tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/democratic-party-1884/articlesDemocratic Party – The Conversation2024-03-25T12:39:00Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2256182024-03-25T12:39:00Z2024-03-25T12:39:00ZI’ve been studying congressional emails to constituents for 15 years − and found these 4 trends after scanning 185,222 of them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582872/original/file-20240319-26-phuyva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C6%2C2299%2C1470&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Messages stream out from members of Congress to constituents around the country.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/washington-dc-background-royalty-free-illustration/1300184706">traffic_analyzer/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Republicans in Congress use taxpayer-funded email messages to contact constituents more often, and perhaps more effectively, than their Democratic counterparts. </p>
<p>That’s what I’ve found over 15 years of compiling and analyzing the archive that I <a href="https://www.dcinbox.com/">call DCinbox</a>, a free and open real-time archive of every official e-newsletter sent by sitting members of Congress to their constituents. </p>
<p>To my knowledge, no other institution – not even the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/">Library of Congress</a> – digitally archives these significant historical government documents whose creation and distribution is funded by the American people. So far, my compilation includes more than 184,000 official e-newsletters, and it grows by about 30 messages each day.</p>
<p>These communications are a way for legislators to present themselves and their arguments directly to constituents, free from the oversight of a newspaper or magazine editor, and in ways that can put additional information just one hyperlink away. </p>
<p>The messages reveal fundamental differences in how each party seeks to connect with and inform their constituents: Republicans prefer visual elements and strategic timing, and Democrats prefer more text-heavy missives.</p>
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<h2>A public-minded legacy</h2>
<p>Direct ways for lawmakers to communicate with the public have a long and democratic history. When the United States was founded, members of Congress were allowed to adopt what had been a common practice in the British Parliament – using <a href="https://cha.house.gov/the-history-of-the-frank">taxpayer funds to send informational mailings</a> to constituents. This privilege, <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10489/3">called “franking</a>,” allowed a senator or representative to sign his or her name on an envelope’s top right corner in place of a stamp. There were rules, though – the messages had to be <a href="https://ethics.house.gov/official-allowances/frank">informational, not campaign material</a> or endorsements of other politicians.</p>
<p>In recent years, this practice has evolved into <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10489/3">sending constituents email messages</a> from House members’ and senators’ official email accounts. The rules still apply: Members of Congress who want to send campaign material or partisan political messages must do so <a href="https://cha.house.gov/communications-standards-commission">from their campaign accounts or personal accounts</a>, not email addresses ending in “@house.gov” or “@senate.gov.” </p>
<p>In 2009, I began collecting all of the official messages as a part of dissertation work, with the hopes of creating an archive for researchers to use and to answer my own questions about how legislators would “look” ideologically if all we had to go on <a href="https://www.lindseycormack.com/_files/ugd/f1b05b_258780c810564137a5c14f2a627e2a89.pdf">were the votes they decided to communicate to constituents</a>. At that time, I had to <a href="https://www.lindseycormack.com/_files/ugd/f1b05b_7c033f4587d844dd97dccdb40a33ce1c.pdf#page=27">manually enter my email address</a> into the website of every member of Congress. Now it’s easier to keep up, because I just sign up for new members’ lists after every election.</p>
<p>For years, I’ve shared various insights, analyzing <a href="https://twitter.com/DCInbox/status/677312070401056772/photo/1">word usage</a>, <a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1206965493220958209?s=20">trends in geographical terms</a> and finer bits of information such as how many members of Congress talked about <a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1343585291878195201?s=20">COVID-19 on a given day</a> during the pandemic. </p>
<p>From this work, I have developed a few major insights into how members of Congress use this free perk, offering a better understanding of contemporary political communication tactics. Here are four important points I’ve learned.</p>
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<h2>1. Republicans use email more – and with more strategic timing</h2>
<p>Over the past 15 years, Republicans have won <a href="https://github.com/unitedstates/congress-legislators">only slightly more seats</a> in the House and Senate than Democrats. But once in office, Republicans use this email perk far more than Democrats. </p>
<p>In every month I’ve been tracking these messages – except briefly in the middle of 2010, when Democrats held 59% of all the seats in Congress, and for nine of the 11 months at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and early 2021 – Republicans have sent many more official e-newsletters to constituents than Democrats have.</p>
<p>Republicans also tend to be more attuned to the leisure reading habits of people. They send a greater number of their <a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1246432110677823489?s=20">emails on weekends</a> when people are likely to have weekend time to take them in. Democrats are more likely to send their messages during the work week.</p>
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<h2>2. Republicans tend to stay on message</h2>
<p>Republicans in Congress are more consistent in using key terms and phrases than Democrats.</p>
<p>For example, back in 2023 Republicans were unhappy with Democratic attempts to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/11/politics/republican-irs-funding-87000-agents/index.html">boost the IRS’ efforts</a> to reduce tax evasion. A proposal included the projection that the IRS could <a href="https://time.com/6260075/irs-87000-agents-republican-lie/">hire an additional 87,000 workers</a> over the coming decade. Republicans took to e-newsletters to oppose that move <a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1584340479130234880?s=20">and specifically used that number</a> as a rallying cry.</p>
<p>And in 2022 and 2023, as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176830906/overdose-death-2022-record">fentanyl deaths gripped news headlines</a>, multiple Republicans told constituents about how the volume of fentanyl in the U.S. could “kill every single American.”</p>
<p>By contrast, Democrats are far less likely to have overlapping term usage or phrasing. That suggests they are not as focused on coordinating constituent communications as Republicans.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A trio of screenshots of e-newsletters from Republican members of the House and Senate." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582658/original/file-20240318-18-w9v0f0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Republican e-newsletters tend to include eye-catching images up front.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lindsey Cormack, DCinbox</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Republicans also routinely co-opt opponents’ words</h2>
<p>GOP legislators tend to adopt phrases that originate with <a href="https://grist.org/article/whats-the-green-new-deal-the-surprising-origins-behind-a-progressive-rallying-cry/">policy oriented journalists</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html">academics</a> and <a href="https://time.com/5936408/defund-the-police-definition-movement/">protesters</a> on the left into a convenient, and dismissive, shorthand. Terms like “<a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1762522701233594855">Green New Deal</a>,” “<a href="https://x.com/FGawehns/status/1494700662604673027?s=20">critical race theory</a>,” “<a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1529807563654586370?s=20">defund the police</a>” and “Bidenomics” are all used commonly in official Republican e-newsletters railing against Democratic policy proposals.</p>
<p>Democrats in Congress didn’t have a similar sort of concerted effort to use a Republican-originated word or phrase until 2022, when they began to use the <a href="https://x.com/DCInbox/status/1666065652489043968?s=20">term “MAGA</a>” as a way to tell constituents about parts of the Republican agenda they disagree with. And even then, only 292 e-newsletters from Democrats have used MAGA, while Republicans have sent 1,531 messages deriding the Green New Deal, 496 about critical race theory, 824 with defund the police and 330 saying Bidenomics.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A trio of screenshots of e-newsletters from Democratic members of the House and Senate." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582657/original/file-20240318-26-3gd12c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Democratic e-newsletters tend to be text-heavy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lindsey Cormack, DCinbox</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Official e-newsletters have changed with the internet</h2>
<p>Official e-newsletters have changed over time, as trends of online communication have shifted. But here again, Republicans are ahead of Democrats.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.dcinbox.com/email/?id=225840">Republicans use more images</a> than Democrats and tend to refer constituents to <a href="https://lindsey-cormack.medium.com/the-news-congress-pushes-to-constituents-30a84e5de639">more media outlets, including those that support right-wing views</a>.</p>
<p>This official e-newsletter archive allows researchers to better understand the evolving nature of online political communications and learn about how the parties use contemporary tools to connect with their constituents. In order for the public and historians to make sense of American politics, I believe it’s important to analyze what legislators say when acting in their official capacity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225618/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindsey Cormack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In taxpayer-funded email messages to constituents, Republicans prefer visual elements and strategic timing, and Democrats prefer more text-heavy missives.Lindsey Cormack, Associate Professor of Political Science, Stevens Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2250472024-03-06T02:04:33Z2024-03-06T02:04:33ZAfter Super Tuesday, exhausted Americans face 8 more months of presidential campaigning<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579935/original/file-20240305-28-wuuee4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1072%2C26%2C3342%2C2846&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Campaign volunteers set up signs encouraging people to vote.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2024Alabama/e953d3d110334cfea6a90b336231b74d/photo">AP Photo/Vasha Hunt</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Now that Super Tuesday is over and the <a href="https://apnews.com/live/super-tuesday-updates-results">Democratic and Republican nominees are all but officially chosen</a>, as everyone expected, voters can turn the page to the general election. </p>
<p>But they’re not excited about it, and they haven’t been for months.</p>
<p>A September 2023 Monmouth University poll showed <a href="https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_100223/">no more than 40% of Americans said they were “enthusiastic”</a> for either Biden or Trump to run again. That same month, the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/americans-dismal-views-of-the-nations-politics/">Pew Research Center</a> found that 65% of Americans were exhausted with the current state of American politics. In February 2024, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/19/us/politics/trump-resistance-democrats-voters.html">The New York Times</a> said Democrats in particular were burned out by the seemingly endless avalanche of political crises.</p>
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<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/audio-narrated-99682">narrated by Noa</a>.</em></p>
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<p>It is not surprising that a rematch of the 2020 election is failing to inspire excitement in the American people. Yet, as a political scientist who studies <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/citizens-of-the-world-9780197599389">citizen engagement</a> and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/feeling-their-pain-9780197696903">the public’s feelings</a> toward the candidates, I find these trends disturbing. It’s not just polarization that’s driving voters’ malaise – it’s something else, which carries a stark warning for the health of American democracy.</p>
<h2>There is another divide in politics</h2>
<p>Most discussions of the current state of the American electorate have understandably focused on political polarization. Democrats and Republicans often <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo27527354.html">express disdain for each other</a>, even when they don’t actually disagree on specific policies for the nation to pursue. </p>
<p>Some of this <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/715072">disdain is rooted in identity</a>. For example, people who hold unfavorable attitudes toward African Americans, feminists and other groups associated with the Democratic Party tend to identify more strongly with the Republican Party. People with unfavorable attitudes toward stereotypically Republican groups such as evangelicals and gun owners tend to be stronger Democrats.</p>
<p>From this perspective, Democrats and Republicans are pack animals motivated to protect their group and their group’s interests.</p>
<p>Often overlooked, however, is how the vitriol of modern American politics fuels what political scientists Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan call “<a href="https://www.otherdividebook.com/">The Other Divide</a>.” This is the divide between people who engage in politics and those who don’t.</p>
