And if they want to win, they should focus on creating jobs through fiscal stimulus. Furthermore, unlike the last two years, they need to actually execute progressive policies effectively.

The midterm election of 2010 was a result of many factors, the most important being the economy. The effect of the midterm elections on the incumbent party and the unpopularity of the current incumbent party were also factors. Although some moderate Democrats believe that the party should move to the right, polls suggest that many Americans prefer more liberal policies. The second part of this article will examine the effects of the Republican enthusiasm gap, Fox News, and the Citizens United decision on the election.

Message from Credo Action

I got this email from Credo Action today. I thought it was right on the money, so I decided to post it here. Please sign all the petitions with which you agree.

What a truly brutal election. One rare exception was the crushing of Texas Oil's Proposition 23 in California (see CREDO's campaign at stoptexasoil.org), which proves that even unlimited corporate cash can be beaten back — if it is disclosed and fought by grassroots mobilization.

At CREDO, we fight hard on the issues, but we don't take sides in partisan elections. As someone who cares about progressive issues, there is no doubt that Tuesday's results will make for even harder times for our country. It is crazy making to realize just how extreme and misinformed much of the new Congress will be.

There is little reason to expect any useful legislation from the Tea Party-dominated House or the dysfunctional Senate. Swing votes in the Senate have really troublesome names: Lieberman, Nelson, Manchin, and Pryor. In fact, this Congress will do damage to anything even remotely progressive.

So let's take a look at what happened and what we can do now. Bear with us as this is a bit longer than our usual missives. The media, unfortunately but not surprisingly, will be of no use in making sense of Tuesday's results, and even less so in helping chart a course for the future.

There is a lot of evidence that the state of the economy, and employment in particular, drive the results of elections — and this one was no exception. As the saying goes, "If you think the economy is working, ask someone who isn't." We have an economy stuck in a deep ditch, with corporate profits and bank bonuses soaring while long-term unemployment is at near Depression levels.

The Republicans shrunk the first "stimulus" package and filled it with tax breaks, even as corporate Democrats helped them along, blocking any effort to restructure mortgages in bankruptcies, freeze foreclosures or force banks to lend money. The election outcome was partially baked in early 2009, when the White House preemptively conceded on the scale and provisions of the stimulus package and chose to coddle the banks. To watch this unfold was simply maddening.

Making matters worse were other factors. Among the most damaging were the actions of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which seemed energized by the new President, and took the radical step of rehearing a campaign finance case — now known forever as Citizens United. In ruling 5-4 that corporations have the right to spend unlimited amounts of money for and against candidates, the Court transformed the electoral landscape in a way potentially more profound than its 5-4 ruling that seated George W. Bush as president. As many predicted, the Citizens United ruling unleashed the greatest wave of corporate spending in history, though it's a safe bet to say that their spending in 2012 will make this year's outlay look modest.

In an astonishing turn of events, the right wing was able to kill — essentially murder in public view — the organization that registered millions of poor and working class African-American and Hispanic voters in the last six years. I am speaking of ACORN, of course. By editing video completely out of context, and using the right-wing media machine to perfection, Andrew Breitbart was able to convince the mainstream media and eventually Congress, that ACORN was an election-stealing organization that had no qualms giving advice to pimps on how to increase revenues. Fulfilling Karl Rove's wildest dreams, Congress, including most Democrats, voted to block public funding for any of ACORN's laudable and effective housing or tax assistance programs, and ACORN died a quiet death. There would be no millions of new registrants.

Traditions are important in the Senate, but almost always to the detriment of progressive change. The health care reform effort was a victim of Senate conventions. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who chairs the critical Senate Finance Committee solely due to his long tenure, stalled development of a health reform package for many months in order to "negotiate" with Republicans on his committee. They weren't interested in the least, and walked away from the discussions muttering bizarre comments about reforms "killing grandma" and setting up "death panels," because Sarah Palin says so. The behavior of Baucus would be laughable if it were not so utterly destructive.