<p>In short, a significant number of Americans don’t talk about politics, whether because they are not interested in politics or are turned off by the negativity. It’s a gradual trend dating back to the 1980s and 1990s that has continued for decades now. This weakens the fabric of democracy, because the only voices that are heard online and in the media are from those who are most willing to speak up. They tend to be the most dissonant and extreme views.</p>
<p>The public discussion about the country’s past, present and future therefore leaves out a wide range of people’s voices. What they might say is hard to know, specifically because they don’t engage in political discussions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579916/original/file-20240305-26-s5z3dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An adult stands with a child at a voting booth." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579916/original/file-20240305-26-s5z3dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579916/original/file-20240305-26-s5z3dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579916/original/file-20240305-26-s5z3dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579916/original/file-20240305-26-s5z3dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579916/original/file-20240305-26-s5z3dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579916/original/file-20240305-26-s5z3dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579916/original/file-20240305-26-s5z3dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young people – those of voting age at least – are less likely to see voting as important.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2024/1ee5523ecf7441eca7c37e430511fdb0/photo">AP Photo/Michael Dwyer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Young voter disengagement</h2>
<p>Especially troubling to me is the political disillusionment expressed by young people, who are the most likely group in the country to avoid identifying themselves <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/01/15/voters-declare-independence-political-parties">as members of one party or the other</a>. People who identify themselves as independents – especially if they don’t lean toward one party or the other – are also likely to lack interest in voting.</p>
<p>Having come of age during an era of high polarization, younger people are less likely to idealize politics and the right to vote. In prior research, my colleagues and I found that younger people worldwide were just as interested in politics as older citizens but were <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/citizens-of-the-world-9780197599389?cc=us&lang=en&">less likely to view voting as a civic duty</a>. Protesting or joining an organization offers social benefits to young people – an opportunity to feel like they are part of something bigger. Voting, by contrast, is perceived as a more solitary act. </p>
<p>If younger American voters aren’t excited about the choices on the ballot, they may be more likely not to vote at all.</p>
<p>In a recent survey I conducted in collaboration with <a href="https://ignitenational.org/gen-z-research">IGNITE National</a>, an organization seeking to bolster young women’s engagement in the political process, we asked Gen Z Americans, adults born after 1996, what drove their disillusionment with American politics. Consistently, Gen Z respondents noted that the candidates appearing on the ballot <a href="https://8226836.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/8226836/Gen%20Z%20Voting%20%26%20Political%20Engagement%20Report%202023.pdf">did not look like them</a>, contributing to their feeling of detachment from the political process. </p>
<p>Barack Obama’s race made 2008 a historic election. Hillary Clinton’s gender made 2016 a historic contest as well. By contrast, 2024 features the <a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/3744771-here-are-the-oldest-us-presidents-to-ever-hold-office/">two oldest white men</a> to ever seek the presidency, vying for second terms in office.</p>
<p><iframe id="N7JHB" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/N7JHB/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Burnout’s effects on democracy</h2>
<p>Americans have many demands on their time. Between work, family and other activities, many struggle to watch or read the news, fact check what they see on social media or engage in productive political discussions. As a result, most of the American public <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300072754/what-americans-know-about-politics-and-why-it-matters/">is largely unaware of key aspects of important issues</a>, and does not pay attention to the parties’ stances on those issues. </p>
<p>This lack of engagement is dangerous for democracy. Voters who cannot evaluate the merits of contrasting policy positions, or who cannot accurately assign blame and give credit for the state of the American economy, will ultimately fall back on cheap cues such as partisanship to make their choices. </p>
<p>Or they may abstain from politics altogether.</p>
<p>The campaign season offers an opportunity for voters who may be open to persuasion to engage in the political process for a short period of time, become sufficiently informed and make their voices heard. Though there are flaws in the many processes of political campaigning, media coverage and community involvement, the bottom line is simple: Deliberative democracy requires an American public that is willing to deliberate. </p>
<p>If Americans are too burned out to engage enthusiastically and provide feedback to political leaders, then there is little hope that any government could truly reflect the will of the people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225047/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jared McDonald does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s not just polarization that’s driving voters’ malaise − it’s something else, which carries a stark warning for the health of American democracy.Jared McDonald, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, University of Mary WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2236892024-02-28T12:32:11Z2024-02-28T12:32:11ZGOP primary elections use flawed math to pick nominees<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578350/original/file-20240227-18-rw2ozs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C31%2C5311%2C3357&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How people vote isn't always reflected in how elections are decided.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/map-made-of-stickman-figure-with-patriotic-royalty-free-illustration/1281610356">bamlou/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Republicans around the country are picking a nominee to run for president. However, their process – designed and run by the party, not government officials – is a mess of flawed mathematics that can end up delivering a result that’s in conflict with the person most voters actually support.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://ivolic.wellesley.edu/">mathematics professor</a> and co-founder of the <a href="https://mathematics-democracy-institute.org/">Institute for Mathematics and Democracy</a>, I watched this contradictory process play out in 2016, shaping the political landscape ever since. Elements of it are visible again in 2024.</p>
<p>There are many ways bad mathematics interferes with our democracy, as I explain in my forthcoming book, “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691248806/making-democracy-count">Making Democracy Count: How Mathematics Improves Voting, Electoral Maps, and Representation</a>.” Here’s how the Republican primaries can manage to defy democratic ideals and deliver a nominee even though most voters prefer someone else:</p>
<h2>Splitting votes among many candidates</h2>
<p>In 2016, former President Donald Trump became the Republican choice, having <a href="https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/R">won 44.9% of the votes</a> cast in primaries. That was nearly twice the share of votes won by the runner-up, Ted Cruz, who had 25.1% of the primary votes.</p>
<p>But during primary season, <a href="https://fairvote.org/new_polls_show_that_gop_split_vote_problem_continues/">polls suggested</a> that in head-to-head primaries, Trump would have lost not only to Cruz, but also to <a href="https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/R">third-place Republican finisher John Kasich</a> and Marco Rubio, who placed fourth.</p>
<p>In other words, a majority of Republican voters preferred Cruz, Kasich and Rubio to Trump. But none of the three took the lead because of the party’s nomination system, which assigned <a href="https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/R">Trump 58.3% of the delegates</a> at the Republican National Convention – the formal process by which the nominee is selected.</p>
<h2>An attempt at proportional representation</h2>
<p>The Republican Party says its primaries are meant to <a href="https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/docs/Rules_Of_The_Republican_Party.pdf">encourage proportional assignment</a> of delegates to candidates. So if a candidate wins, say, 40% of the votes, she should win as close to 40% of the delegates as possible. </p>
<p>This sounds reasonable, and it aligns with most people’s notion of fairness. For primaries taking place before March 15, the Republican Party mandates proportional allocation, but with lots of exceptions that can effectively turn the election into winner-take-all or winner-take-most. After March 15, the exceptions become the norm, pulling the outcome further from proportional representation.</p>
<p>The Democratic Party has a more centralized system and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Democratic_delegate_rules,_2024">mandates proportionality</a> for all its primaries.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People stand at tables and raise their arms." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578351/original/file-20240227-24-2cce3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crowd members cheer at the 2020 Republican National Convention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020RNC/b1f38c3935c94ade99728f71b15da1fd/photo">Travis Dove/The New York Times via AP, Pool</a></span>
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<h2>Allocation of delegates</h2>
<p>The process begins with the <a href="https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/media/documents/2020_RNC_Call_of_the_Convention_1575665975.pdf">states each receiving a number of delegates</a> that will later be assigned to candidates.</p>
<p>Each state gets 10 at-large delegates, and three delegates for each congressional district it contains. A state can also get additional delegates based on how Republican it is – depending on whether its people voted for a Republican presidential candidate in the previous general election, and on how much of its legislature is Republican.</p>
<p>These allocations can result in inequities. For instance, Massachusetts and Utah, two of the states voting on Super Tuesday, both get 40 delegates. That’s because Massachusetts has more congressional districts, while Utah is more Republican. </p>
<p>But Utah has roughly 960,000 <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan_affiliations_of_registered_voters">registered Republican voters</a>, and Massachusetts has about 440,000. That means for any candidate to get a Utah delegate would require support from at least twice as many voters as that candidate would need to get a Massachusetts delegate.</p>
<h2>Assigning delegates to candidates</h2>
<p>There are as many as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24954-9">seven different proportional methods</a> used to assign states’ at-large delegates, each with its own mathematical problems. And in 21 states, the delegates allocated because of each congressional district are also assigned by the same methods as the at-large delegates.</p>
<p>In other states, the three delegates in each congressional district are all allocated to the winner in that district. And in still other states, the district delegates are allocated with a 2-1 split: The top vote-getter in the district receives two delegates and the runner-up receives one.</p>
<p>Math makes clear that these methods are not proportional representation: Imagine that three candidates in a close race get 33.5%, 33.3% and 33.2% of the votes, respectively. The winner-take-all method would give all three delegates to the top scorer. And in the 2-1 split, the last-place candidate would get nothing. </p>
<p>In some states, the party’s rules also allow the method of counting to vary depending on how dominant a candidate’s win is. For instance, <a href="https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/02/08/california-primary-new-state-party-rules-could-accelerate-trump-nomination/72400693007/">California is the latest state to adopt the practice</a> in which a candidate who wins more than half the statewide vote gets all of the state’s delegates.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four people stand behind lecterns on a stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578358/original/file-20240227-24-2mcqmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Republican candidates for president appear at a debate in Milwaukee in August 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2024Debate/876ea8c85d5048fea034a652dd1348bc/photo">AP Photo/Morry Gash</a></span>
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<h2>Two candidates doesn’t make the math clearer</h2>
<p>The GOP’s system offers other significant advantages to winners as well. </p>
<p>Suppose a state has eight districts with three delegates apiece and in each, Candidate Alice gets 51% of the votes and Candidate Bob gets 49%. If the allocation was 2-1, Alice would get 16 delegates and Bob would get eight.</p>
<p>Then there are the 10 at-large delegates the party assigns to each state. Most proportional methods would split these delegates evenly, with five given to each candidate. That would deliver a grand total for Alice of 21 delegates, and 13 for Bob.</p>
<p>In that situation, Alice would get 51% of the votes but 62% of the delegates. This “winner’s bonus” was evident in many states Trump won in the 2016 primary, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Republican_delegates_from_Alabama,_2016">such as Alabama</a>, where his vote share was 43% but he collected 72% of the delegates. In the 2020 Democratic primary races, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#Major_candidates">Joe Biden won 51.6% of the votes</a> and 68% of the delegates overall.</p>
<p>Winner-take-all is problematic too. Consider Utah and Massachusetts again. If a candidate won Utah by a landslide, and another narrowly won in Massachusetts, they would both get 40 delegates – based on vastly different numbers of actual votes cast by supporters.</p>
<h2>An additional barrier</h2>
<p>Most states also require candidates to get a certain percentage of voter support before being assigned any delegates at all. Under the Republican rules, some states set this bar as high as 20%. The Democratic Party mandates a 15% threshold for every state. </p>
<p>These thresholds are biased toward more popular candidates and can even cause <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-018-0608-3">mathematically counterintuitive delegate allocations</a>.</p>
<p>The combination of winner-take-all and complicated threshold structures is where all hope of proportionality and fairness vanishes. For example, in 2016, Trump won all of South Carolina’s 50 delegates by <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Republican_delegates_from_South_Carolina,_2016#South_Carolina_primary_results">garnering 33% of the votes</a> and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Republican_delegates_from_Florida,_2016#Florida_primary_results">all of Florida’s 99 delegates</a> with 46% of the votes.</p>
<p>This phenomenon is occurring again in this cycle: In the 2024 South Carolina primary, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/24/us/elections/results-south-carolina-republican-primary.html">Trump won 60% of the vote</a> but landed 94% of the state’s delegates. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman stands on a stage holding a microphone in front of a U.S. flag and the South Carolina state flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578360/original/file-20240227-22-p8xqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nikki Haley got 40% of the primary vote in her home state of South Carolina, but only 4% of the state’s Republican delegates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2024MichiganWhattoWatch/9fc716699bf2449aa70ab90ee7956350/photo">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Picking a single winner</h2>
<p>Ultimately, the party delegate system has to arrive at a single winner. Somehow, one candidate must win a majority of the delegate votes that are cast at the summer convention. For this year’s Republican nomination, this is 1,215 of the 2,429 delegates. </p>
<p>Even if the delegate apportionment reflected Republican voters’ preferences in perfect proportion, the system has yet another inherent flaw. Suppose the process gave 35% of the delegates to one candidate, 30% to another, 20% to a third, and then split the remaining 15% between several others. Who should win the nomination?</p>
<p>In a sequential process often called a “<a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Brokered_conventions">brokered convention</a>,” various candidates who recognize they cannot win the nomination free their delegates to vote for others. As its name suggests, this method more closely resembles a business deal than a fair election – and it’s very far from the eyes of the voters and even more distant from the rigor of mathematics.</p>
<p>There is no unbiased way to pick a single nominee using the GOP’s current primary structure. Voters are reluctant to risk wasting their votes by supporting less popular candidates. Candidates who appear weaker exit races earlier because they don’t think they can clear the hurdles in enough states. As a result, candidates with small but committed followings can rise to the top – even if most people prefer someone else.</p>
<h2>Some alternatives</h2>
<p>Math does offer some options for possible solutions that eliminate the flaws of winner-take-all, reduce divisiveness, ensure that each voter has an equal say, and enact the will of a majority.</p>
<p>One way could be using <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-ranked-choice-voting-a-political-scientist-explains-165055">ranked-choice voting</a>, in which people rank all the candidates in their order of preference. A system that would be mathematically most representative and inclusive would involve nonpartisan primaries with some number of top vote-getters advancing to the general election. Both would be held with ranked-choice voting. Alaska and <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/state-primary-election-types">several other states</a> use this method in state elections, but not for the presidential race.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ismar Volić does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are many ways bad mathematics interferes with our democracy. Assigning delegates is just one example.Ismar Volić, Professor of Mathematics, Director of Institute for Mathematics and Democracy, Wellesley CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2213062024-01-17T01:30:34Z2024-01-17T01:30:34ZWhy two largely white and tiny states still matter so much to the US presidential election<p>Former President Donald Trump’s commanding, and expected, victory in this week’s Iowa caucuses has <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-stroll-to-victory-in-iowa-was-a-foregone-conclusion-this-doesnt-make-it-any-less-shocking-221207">confirmed</a> his frontrunner status in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. </p>
<p>With his closest rivals Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley lagging far behind, it seems the Republican primary contest is over before it has even begun. </p>
<p>Since the 1970s, Iowa has kicked off the US presidential election year with the first caucuses of the primary season. This changed for Democrats following the 2020 election, when the party ditched the first-in-the-nation caucuses for a mail-in vote. The results of this will be known on March 5 (often known as Super Tuesday).</p>
<p>Republicans, however, have stuck with the caucuses. With Republicans in 49 states still yet to cast a vote in the 2024 nominating contest, why is it that an overwhelmingly white state of 3 million continues to hold such sway over the fate of one of the world’s largest democracies?</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-stroll-to-victory-in-iowa-was-a-foregone-conclusion-this-doesnt-make-it-any-less-shocking-221207">Donald Trump's stroll to victory in Iowa was a foregone conclusion. This doesn't make it any less shocking</a>
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<h2>How Iowa was put on the map</h2>
<p>Iowa reached the top of the nominating calendar for a string of logistical reasons — some even say by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-iowa-gets-to-go-first-and-other-facts-about-tonights-caucus/2011/08/25/gIQAJtygYP_blog.html">accident</a> — when the Democratic Party reformed its candidate selection procedures after the <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1968-democratic-convention-931079/">tumultuous</a> 1968 Chicago party convention. </p>
<p>At first, few noticed or cared about the Iowa caucuses’ early position. But this all changed in 1976. Little-known presidential hopeful <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/jimmy-carter-iowa-caucuses/426729/">Jimmy Carter</a> led a grassroots campaign in Iowa — and the next-in-line New Hampshire primary — to deliver unexpected early victories in the Democratic nominating contest. He seized upon these two early wins to catapult himself onto the national stage and ultimately win the White House.</p>
<p>Carter showed how these early testing grounds of voter support can propel candidates from obscurity to national fame. Once he put the Iowa caucuses on the map, the state sought to ensure they remained there. </p>
<p>Both the Democratic and Republican parties officially cemented Iowa’s first-in-nation status through state laws and party rules. Since then, the caucuses have become not just an opportunity for candidates to make their mark, but a boon for the state’s economy, raking in <a href="https://www.axios.com/local/des-moines/2022/04/19/iowa-caucuses-potential-loss-des-moines-revenue">millions</a> every cycle.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-presidential-primaries-are-arcane-complex-and-unrepresentative-so-why-do-americans-still-vote-this-way-129759">The US presidential primaries are arcane, complex and unrepresentative. So why do Americans still vote this way?</a>
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<h2>An unrepresentative state</h2>
<p>Iowa might be a big electoral prize, but the Mid-Western state itself is tiny and hardly representative of America as a whole. Iowa is <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/iowa-population">more rural</a> than the national average and among the country’s least diverse states. </p>
<p>The population in Iowa is <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/IA/RHI125222">about 90% white</a>, compared to <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045222">76%</a> nationally. <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/IA/PST045222">Just 4%</a> of Iowans identify as Black or African American. </p>
<p>Many rightly <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/bizarre-unfair-iowa-should-never-go-first-again-20200205-p53xxk.html">point out</a> that Iowa’s demographics more closely resemble the 19th-century United States than the America we know today. This is part of why the state’s outsized electoral role has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. </p>
<p>In 2022, President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee announced they would promote <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/01/us/politics/biden-dnc-primary-south-carolina-2024.html">South Carolina</a> to the front of the 2024 Democratic primary contests ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire (also small and overwhelmingly white). </p>
<p>While Iowa was successfully moved back in the schedule, New Hampshire held onto its first-in-the-nation status, prompting Biden to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-will-not-be-on-the-new-hampshire-primary-ballot-what-does-that-mean-for-voters">take his name off</a> this year’s primary ballot. The vote will be held on January 23.</p>
<h2>As Iowa and New Hampshire go, so goes the nation (sometimes)</h2>
<p>Iowa has, at best, a patchy record of predicting party nominees and presidents. </p>
<p>In the ten contested Democratic Iowa caucuses since 1976, the winner has gone on to secure the Democratic nomination in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/04/us/elections/results-iowa-caucus.html">seven instances</a>. The most notable exception in recent times was Biden, who finished <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/04/us/elections/results-iowa-caucus.html">fourth</a> in Iowa in 2020. Of these seven successful nominees, just two — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/04/us/elections/results-iowa-caucus.html">Carter and Barack Obama</a> — would go on to become president. </p>
<p>The state’s Republican results are significantly more mixed. Just <a href="https://data.desmoinesregister.com/iowa-caucus/history/">three winners</a> of the eight contested caucuses since 1976 became the party’s nominee. Only one of those, George W. Bush, went on to win the White House.</p>
<p>Almost every major party nominee <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/13/only-two-recent-major-party-nominees-have-lost-both-iowa-new-hampshire/">since 1972</a> has, however, won in either Iowa or New Hampshire. The only two exceptions were Bill Clinton in 1992 and Biden in 2020.</p>
<p>Iowans and New Hampshirites are not clairvoyants with their fingers on the pulse of the nation. Yet their influence helps determine the presidential frontrunners, media narratives, donor contributions and campaign expenditures before millions of other Americans are able to vote. This can shape the rest of the election.</p>
<p>The reason for this is the structure of the US primary calendar. Because the contests are drawn out over five months, establishing early momentum is essential to carving out a path to the nomination, particularly given the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/01/1205728664/campaign-finance-donations-election-fec-fundraising-ad-spending">exorbitant cost</a> of running for president. </p>
<p>Until the structure of the US primary system changes, or another state replaces both Iowa and New Hampshire at the top of the primary calendars, the eyes of the world will continue to turn to both of these tiny states every four years.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: this story has been amended to correct how many Republican winners of Iowa went on to the win the White House. The story initially said two, George W. Bush and Gerald Ford, but Ford lost the general election in 1976.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Iowa and New Hampshire have long cemented their status as the first-in-the-nation deciders in presidential nominating contests. This outsized influence has increasingly come under scrutiny.Ava Kalinauskas, Research Associate, United States Studies Centre, University of SydneySamuel Garrett, Research Associate, United States Studies Centre, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2195482024-01-08T13:35:53Z2024-01-08T13:35:53ZAn overlooked and undercounted group of Arab American and Muslim voters may have outsized impact on 2024 presidential election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567954/original/file-20240104-15-bqu0rz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=766%2C125%2C3227%2C2532&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People demonstrate in support of Palestinians on Oct. 14, 2023, in Dearborn, Mich.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-demonstrate-in-support-of-palestinians-in-dearborn-news-photo/1724359826?adppopup=true">Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Though domestic issues tend to motivate most U.S. voters, the war in the Middle East may be the dominant issue in mind for an increasingly important voting block: <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/arab-and-muslim-americans-on-how-u-s-support-for-israel-could-affect-their-votes-in-2024">Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans</a>. </p>
<p>Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, members of these communities have watched the rising death toll and heard vivid accounts of the horrors befalling Palestinians in Gaza as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to bombard the enclave with the support of the Biden administration.</p>