No matter what one thought of FOX News in the 2008 election, Murdoch's monster went on a rampage over the past two years. Serving as both an instigator and an amplifier for the craziest and most offensive pundits, FOX News misled and misinformed the American people on every issue, and effectively became the public face of the Republican Party. Glenn Beck's show became so toxic and spewed so much venom that one of his devoted fans took it upon himself to plot the execution of key leaders of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, who had figured prominently in Beck's rants. Fortunately, the madman (the fan, not Beck) was stopped before he accomplished his mission.

We could go on, of course, on all the missed opportunities, the cave-ins, the sell outs, and the unpopular and misguided war in Afghanistan.

But the results are in. The House of Representatives is in the hands of the most corrupt Speaker-in-waiting ever, the Tea Party is ascendant, and the U.S. Senate, however dysfunctional it has been, is poised to be much worse.

For those of us who had hopes that the Obama Administration could seize the moment and enact popular progressive changes, this is a bitter pill. And like many, we grieve at the lost opportunities.

But now we need to brush off the dust, suck it up, and plunge back into substantive fights. Politics is not fair — indeed, U.S. elections are rigged in profound ways! But walking away is not an option at CREDO Action, and we hope you will join us in some of the actions below we think are strategic in the new political landscape:

1. Commit to Taking Down FOX News. So long as FOX News has any credibility within the Beltway, it will be a pipeline for malicious material that will poison our political culture. Join our friends at Color of Change: turnofffox.org/landing?credo.

2.Tell the Senate to pass the DISCLOSE Act during the lame duck session. We were able to defeat the Texas Oil Initiative, Prop 23 in California, in part because we knew who the enemy was — having disclosure of corporate contributions brings the enemy out in the open for us to take on and fight. The DISCLOSE Act passed the House and came within a single vote of passing the Senate. One vote. You can join this fight by taking action with Public Citizen at citizen.org/disclose-act-action.

3. Keep fighting to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This issue will get resolved during the lame duck session. Take action at act.credoaction.com/campaign/bushtaxcuts.

4. Sign up for the fight for a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United decision by declaring that corporations do not have the legal rights of humans. This may take years, if not decades, but we should start now. Please join Free Speech for People: freespeechforpeople.org/.

5. Tell the FCC to use its existing authority to establish and defend net neutrality. Our friends at Free Press are leading this charge: act2.freepress.net/sign/put_up/.

6. Demand that the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service investigate the political organizations set up by Karl Rove to launder millions of dollars in secret cash to change the outcome of elections. Act now at act.credoaction.com/campaign/investigate_crossroads.

7. Defend the EPA from castration by pro-coal interests in Congress. The EPA accomplished almost nothing during the Clinton years because the Gingrich-led Congress used the budget process to prohibit the agency from doing its work. This battle has already started. The Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign is a great way to join this fight: sierraclub.org/coal.

8. Convince the Obama administration to stop appealing progressive court rulings on matters like the Defense of Marriage Act, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and the state secrets defense against torture and wiretapping. Urge the Department of Justice to change its approach at act.credoaction.com/campaign/stop_appealing.

9. Urge Democratic senators to do away with lifetime tenure for committee chairs and open up all chair positions to majority vote elections. This will go a long way towards more progressive legislation. Take action with us at act.credoaction.com/campaign/end_seniority_system.

10. Demand that the Department of Justice enforce the provisions of the national voter registration law that require state governments to offer to register all voters at departments of public welfare and motor vehicles. Many state governments simply ignore these requirements and this is a cheaper and more inclusive way of registering voters than the campaigns of the now dead ACORN. Urge Attorney General Eric Holder to expand voter registration: credoaction.com/campaign/enforce_motor_voter.

I suspect you are angry and exhausted at this point. I know I am. But let us not forget that the values and ideals we fight for are greater than any one election. They still endure, and so must our fight. We have a lot of work to do.

Michael Kieschnick, CEO
CREDO Action from Working Assets