<p>For some Arab Americans, a community that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/17/1213668804/arab-americans-michigan-voters-biden-israel-hamas-palestinians">overwhelmingly voted Democratic</a> in the 2020 presidential election, that support may have negative consequences on Biden’s attempt to regain the White House in 2024. In fact, numerous Middle Eastern and Muslim American leaders have called for their communities to “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/muslim-americans-face-abandon-biden-dilemma-then-who-2023-12-02/">abandon Biden</a>” in the upcoming presidential election.</p>
<p>The question, then, is what effect such defections could have on Biden’s chances of winning reelection. </p>
<p>As a whole, the number of Middle Eastern or Muslim Americans is quite small. According to the 2020 census – the first year such data was recorded – <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/2020-census-dhc-a-mena-population.html#:%7E:text=Who%20Identified%20as%20a%20Detailed%20MENA%20Group%3F,population">3.5 million</a> Americans reported being of Middle Eastern and North African descent, about 1% of the total U.S. population of nearly <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/">335 million citizens</a>.</p>
<p>But the outcome of the 2024 presidential election may come down to results in a few swing states where Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans are concentrated, such as Michigan, Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona. </p>
<p>In the 2020 presidential election, for instance, Biden won the state of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/03/928191195/michigan-live-election-results-2020">Michigan</a> by a total of 154,000 votes. The state is home to overlapping groups of more than <a href="https://emgageusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Emgage-ImpactReport-2020-v2.4-lr-1.pdf">200,000 registered voters</a> who are Muslim and <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/2020-census-dhc-a-mena-population.html#:%7E:text=Who%20Identified%20as%20a%20Detailed%20MENA%20Group%3F,population">300,000</a> who claim ancestry from the Middle East and North Africa.</p>
<h2>Working around statistical erasure</h2>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=J4rDIpUAAAAJ&hl=en">social scientist</a>, I specialize in statistical analysis and research on how race, ethnicity and religion affect political outcomes in the U.S. I know from firsthand experience that any effort to gauge the attitudes and behaviors of Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans requires a bit of analytic gymnastics. </p>
<p>For starters, since 1977, the U.S. government <a href="https://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/help/populations/bridged-race/directive15.html">has categorized</a> those with ancestral ties to the “original peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East” as “white,” according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.</p>
<p>That stipulation is found in that agency’s Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting and is used in <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/note/US/RHI625222#:%7E:text=A%20person%20having%20origins%20in,Italian%2C%20Lebanese%2C%20and%20Egyptian.">U.S. census reports</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, members of this community are subsumed within an expansive grouping of “whites” that effectively renders them invisible in nearly all administrative data and public opinion polls. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman wearing a religious cloth over her head stands in the middle of a crowd of people holding a sign that reads Gaza." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Muslim American supporters of Palestine hold a rally on Oct. 21, 2023, in Brooklyn, N.Y.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nysupporters-of-palestine-hold-a-rally-in-the-bay-ridge-news-photo/1749087314?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, Muslims are not captured in official data, as the U.S. <a href="https://ask.census.gov/prweb/PRServletCustom/app/ECORRAsk2/YACFBFye-rFIz_FoGtyvDRUGg1Uzu5Mn*/!STANDARD?pzuiactionzzz=CXtpbn0rTEpMcGRYOG1vS0tqTFAwaENUZWpvM1NNWEMzZ3p5aFpnWUxzVmw0TjJndno5ZkJPc24xNWYvcCtNbVVjWk5Z*#:%7E:text=Public%20Law%2094%2D521%20prohibits,practices%2C%20on%20a%20voluntary%20basis.">does not record</a> its citizens’ religious affiliations. </p>
<p>Even public opinion surveys that record religious denomination typically offer little to no insight into this community. When it comes to more prevalent religious groups – <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/catholic/party-affiliation/">Catholics</a>, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/324410/religious-group-voting-2020-election.aspx">Protestants</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/white-evangelicals-likely-side-gop-donald-trump-rcna47593">white evangelicals </a> – their opinions are frequently reported and the subject of many polls. </p>
<p>But Muslims are nearly always relegated to the “other non-Christian” religious category, along with similarly small faith communities.</p>
<p>This is not to say that relevant data on Muslims and Middle Easterners in the U.S. is unavailable. For example, <a href="https://emgageusa.org/">Emgage</a>, a nonprofit Muslim advocacy group, collected such data on eligible voters and turnout in a dozen states during the 2020 presidential election. </p>
<p>By combining the <a href="https://emgageusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Emgage-ImpactReport-2020-v2.4-lr-1.pdf">data from Emgage</a> with data collected by AP VoteCast, the Cooperative Election Survey and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one can reach a few general conclusions about these communities.</p>
<h2>Impact of defections on 2024 presidential campaign</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aaiusa.org/library/arab-americans-special-poll-domestic-implications-of-the-most-recent-outbreak-of-violence-in-palestineisrael">Arab American Institute</a>, an advocacy group, says that since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Arab American support for the Democratic Party has plummeted from 59% in 2020 to just 17%. </p>
<p>Among <a href="https://emgageusa.org/press-release/emgage-releases-survey-findings-about-muslim-americans-current-2024-election-predictions/">Muslim Americans</a> the drop is worse, from 70% in 2020 to about 10% at the end of 2023. </p>
<p>If these poll numbers hold true until Nov. 7, the 2024 presidential election would be the first time in nearly 30 years that the Democrats were not the party of choice for Arab American voters.</p>
<p>That doesn’t necessarily mean that these voters would go to the GOP. In 2020, then-President <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-travel-ban-is-just-one-of-many-us-policies-that-legalize-discrimination-against-muslims-89334">Donald Trump</a> proved to be an unpopular choice among Arab and Muslim American voters, in large part due to his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/17/trump-muslim-ban-gaza-refugees">executive order 13769</a>. </p>
<p>Signed on Jan. 27, 2017, the order immediately prohibited the entry of immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and came to be known by critics as the Muslim ban. Though the order survived numerous legal challenges, it <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/06/974339586/biden-has-overturned-trumps-muslim-travel-ban-activists-say-thats-not-enough">was eventually overturned</a> by Biden shortly after he took office in January 2021.</p>
<p>Trump has already promised during campaign stops to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pledges-expel-immigrants-who-support-hamas-ban-muslims-us-2023-10-16/">reinstate his policy</a>.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, Biden won overwhelming majorities in these communities in 2020.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle aged white man wearing a business suit is taking a picture of people celebrating a holiday." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. President Joe Biden, left, takes selfies on May 1, 2023, at the White House during a reception celebrating the end of Ramadan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-takes-selfies-with-guests-during-a-news-photo/1486918953?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But it is not out of the realm of possibility that the votes cast by Middle Easterners and Muslims for the Republican and Democratic candidates for president in 2024 drop by 50% from 2020, as those voters decide to stay home or vote for a third-party candidate. </p>
<p>In Michigan, for example, that could mean <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Eky2iFW98vrdC4Oe53ssjEesvkNZh-oYDbE02NJmN-c/edit?usp=sharing">Biden would lose about 55,000 votes</a>, or about a third of the 154,000-vote margin of victory he earned over Trump in 2020.</p>
<p>Michigan is not the only state where no-shows in these communities could jeopardize Biden’s prospects for victory. </p>
<p>Decreased turnout among Middle Eastern, North African and Muslim Americans alone would be enough to erase <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/940689086/narrow-wins-in-these-key-states-powered-biden-to-the-presidency">Biden’s 2020 margins of victory</a> in Arizona – 10,457 votes – and nearly do the same in Georgia, where Biden won by 12,670 votes.</p>
<p>Of course, Arab Americans are not the only ones likely to penalize Biden at the ballot box next November over his <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/joe-biden-united-states-foreign-policy-ukraine-israel-hamas-war-taiwan/">foreign policy</a>. But even if they were, the numbers show that a presidential election may swing on a lesser-known but potentially crucial voting bloc.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219548/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Youssef Chouhoud does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Though Arab Americans voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, polling suggests that support has eroded since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel.Youssef Chouhoud, Assistant Professor, Christopher Newport UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2166842023-11-12T16:14:07Z2023-11-12T16:14:07ZIsrael-Hamas War: What political consequences for Joe Biden?<p>On November 5, 2024, Americans will go to the polls to elect their next president. Traditionally, foreign policy doesn’t weigh much on the outcome of a American presidential election, but might the return of violence in the Middle East reverse this old trend?</p>
<p>What is certain is that the war between Israel and Hamas is <a href="https://civicscience.com/3-things-to-know-americans-following-the-israel-hamas-war-closely-1-in-3-holiday-shoppers-plan-to-spend-less-this-year/">being followed very closely in the United States</a>. While the Republican Party and all its primary candidates are <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/gop-presidential-candidates-compete-seen-closest-israel-debate-rcna124311">unambiguously on Israel’s side</a>, the Democrats appear more divided. President Biden, traditionally aligned with the interests of the Hebrew state, has been playing a particularly difficult juggling act since October 7, seeking to protect and support Israel, while not appearing insensitive to the <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2023/11/10/israel-agrees-to-breaks-in-fighting-food-running-out-in-gaza-war-devastates-palestinian-ec">now 11,000 Palestinian victims</a> caused by the Israeli response, according to Gaza’s health ministry. </p>
<p><strong>Joe Biden, a “Zionist in his heart” forced to play a balancing act.</strong> </p>
<p>Faced with the scale and nature of Hamas’ massacre on 7 October, which left <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/11/1212458974/israel-revises-death-toll-hamas-attacks-oct-7">1,200 Israelis dead</a>, Joe Biden drew parallels between these events and <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-18/ty-article/.premium/biden-evokes-holocaust-and-september-11-during-unprecedented-wartime-visit-to-israel/0000018b-4352-d614-abcf-eb7346480000">the Holocaust and the September 11th attacks</a>. He immediately pledged his <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/07/hamas-terrorism-attacks-on-israeli-civilians-00120480">unconditional support</a> to the Israeli government. This promise materialized not only in his visit to the Hebrew state on October 18, notwithstanding <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/us/politics/biden-israel-trip.html">the political and security risks</a> such a trip entailed, but also in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/us/politics/israel-aid-pentagon-us-hamas.html">the instruction to move navy warships closer to the country</a> and send out <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/19/us-israel-artillery-shells-ukraine-weapons-gaza">artillery shells initially destined for Ukraine</a>.</p>
<p>This squares with President Biden’s historic <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/28/us/politics/biden-israel-netanyahu-gaza.html?smid=nytcore-android-share">ties with Israel</a>. Notwithstanding <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/netanyahu-biden-relationship-explained-us-israel-diplomacy-rcna119510">periods of friction</a> with Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, whom he met extensively during his tenure as Barack Obama’s Vice President (2008-2016), Biden has undeniable pro-Israeli bias, even describing himself as <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-israel-gaza-dachau-holocaust-hamas-919058eec36dca4c06cf9fc4355fe302">“Zionist in [his] heart” </a>. In fact, he is more <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-biden-more-popular-in-israel-than-almost-anywhere-else-poll-shows/">popular in Israel than in the United States</a>, and has received <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?ind=q05&cycle=All&recipdetail=S&mem=Y">financial support from pro-Israeli groups</a> throughout his career.</p>
<p>The current crisis makes such a position tricky to maintain. On the one hand, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/28/democrats-biden-reelection-israel-palestine">left wing of the Democrats</a> accuse Biden of not taking sufficient account of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and being too complacent towards the Netanyahu government. And on the other, Republicans say <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/09/politics/republicans-blame-biden-israel-what-matters/index.html">he is responsible for the attack on Israel</a> by being too complacent towards Iran, which supports Hamas.
Aware of the stakes, and for only the second time in his presidency, President Biden <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTxDZ6D1A1E">addressed the nation in prime time from the Oval Office</a>, making the case for military aid to both Israel and Ukraine. Speaking of an “inflection point in history,” he denounced anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/antisemitism-has-moved-from-the-right-to-the-left-in-the-us-and-falls-back-on-long-standing-stereotypes-215760?s=03">are on the rise in the United States</a>. He also reiterated his plea to Israelis not to be “blinded by rage” and to learn the lessons of an American overreaction to 9/11, referring to the Bush administration’s 2003 intervention in Iraq.</p>
<p><strong>A divided left</strong></p>
<p>The president’s balancing act takes place amid a growing number of protests and heated debates across the country. Thousands of demonstrators have poured in <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/flood-wall-street-for-gaza/">New York City</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/campus-threats-israel-hamas-gaza-conflict-middle-east-rcna123975">university campuses</a> in solidarity with Palestine, while on Capitol Hill <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/23/us/jewish-palestinian-protest-israel-gaza/index.html">Jewish peace activists</a> called for an “immediate ceasefire” and justice for the Palestinians.</p>
<p>This is not entirely a surprise. For the last several years, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/us/politics/aipac-israel-democrats.html">the Democrats have been divided</a> on the Israel question. The left wing of the party has become <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/us/politics/democrats-israel-hamas-war-palestine.html">increasingly critical</a> both of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and, more generally, of Netanyahu’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2023/1/20/23561464/israel-new-right-wing-government-extreme-protests-netanyahu-biden-ben-gvir">far-right government</a>. This is reflected not only in divisions within the party but also in <a href="https://time.com/6295703/israel-herzog-visit-washington/">a shift in favour of the Palestinians</a> among Democrats and Independents in opinion polls. </p>
<p>The October 7 massacre has <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-indicates-us-public-divided-over-support-for-israel-after-hamas-assault/">not reversed this trend</a>. Moreover, the significant generational and racial differences, are likely to remain, as young and non-white liberals become more critical of public and armed support for Israel.</p>
<p>While in October 72% of whites said the US should take a public stance supporting Israel in the war between Israel and Hamas, that figure dropped to 51% in the case of nonwhites, according to a poll by <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/13/1205627092/american-support-israel-biden-middle-east-hamas-poll">NPR</a>. The Black community, for instance, has <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/10/17/23918689/black-palestinian-solidarity-jewish-alliance-israel">a long history of identification with the Palestinian cause</a>, especially since <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-newspaper-coverage-of-the-1967-six-day-arab-israeli-war-foresaw-decades-of-conflict-in-middle-east-216593">the Six-Day War in 1967</a>. This cause was promoted by radical organizations such as The Black Panther Party and The Nation of Islam, whose leader Louis Farrakhan is <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/farrakhan-his-own-words">a notorious anti-Semite</a>. It gained momentum on the left with <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012077">Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign in 1988</a>. More recently, the death of George Floyd in 2020 had many young Americans, notably through <em><a href="https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/hlps.2020.0238">Black Lives Matter</a></em>, draw parallels between the structural violence and oppression of both Blacks in the USA and Palestinians in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.</p>
<p>As for American Jews, <a href="https://www.ajc.org/news/ajc-survey-most-jews-approve-of-biden-leadership">traditionally more liberal</a>, the unity they had once enjoyed in their opposition to Netanyahu has splintered on the face of this crisis. Some are demonstrating against the strikes on Gaza and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/23/us/jewish-palestinian-protest-israel-gaza/index.html">calling for a ceasefire</a>, while others highlight the victims of Hamas and feel <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/us/politics/progressive-jews-united-states.html">abandoned by their left-wing allies</a>.</p>
<p>President Biden has increasingly taken into account this public opinion. As the death toll in Gaza has increased, his focus has shifted toward <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-defends-west-bank-civilians-his-most-sympathetic-remarks-to-palestinians-since-war-in-gaza/7327158.html">the suffering of a marginalized population trapped in Gaza</a>. Biden has also secured humanitarian aid to Gaza at the Egyptian border, and even <a href="https://apnews.com/article/blinken-turkey-gaza-israel-hamas-9ff3aae906aaae71613fb2a9afed2bdd">temporary pauses in the fighting</a>. His continuous <a href="https://news.sky.com/video/president-biden-said-theres-no-possibility-of-a-ceasefire-in-gaza-13004339">refusal to demand a cease-fire</a>, however, is unlikely to appease his critics, including those among <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/19/biden-jewish-americans-israel-gaza-call-for-ceasefire">Jewish-American intellectuals</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/17/letter-biden-israel-ceasefire-legal-scholars">legal scholars</a>, or <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-gaza-cease-fire-no-possibility_n_654d0b36e4b088d9a74da287">the Democratic party</a>. </p>
<p><strong>Republicans (finally) united</strong></p>
<p>The Republican Party, fractured on the issue of Ukraine, is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1206481356/republicans-israel-gop-middle-east-evangelicals-end-times-rapture-christians">united in its support for Israel</a>. The first act of the new Republican House Speaker, Mike Johnson, was to pass <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/us/politics/house-israel-vote.html">a resolution in support of Israel for “whatever it needs”</a> in its fight against Hamas, a resolution passed by an overwhelming majority despite a small group of (mostly) Democratic opponents. Following strong criticism from his rivals in the primaries, even Donald Trump backtracked after <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-netanyahu-biden-rcna120078">lashing out at Netanyahu and praising Hezbollah</a>, calling it “very smart.” The vote of a $14.3b aid package to Israel, however, has been stalled by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/04/johnson-mcconnell-israel-ukraine-spending/">internal divisions over aid to Ukraine</a>.</p>
<p>There are several reasons behind the party’s unwavering support for Israel. One of them is the influence of the white evangelicals, an important <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/06/evangelical-christians-republicans-2024-israel-palestinians">voting bloc for Republicans</a>. Most evangelicals, such as <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/176499/mike-johnson-israel-republican-rise-christian-zionism">new house speaker Mike Johnson</a>, read the events in Israel through <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/15/us/american-evangelicals-israel-hamas.html?smid=nytcore-android-share">a literal interpretation of biblical prophecy about the end times</a>), and God’s promise to Abraham of a land for his descendants. It is to please this group that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BitosOBeHLs">Trump moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem</a>. </p>
<p>Another important element is the great <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/america-first-republicans-isolationist-ukraine-israel-support.html">ideological proximity</a> between the MAGA Republicans and the far-right Israeli coalition in power in Israel. </p>
<p>Finally, let us not forget there has been a growing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/01/new-america-study-report-republicans-muslims-trump-midterms">Islamophobic sentiment among conservatives</a>, especially since 9/11 - a sentiment nurtured and exploited by Trump. In fact, the former president has recently promised to renew the travel ban on nationals of several Muslim-majority countries and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/17/trump-muslim-ban-gaza-refugees">extend it to refugees from Gaza</a> if he wins the presidency.</p>
<p><strong>How might this crisis impact the 2024 elections?</strong></p>
<p>Since the war broke out, public opinion has essentially remained <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-the-israel-gaza-war-changing-us-public-attitudes/">divided along partisan lines</a>. Moreover, with a few exceptions, such as the <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/29/biden-israel-war-jimmy-carter">hostage crisis in 1979</a> or <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43868288">the War on terror in 2004</a>, foreign policy issues have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/21/us/politics/biden-voters-approval-israel.html">rarely determined</a> a national election since the Vietnam war. Even the relatively swift victory in Iraq in 1991 did not prevent George Herbert Walker Bush, who had <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/234971/george-bush-retrospective.aspx">the highest approval rate</a> after the war, from losing the election 18 months later. What matters most to the American voter are day-to-day issues, particularly regarding <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-us-election-key-state-voter-polling/">the economy</a>, or social issues like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/opinion/abortion-presidential-election-biden.html">abortion</a>.</p>
<p>However, the political landscape has changed tremendously in the last two cycles. 2024 could very well be <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/">a close election</a> determined by only a handful of electors in a few swing states, between <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/these-new-poll-numbers-show-why-biden-and-trump-are-stuck-in-a-2024-dead-heat">two uniquely unpopular candidates</a>. </p>
<p>Even if a majority of voters broadly support Israel, Joe Biden might be in trouble if some non-white voters, like <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67337159">Arab-Americans</a> and left-wing <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/biden-risking-2024-over-no-israel-ceasefire">pro-Palestinian youth</a> protest against his stance by not turning out to vote in swing states. For example, a key state like Michigan, which Biden won in 2020 by a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/23/trump-election-michigan-results-439691">narrow margin of 150,000 voters</a>, has a large Muslim population (<a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/muslim-population-by-state">estimated at 240,000</a>) whose leaders are <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/muslim-arab-americans-rage-biden-michigan-israel-gaza-rcna121513">highly critical</a> of Biden’s policy toward the Palestinians.</p>
<p>The elections are a year away, and a lot can change between now and then. Much may depend on how the crisis evolves and on what makes the headlines by then. The official campaign season has not even begun yet. In the meantime, in the face of <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/one-year-into-the-ukraine-war-what-does-the-public-think-about-american-involvement-in-the-world/">rising isolationist sentiment</a>, the American president will have to convince people that the United States is indeed the “indispensable nation” in the fight against tyrants and terrorists who threaten peoples and democracies. He will also have to demonstrate, as he said in his address to the nation, that Putin is as dangerous as Hamas. Above all, he will have to counter the image of a weakened US power, embodied by a president physically marked by his old age, at a time when voters seem more attracted by energy and strength than by experience and competence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216684/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Given its unprecedented scale and nature, could the Israel-Hamas war reshuffle the cards in the U.S. 2024 presidential campaign?Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, Assistant lecturer, CY Cergy Paris UniversitéLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2163092023-10-31T12:34:44Z2023-10-31T12:34:44ZAre journalists serving Virginia’s voters well? Election could offer insights on media on national level<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556325/original/file-20231027-21-u501nd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=826%2C71%2C5164%2C3907&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin gives a thumbs-up during an Economic Club of Washington event on Sept. 26, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/virginia-governor-glenn-youngkin-gives-a-thumbs-up-during-news-photo/1702783557">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Virginia holds elections on Nov. 7, 2023, to fill <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virginia-election-youngkin-e5ba1b4b0349ba7401722ab829b22f02">all 140 seats</a> in the state legislature, the results will likely offer insights on the nation’s political pulse. Voters’ preferences for Democrats or Republicans may well reflect how they feel about Joe Biden or Donald Trump – and about key issues such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/us/politics/abortion-virginia-republicans-youngkin.html">abortion</a>, the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/538/virginias-legislative-contests-important-races-2023/story?id=104299286">economy</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/10/22/virginia-education-poll-results/">public education</a>.</p>
<p>The election also will hold important lessons for the nation’s journalists as they gear up for the 2024 presidential race. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://robertson.vcu.edu/directory/south.html">journalism professor</a> and diligent voter in Virginia, I’ve been closely following the news about the state’s upcoming elections. Much of the reporting has provided readers with stories about candidates’ qualifications and positions on critical issues – the kind of information voters need to cast their ballots.</p>
<p>But I also have seen articles that may discourage voting or undermine the democratic process. Those stories tend to <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/09/11/house-candidate-susanna-gibson-performed-sex-acts-on-webcam-for-tips/">hype fleeting scandals</a> and mostly serve to generate clicks on social media. </p>
<p>What I have learned in my years studying the role of journalism in civic discussion is that democracies are best served when media coverage focuses on issues that affect society and people’s everyday lives and minimizes “horse race” reporting that obsesses over who is ahead in opinion surveys or fundraising. </p>
<h2>At stake in Virginia</h2>
<p>Journalism matters because elections have consequences. </p>
<p>Virginia is the only Southern state that has not put new restrictions on abortion since the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-overturned-supreme-court.html">U.S. Supreme Court</a> overturned Roe v. Wade. The legislative elections probably will determine whether abortions remain <a href="https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacodefull/title18.2/chapter4/article9/">legal in Virginia through the second trimester</a>, or 26 weeks, of a pregnancy. </p>
<p>Virginia’s off-year elections carry national significance because the state is a deep shade of <a href="https://fredericksburg.com/news/local/government-politics/umw-poll-shows-virginia-has-rapidly-returned-to-purple-state-status/article_f46bd2ca-5e0e-11ee-9174-ff1be1fe1493.html">purple</a>. </p>
<p>Virginians <a href="https://rollcall.com/2021/11/16/so-what-color-is-virginia-now/">favored Democrats</a> in the past four presidential contests, but Republicans swept all three statewide races in 2021. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white woman with blonde hair gestures with her hands as she stands in the middle of a crowd of people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Virginia state Senate candidate Russet Perry, a Democrat, speaks to campaign volunteers on Oct. 8, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/leesburg-virginia-virginia-state-senate-candidate-russet-news-photo/1730513107?adppopup=true">Pete Marovich For The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>During the 2023 legislative session, Democrats had a 22-18 majority in the Virginia Senate, and Republicans had a 52-48 majority in the state House of Delegates. Because of redistricting and retirements, there are 11 open seats in the Senate and 33 in the House. </p>
<p>Gov. Glenn Youngkin and GOP donors have <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gov-glenn-youngkin-courts-donors-ahead-high-stakes/story?id=104095977">poured money</a> and political capital into helping Virginia Republicans capture both chambers in order to advance his legislative agenda – and possibly <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/glenn-youngkin-anti-trump-donors-2024-presidential-run/">his presidential ambitions</a>. </p>
<p>As a swing state, Virginia is the testing ground for political parties’ future campaign strategies. </p>
<p>For instance, Virginia’s Republican legislative candidates have <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/will-voters-buy-youngkins-15-week-abortion-ban-gambit.html">echoed Youngkin’s call</a> to prohibit abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy except in cases of rape or incest or to save the mother’s life.</p>
<p>Youngkin <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/25/youngkin-abortion-15-week-elections/">portrays that limit</a> as “reasonable” and “common sense” – an alternative to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html">outright bans</a> that have drawn voter backlash in other states. But Democrats <a href="https://www.virginiamercury.com/2023/10/26/virginia-abortion-battle-could-come-down-to-how-voters-feel-about-the-word-ban/">have called</a> the 15-week proposal <a href="https://richmond.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/youngkins-pac-sets-1-4-million-ad-push-on-abortion-issue/article_2256a7ce-678c-11ee-93e8-1b49cbbcb646.html">a sign</a> that Republicans will impose stricter measures on abortion if they win control of the General Assembly. </p>
<p>Indeed, some Republican candidates say <a href="https://vademocrats.org/news/listen-swing-district-va-gop-candidate-pledges-support-for-100-abortion-ban/">their ultimate goal</a> is to ban all abortions, and Youngkin <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/29/youngkin-abortion-life-conception/">told an anti-abortion group in 2022</a>, “Any bill that comes to my desk I will sign happily and gleefully in order to protect life.”</p>
<h2>Informing the citizenry</h2>
<p>It’s my belief that the most useful news stories for voters are those that drill deep into candidates’ positions on pressing public policies.</p>
<p>What are they saying now, and what have they said in the past? Do they send different messages to different audiences? Have they voted or taken other actions on the issue? Have they courted endorsements, contributions and other support from groups with a vested interest in the matter?</p>
<p>Less useful are stories that treat politics as a competitive sport and fixate on who’s up or down in the polls or in campaign donations. Such “<a href="https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2022/05/09/the-consequences-of-horse-race-reporting-rich-barlow">horse race</a>” journalism may appeal to political junkies, but <a href="https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/horse-race-reporting-election/">research shows</a> that it leaves most people cynical, poorly informed and less likely to vote.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman delivers a speech as stands behind a lectern surrounded by American flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley speaks on abortion in Virginia on April 25, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-hopeful-nikki-haley-speaks-on-news-photo/1252167577?adppopup=true">Stefani ReynoldsAFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Further complicating election coverage is the blizzard of numbers found in polls and surveys that can make people feel that their votes won’t matter. Worse, journalists frequently misinterpret or oversimplify data – ignoring <a href="https://journalistsresource.org/media/margin-error-journalists-surveys-polls/">such factors</a> as the margin of error or methodology. </p>
<p>For example, several news organizations cited a <a href="https://www.wric.com/news/politics/virginians-prefer-youngkin-over-biden-in-hypothetical-presidential-matchup-poll-shows/">Virginia Commonwealth University poll</a> and reported that in a hypothetical presidential matchup, Virginians would favor Youngkin over Biden, 44% to 37%. </p>
<p>But the survey’s margin of error was <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jjg0fNOrXLWovi-9UgCJGgyn3fFt9FGD/view">about 5.5 percentage points</a>. That means Youngkin’s support could have been as low as 38.5% and Biden’s as high as 42.5% – making the results too close to call.</p>
<p>Also problematic are salacious stories like the ones about <a href="https://www.susannagibson.com/">Susanna Gibson</a>, the Democratic Virginia House candidate who performed in <a href="https://apnews.com/article/susanna-gibson-virginia-house-of-delegates-sex-acts-9e0fa844a3ba176f79109f7393073454">livestreamed sex shows</a> with her husband.</p>
<p>In a competitive media environment driven by social networking, it is hard for journalists to ignore such scandals. But reporters should be honest about the story’s genesis – instead of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/09/11/susanna-gibson-sex-website-virginia-candidate/">shielding the identity</a> of the Republican operative who tipped them off. </p>
<p>And some outlets seized any opportunity to revisit the controversy, no matter how trivial the <a href="https://themessenger.com/politics/virginia-dem-susanna-gibson-dips-in-polls-following-sex-show-scandal">news peg</a>.</p>
<p>A final step journalists can take in covering elections is to unpack the shorthand that politicians employ to curry votes. Candidates routinely use focus group-tested catchphrases that sound as appealing as apple pie but obscure far-reaching implications.</p>
<p>For example, when Democrats promote “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/virginia-election-prosecutors-primary-f3322cfed456ffbd7ba9d50f0b9d511a">criminal justice reform</a>,” do they mean eliminating cash bail even for people accused of violent crimes? </p>
<p>And when Republicans tout “<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2023/03/24/glenn-youngkin-2024-parental-rights/11487311002/">parental rights</a>,” would they allow a minority of vocal parents to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/09/28/virginia-frequent-school-book-challenger-spotsylvania/">dictate the school curriculum</a> for all students?</p>
<p>After Virginia’s election, the focus of the national political coverage will turn to the 2024 presidential race – and what happens in Virginia may not stay in Virginia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216309/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeff South does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With the balance of political power at stake in the Virginia legislature, voters in this key swing state may reveal clues for the 2024 presidential election.Jeff South, Associate professor emeritus, Journalism, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149412023-10-04T00:06:06Z2023-10-04T00:06:06ZWhy was the US House speaker just ousted from his job? And what does it mean for the Republican Party?<p>US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been ousted – in a move initiated by members of his own Republican Party – from the second-most important post in the American government. </p>
<p>It was the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/mccarthy-gaetz-speaker-motion-to-vacate-congress-327e294a39f8de079ef5e4abfb1fa555">first time</a> in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/10/03/joseph-cannon-speaker-motion-vacate/">US history</a> a speaker had been voted out in this way. As speaker of the House of Representatives, McCarthy was the most powerful single individual in the legislative branch, able to directly impact government policies from national security to infrastructure investments.</p>
<p>In the next few days, the House of Representatives will attempt to elect a new speaker. All other business is postponed until the speakership is resolved. This process is likely to be lengthy, awkward and difficult to watch. </p>
<p>The next few days will be a not-very-subtle reminder to the world that American politics remain divided and divisive.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kevin-mccarthys-leadership-is-an-open-question-as-budget-shutdown-looms-and-gop-infighting-takes-center-stage-213951">Kevin McCarthy's leadership is an open question as budget shutdown looms and GOP infighting takes center stage</a>
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<h2>Why did McCarthy lose his position?</h2>
<p>The root causes of McCarthy’s exit are many – naked ambition, personal animus, the narrow majority of House Republicans, the confidence of the far-right wing of the Republican Party, Democrats’ willingness to step aside during the Republican turmoil and the apparently unending appeal of performative politics in the US.</p>
<p>The immediate author of McCarthy’s removal is his chief antagonist, Representative <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/03/who-is-matt-gaetz-the-congressman-who-led-the-ouster-of-kevin-mccarthy">Matt Gaetz</a> of Florida, who called for the vote to “vacate the chair”. Gaetz is a right-wing, Trump loyalist, political performer who has become a notorious disrupter in the US government.</p>
<p>Gaetz has been under scrutiny himself after it was reported two years ago that the US Department of Justice was investigating him for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/us/politics/matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-investigation.html">alleged sex trafficking</a>. The case was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/15/matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-case-closed-without-charges">closed</a> earlier this year, without any charges being brought. </p>
<p>No one is talking about those allegations today. Most political operatives expect Gaetz to use his new-found “success” in the House to run for governor of Florida in 2026 when the current governor and Republican presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis, is due to leave office due to term limits.</p>
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<h2>Will the chaos hurt Republicans?</h2>
<p>The chaos that is now roiling the House follows several weeks of brinkmanship over the budget, with a government shutdown <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/01/politics/shutdown-congress-mccarthy-republicans/index.html#:%7E:text=The%20US%20government%20has%20barely,signed%20the%20bill%20into%20law.">narrowly avoided</a> over the weekend. </p>
<p>Add to the mix a Republican presidential front runner (Donald Trump) <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/trump-charges-jan-6-classified-documents/">facing 91 charges over four criminal cases</a> and a multitude of court appearances over the next few months, and the political dysfunction in the United States may only get more intense.</p>
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<p>President Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress likely enjoy seeing their opponents slaughter each other. And indeed, the disarray among Republicans may help Democrats stay unified despite their own internal tensions.</p>
<p>Republicans, however, have <a href="https://time.com/6317658/government-shutdown-gop-elections-virginia/">not always suffered</a> at the ballot box following congressional melees. After a GOP-led <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/heres-happened-time-government-shut/story?id=26997023">government shutdown</a> during the Obama administration in 2013, Republicans <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/04/us-midterm-elections-republican-wins-senate-takeover">won control</a> of the Senate in 2014.</p>
<p>Also, Biden isn’t <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/29/biden-age-tired-franklin-foer-book-last-politician">getting any younger</a> and it is not entirely clear he can handle the full-time job of American commander-in-chief until 2028. There are plenty of competent Gen-X Democrats – the governors of California, Michigan and Pennsylvania leap to mind – who may not stay quiet as Biden’s age becomes more of an issue in the lead-up to next year’s election. </p>
<p>If one of these ambitious youngsters decides to throw their hat in the ring, the Democrats may show the world their own version of chaos.</p>
<p>Foreign capitals no doubt see this turmoil and question the long-term reliability of Washington. Is it a harbinger of Trump’s return to the White House? Maybe so. Or just as likely – the Republican chaos turns off the swing voters in American suburbs and they become more willing to vote for Biden, the ageing incumbent.</p>
<p>In other words, American voters remain divided right down the middle.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/americas-leaders-are-older-than-theyve-ever-been-why-didnt-the-founding-fathers-foresee-this-as-a-problem-213653">America's leaders are older than they've ever been. Why didn't the founding fathers foresee this as a problem?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lester Munson receives funding from and is a Non-Resident Fellow at the United States Studies Centre. He is affiliated with BGR Group, a government relations firm in Washington, D.C. He is also adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University.</span></em></p>Foreign capitals no doubt see this turmoil and question the long-term reliability of Washington.Lester Munson, Non-resident fellow, United States Studies Centre, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2131942023-09-13T12:26:47Z2023-09-13T12:26:47ZWisconsin GOP’s impeachment threat against state Supreme Court justice is unsupported by law and would undermine judicial independence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547861/original/file-20230912-17-1iffo7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3988%2C2664&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Janet Protasiewicz is sworn in as a state Supreme Court justice at the Wisconsin Capitol on Aug. 1, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/janet-protasiewicz-is-sworn-in-for-her-position-as-a-state-news-photo/1650195603?adppopup=true">Sara Stathas for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wisconsin’s April 2023 state Supreme Court election was historic. It was the nation’s <a href="https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/mega-donors-fuel-over-40-million-in-donations-for-record-shattering-2023-wisconsin-supreme-court-race/">most expensive judicial race ever</a>, with <a href="https://www.wisdc.org/news/press-releases/139-press-release-2023/7390-wisconsin-supreme-court-race-cost-record-51m">over US$50 million</a> in total spending, and it <a href="https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-supreme-court-election-turnout-record-bac438d1d79e32f0bacdc7d5966adf75">broke turnout records</a> for an off-cycle spring election. </p>
<p>Janet Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee circuit court judge and self-described progressive, won an 11-percentage point victory, shifting the court’s <a href="https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/2023-wisconsin-supreme-court-race-results-in-a-new-majority/">ideological balance of power</a> at a moment when major legal clashes over abortion and redistricting are looming.</p>
<p>Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature is <a href="https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-redistricting-republicans-legislature-2a528003e32c3f51f9ef036f6d13f52e">now demanding</a> that Protasiewicz recuse from – that is, excuse herself from – considering two recently filed lawsuits that challenge the state’s legislative maps, which heavily favor the GOP, as unlawful partisan gerrymanders. They argue that she cannot be fair because during her campaign in the nonpartisan judicial race, she received <a href="https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=2983981">millions of dollars</a> from the state Democratic Party and criticized the state’s Republican-drawn maps as “<a href="https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/janet-protasiewicz-daniel-kelly-on-wisconsin-redistricting/">rigged</a>.” </p>
<p>For their part, the state <a href="https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=2609919&default=candidate">Republican Party</a> and <a href="https://www.wisdc.org/news/press-releases/139-press-release-2023/7390-wisconsin-supreme-court-race-cost-record-51m">its allies</a> spent millions backing Protasiewicz’s opponent, who once defended a prior version of the maps in court. </p>
<p>Legislators are <a href="https://www.thecentersquare.com/wisconsin/article_5acb7cb2-41d8-11ee-a6b7-b7ae77ba7816.html">threatening to impeach</a> Protasiewicz if she hears the cases.</p>
<p>As this controversy unfolds, it is important to know the law and practice of judicial recusal and impeachment in Wisconsin and beyond – a topic that <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=H7SA6WQAAAAJ">we</a>, <a href="https://law.wisc.edu/profiles/dclinger@wisc.edu">as scholars</a> of state courts and constitutions, have <a href="https://statedemocracy.law.wisc.edu/featured/2023/explainer-judicial-recusal-in-wisconsin-and-beyond/">studied closely</a>. </p>
<p>In short, recusal is rare, and impeachment is even rarer.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547863/original/file-20230912-17-d0dwof.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a blue blazer, blue shirt and tie speaking in front of a flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547863/original/file-20230912-17-d0dwof.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547863/original/file-20230912-17-d0dwof.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547863/original/file-20230912-17-d0dwof.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547863/original/file-20230912-17-d0dwof.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547863/original/file-20230912-17-d0dwof.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547863/original/file-20230912-17-d0dwof.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547863/original/file-20230912-17-d0dwof.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and fellow members of the GOP want Justice Janet Protasiewicz to recuse herself on gerrymandering cases.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/WisconsinSupremeCourt/46c7dbd35909461fbc0933b3f920608e/photo?Query=Wisconsin%20supreme%20court&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=533&currentItemNo=48">AP Photo/Andy Manis, File</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Judges rarely recuse based on campaign activity</h2>
<p>The U.S. Constitution <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/sixth_amendment">guarantees the right to an impartial judge</a>. Additionally, every state has binding rules that prohibit judges from hearing cases involving situations deemed to pose an unacceptable risk of bias, such as when the judge is related to a party in the case or has a personal financial stake in the outcome. </p>
<p>Judges, however, are rarely required to recuse because of views expressed while campaigning or because they received campaign support from someone interested in a case.</p>
<p>When it comes to campaign statements, the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2001/01-521">held in 2002</a> that judicial candidates have a First Amendment right to offer their opinions on disputed legal and political issues. Judges, the court recognized, are not blank slates. Whether on the campaign trail or elsewhere, they commonly develop and express views on issues, including ones they later encounter in court. Yet the law presumes that they remain able to adjudicate evenhandedly. Judicial candidates go too far only when they directly promise to make a particular ruling in a case.</p>
<p>As for campaign funds, the U.S. Supreme Court has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/us/politics/09scotus.html">only once held</a> that a judge violated due process – the Constitution’s guarantee of fundamental fairness – by hearing a case involving a financial backer. That 2009 case involved a West Virginia Supreme Court justice whose campaign received most of its support from the head of a coal company who had recently lost a $50 million jury verdict. Shortly after taking office, the justice cast the deciding vote to wipe out that verdict on appeal. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2008/08-22">Dividing 5-4, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded</a> that, taken together, those facts required recusal. But the majority repeatedly stressed that it was “an exceptional case” involving “an extraordinary situation” with facts that were “extreme by any measure.” </p>
<p>The decision has turned out to be one of a kind. We are not aware of any subsequent case, in any court, finding that due process barred a judge from hearing a case because an interested party supported the judge’s campaign. </p>
<p>Wisconsin’s <a href="https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/rules/chap60.pdf">judicial ethics code</a> – essentially the official, legally enforceable rule book for the state’s judges – confirms that judges are generally allowed to hear cases involving campaign supporters. It states that “a judge shall not be required to recuse … based solely on … the judge’s campaign committee’s receipt of a lawful campaign contribution, including a campaign contribution from an individual or entity involved in the proceeding.” The Wisconsin Supreme Court <a href="https://www.wisbar.org/NewsPublications/Pages/General-Article.aspx?ArticleID=5794">added this language</a> to the code in 2010, after two of the largest financial backers of the state’s conservative justices filed petitions proposing the change. The court <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2017/04/20/wisconsin-supreme-court-weighs-recusal-rules-when-campaign-donors-litigants/100644698/">rejected calls</a> to revisit this rule in 2017. </p>
<p>In Wisconsin and nationwide, <a href="https://statedemocracy.law.wisc.edu/featured/2023/explainer-judicial-recusal-in-wisconsin-and-beyond/">judges have repeatedly declined to recuse</a> themselves based on their campaign statements and financial supporters. </p>
<p>In Wisconsin’s five most recent contested Supreme Court elections, the winning candidates all had <a href="https://www.wisdc.org/follow-the-money/31-nonpartisan-candidates/656-wisconsin-supreme-court-finance-summaries">million-dollar backers</a>. Yet none of those justices has ever recused on that basis, or even been formally asked to do so. In <a href="https://statedemocracy.law.wisc.edu/featured/2023/explainer-judicial-recusal-in-wisconsin-and-beyond/#Other">redistricting cases specifically</a>, justices in North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere have participated despite financial and other ties to one or the other major political party.</p>
<h2>Judicial impeachment uncommon, reserved for serious wrongdoing</h2>
<p>At <a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/about-federal-judges">the federal level</a> and <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/about-state-legislatures/separation-of-powers-impeachment">in nearly every state</a>, lawmakers have the power to impeach judges. That authority, however, is traditionally limited to extreme circumstances and has been exercised sparingly.</p>
<p>In Wisconsin, judges – and other officials – can be impeached only for “<a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2011/related/wiscon/_17">corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors</a>.” The state Assembly can impeach by majority vote, but it takes a two-thirds majority in the state Senate to convict. Republicans currently hold nearly two-thirds of the seats in the Assembly and exactly two-thirds in the Senate. </p>
<p>Only once in Wisconsin’s 175-year history has <a href="https://statedemocracy.law.wisc.edu/research/2023/research-materials-on-1853-impeachment-of-judge-levi-hubbell/">a judge been impeached</a>. That was in 1853, when Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Levi Hubbell faced 11 articles of impeachment. Allegations ranged from accepting a $200 bribe – about $8,000 today – from a litigant to ruling on loans and debts he purchased through middlemen and taking the court’s money for personal use. Following a trial, the state Senate acquitted him.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547864/original/file-20230912-15-fscnui.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An antique photo of a white-haired man with a white beard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547864/original/file-20230912-15-fscnui.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547864/original/file-20230912-15-fscnui.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547864/original/file-20230912-15-fscnui.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547864/original/file-20230912-15-fscnui.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547864/original/file-20230912-15-fscnui.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547864/original/file-20230912-15-fscnui.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547864/original/file-20230912-15-fscnui.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The one Wisconsin judge impeached in the state’s history: Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Levi Hubbell, who faced 11 articles of impeachment. Following a trial, the state Senate acquitted him.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wicourts.gov/courts/supreme/justices/retired/hubbell.htm">Wisconsin Court System</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most states have likewise had no more than one or two judicial impeachments in their histories, and Congress has impeached only <a href="https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/impeachments-federal-judges">15 federal judges</a>. Since the 1990s, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/05/us/pennsylvania-senate-convicts-a-state-justice.html">Pennsylvania</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/11/us/new-hampshire-supreme-court-justice-is-acquitted-in-his-impeachment-trial.html">New Hampshire</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/west-virginia-impeach-supreme-court.html">West Virginia</a> are the only states to have impeached a judge, and only the Pennsylvania judge was convicted and removed.</p>
<p>Most past judicial impeachments, whether they have resulted in conviction or not, have involved allegations of criminal acts or other flagrant misdeeds. None rested on a judge’s nonrecusal from a case involving campaign statements or supporters.</p>
<p>Impeachment threats have been <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer">more common</a> than actual impeachments, so it remains to be seen whether Wisconsin lawmakers will indeed follow through. </p>
<p>Protasiewicz or her allies could challenge an attempted impeachment in state court, as has happened in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/10/impeachment-west-virginias-supreme-court/574495/">some other states</a>. <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2023/09/11/lawsuit-seeks-to-block-gop-from-impeaching-protasiewicz/70827248007/">One lawsuit</a> has already been filed. With little governing precedent, it is uncertain exactly how events might unfold.</p>
<p>The stakes could hardly be higher. The impeachment of a recently elected justice based on lawful campaign conduct and a legally grounded decision not to recuse would negate the people’s votes for Protasiewicz, in our view striking a blow to the principle of judicial independence. </p>
<p>It could also be a setback for efforts to overhaul Wisconsin’s electoral maps, which <a href="https://planscore.org/wisconsin/#!2020-plan-statehouse-eg">standard gerrymandering metrics</a> rate as among the <a href="https://statedemocracy.law.wisc.edu/featured/2022/explainer-wisconsins-new-state-legislative-maps-compare-unfavorably-to-other-court-adopted-maps-on-partisan-equity/">most politically skewed</a> in the country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213194/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Impeaching a recently elected Wisconsin Supreme Court justice for conduct neither criminal nor corrupt would negate the people’s votes – and strike a blow at judicial independence.Robert Yablon, Associate Professor of Law, Co-Director of the State Democracy Research Initiative, University of Wisconsin-MadisonDerek Clinger, Senior Staff Attorney, State Democracy Research Initiative, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2082752023-08-08T12:28:52Z2023-08-08T12:28:52ZWhen Confederate-glorifying monuments went up in the South, voting in Black areas went down<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541540/original/file-20230807-32816-6usu56.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C0%2C4556%2C3136&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators hold Confederate flags near the monument for Confederacy President Jefferson Davis on June 25, 2015, in Richmond, Va., after it was spray-painted with the phrase 'Black Lives Matter.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/DavisStatueVandalized/ebf030ed819f4497a47fa322218756f4/photo?Query=Confederate%20monuments&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1935&currentItemNo=139">AP Photo/Steve Helber</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Confederate monuments <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/09/421531368/south-carolina-gov-nikki-haley-to-sign-confederate-flag-bill-into-law">burst into public consciousness in 2015</a> when a shooting at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, instigated the first broad calls for their removal. The shooter intended to start a race war and had posed with Confederate imagery in photos posted online.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/16/us/confederate-monuments-removed.html">Monument removal efforts grew in 2017</a> after a counterprotester was killed at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacist groups defended the preservation of Confederate monuments. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970610428/nearly-100-confederate-monuments-removed-in-2020-report-says-more-than-700-remai">Removal movements saw widespread success in 2020</a> following George Floyd’s death at the hands of the police.</p>
<p>These events <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/16/us/racist-statues-controversial-monuments-in-america-robert-lee-columbus/index.html">linked Confederate monuments to modern racist beliefs</a> and acts. But whether monuments carry inherent racism or are merely misinterpreted requires further exploration.</p>
<p><a href="http://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.20211067">Research by economist Jhacova A. Williams has shown</a> that Black Americans who live in areas that have a relatively higher number of streets named after prominent Confederate generals “are less likely to be employed, are more likely to be employed in low-status occupations, and have lower wages compared to Whites.” </p>
<p><a href="https://alexntaylor.github.io">I study economic and political history</a> and have researched the effects of <a href="http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4451402">Confederate monuments in the post-Civil War South</a>. I found that these symbols helped solidify the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Jim-Crow-law">Jim Crow era</a>, which established segregation across the South and lasted from the 1880s until the 1960s. These symbols were accompanied by increases in the vote share of the <a href="https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow">Democratic Party – the racist party</a> that had supported slavery and, after the Civil War, supported segregation for another century. The building of these monuments was also accompanied by reductions in voter turnout. Further research I conducted shows that these political effects disproportionately occurred in areas with a larger share of Black residents. </p>
<p>In other words, as these monuments were erected, the vote increased for members of the then-racist Democratic Party, and people turned out to vote in lower numbers in predominantly Black areas.</p>
<p>These findings demonstrate that a connection existed between racism and these monuments from their inception – and provide context for modern monument debates.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People hold a large tarpaulin beneath a statue of a man riding a horse." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541554/original/file-20230807-25-tgnnsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richmond, Va., city workers prepare to drape a tarp over a statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ConfederateMonumentsProtest/31b060bdbdd84f349a5bc96319bcccc3/photo">AP Photo/Steve Helber</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Monumental history</h2>
<p>The South saw almost no monument dedications during the Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865. <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/com_whose_heritage_timeline_print.pdf">Monuments first appeared during the Reconstruction era</a> – 1865 to 1877 – when Southern states were occupied by the North and integrated back into the Union. </p>
<p>Reconstruction-era monuments in general <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/ghosts-of-the-confederacy-9780195054200?cc=be&lang=en&#">did not glorify the Confederacy</a>. These monuments largely honored the dead and were placed in cemeteries and spaces distant from daily life. They compartmentalized the trauma of the war, commemorating lives but not placing the Confederacy at the center of Southern identity.</p>
<p>As Reconstruction neared its end in 1875, a <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2015651796/">Stonewall Jackson monument erected in Richmond, Virginia</a>, foreshadowed the different monuments to come. </p>
<p>The monument’s dedication drew 50,000 spectators and included a military-style parade. The potential presence of a local all-Black militia <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674008199">proved to be controversial</a>. To avoid accusations of race mixing, organizers planned to place the militia and any other Black participants in the back of the parade. </p>
<p>The militia did not attend, likely in anticipation of the controversy, and the only Black Southerners present in the parade were formerly enslaved people who had served in the <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/stonewall-brigade/">Confederacy’s Stonewall Brigade</a>. This stark picture of Southern race relations served as a preview of political developments to come.</p>
<p>This trend continued after Reconstruction, which ended with the <a href="https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/jimcrow/struggle_president.html">Compromise of 1877</a>. This compromise settled the disputed 1876 presidential election, giving Republicans the presidency and <a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813108131/the-life-and-death-of-the-solid-south/">Democrats, then a pro-segregation party</a>, full political control of the South. Democrats subsequently established what would become known as <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312302412/americannightmare">Jim Crow laws</a> across the South, an array of restrictive and discriminatory laws that disenfranchised Black Southerners and made them second-class citizens.</p>
<p>Monuments played a cultural role in establishing the Jim Crow South. Unlike Reconstruction monuments, post-Reconstruction monuments were erected in prominent public spaces, and their focus shifted toward the portrayal and glorification of famous Confederates. Monument dedication ceremonies were particularly popular around the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/whose-heritage">peaking in 1911</a>.</p>
<p>Additional Confederate monuments have been dedicated since that period, but those numbers pale in comparison to the monument-building spree of 1878 to 1912.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two flags fly near a monument to a soldier." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541556/original/file-20230807-32733-ogjdti.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Mississippi state and U.S. flags fly near the Rankin County Confederate Monument in the downtown square of Brandon, Miss., on March 3, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ConfederateMemorialDay/337ff60bdb974c22ab9798576adc1d15/photo">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Monumental effects</h2>
<p><a href="http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4451402">My research</a> investigates the political effects of Confederate monuments in the Reconstruction and early post-Reconstruction – 1877-1912 – eras, namely their effects on Democratic Party vote share and voter turnout.</p>
<p>I expected monuments’ potential effects to be directly related to their centrality to everyday life and glorification of the Confederacy. This is the primary difference between soldier-memorializing Reconstruction and Confederate-glorifying post-Reconstruction monuments. </p>
<p>I expected to find little political effect from soldier-memorializing Reconstruction monuments, but some pro-Jim Crow effects from Confederate-glorifying post-Reconstruction monuments. As monuments moved from cemeteries into central public spaces such as parks and squares, I expected them to affect voters’ decisions.</p>
<p>That is precisely what I found. </p>
<p>During Reconstruction, counties that dedicated Confederate monuments saw no change in voter turnout or Democratic Party vote share in biennial congressional elections. These symbols were soldier-memorializing and physically separate from public life and did not influence voter decision-making.</p>
<p>However, when monuments began to glorify the Confederacy and shifted into public life, political effects emerged. </p>
<p>Counties that dedicated monuments in the early post-Reconstruction period saw, on average, a 5.5 percentage point increase in Democratic Party vote share and a 2.2 percentage point decrease in voter turnout compared with other counties.</p>
<p>As monuments changed, so did their effect on the public. Glorifying public monuments communicated to the public that the Confederacy was worth preserving, thus strengthening Democratic majorities and lowering participation in the political process.</p>
<p>Larger Democratic majorities alongside lower voter turnout already suggests Black Southerners, who almost exclusively voted for Republicans at that time, were voting less in areas with monuments. I conducted further exploration and found that these political effects disproportionately occurred in counties with larger Black populations. This suggests that Black voters were more responsive to Confederate monuments, which suppressed their political activity by signaling they were not accepted by the local community.</p>
<p>The effects of post-Reconstruction monuments suggest that they played a role in continued racism throughout the South into the early 20th century. </p>
<p>Their controversy today demonstrates the values still conveyed by their presence in society. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad014">Recent research</a> has demonstrated the long-run effects of the spread of Southern white culture and prejudices across the United States post-Civil War, connecting it to higher levels of modern-day Republican Party voting and conservative values. </p>
<p>It is thus no wonder Confederate monuments, as prominent symbols of pro-Confederate, Southern white culture, continue to be – and are likely to remain – cultural flashpoints.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208275/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander N. Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The drive to remove Confederate monuments links those monuments to modern racism. An economic historian shows that the intent and effect of those monuments from inception was to perpetuate racism.Alexander N. Taylor, PhD Candidate in Economics, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2091382023-07-06T03:50:33Z2023-07-06T03:50:33ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: Author Bruce Wolpe on the “shocking” consequences for Australia of a Trump 24 win<p>Next year’s American presidential election is shaping up to be extraordinary. Donald Trump is favoured to be the Republican candidate, despite facing multiple charges over removing classified documents. President Joe Biden has indicated he intends to run again, despite the fact he’ll be 82 at the time of the poll and 86 if he completed another four-year term.</p>
<p>In this podcast, author Bruce Wolpe - a senior fellow at the United States Centre at the University of Sydney, who previously worked with the Democratic Party in Congress, discusses his new book “Trump’s Australia”. Wolpe argues a second Trump term would have shocking consequences for Australia.</p>
<p>Wolpe says “as of now”, Biden is certain to run again. “The only thing that would upset that would be if there was a severe health issue that would prevent him from acting as president […] As far as Donald Trump is concerned, I see his chances of being the [Republican] nominee as over 50%. His chances of prevailing in the election is slightly under 50%.”</p>
<p>Wolpe paints a bleak outlook if Trump were to win a second term: “It would look like the first term, but only worse.”</p>
<p>“I talked to senior foreign policy officials, Americans and Australians, Liberal and Labor, Democrat and Republican, serving Republican and Democratic presidents and prime ministers from both parties. I asked them, what do you expect of Trump in a second term? And they said, he will never change. </p>
<p>"He is erratic, unhinged. He governs in chaos and that will continue, he is arrogant […] He is completely transactional. In other words, he’s not motivated by any moral considerations or ideological considerations.”</p>
<p>Wolpe believes that Australia is a “big echo chamber of US news”: “You get up early in the morning, turn on the news, and given the news cycle, what you hear on most days is from the United States, and that became really apparent with Trump […] There are some elements of the Australian political culture that really absorb it and really like it, and they’re animated about it.</p>
<p>"We have Trump attacking the media and saying fake news. And just guess what? Australian politicians, when they don’t want to answer a question, they say, Oh, that’s fake news. So these things leach into Australian society, the Australian dialogue.</p>
<p>"But then the question is, does Australia adopt Trump policies? </p>
<p>"We did not have stuff against transgender people, those candidates failed. We don’t have controls on books in libraries or attempts to do it, or teaching Indigenous history. Those culture war buttons that Trump and other Republicans push, they don’t have much prominence here, and that’s a really good thing.</p>
<p>"I think Australian democracy is extremely strong. Australia will continue to be an echo chamber, but I’m hopeful about how Australia can manage the incoming from the United States.”</p>
<p>Wolpe says if Trump were to win a second term, Australian democracy would survive, but questions whether the alliance between the two countries would. “America and Australia aligned because of the values they share. That means fidelity to democracy, human rights, rule of law. And if those things don’t exist in the United States, what are we to be aligned with?”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209138/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In this podcast, Michelle chats with Bruce Wolpe about the prospect of second Trump term, and what implications that will have for AustraliaMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2052622023-05-16T16:53:46Z2023-05-16T16:53:46ZBiden’s strength is consensus, but America is increasingly divided. Can he win again?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526347/original/file-20230515-26865-krcr2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C8135%2C5407&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. President Joe Biden goes on a bike ride in Rehoboth Beach, Del., on May 14, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/biden-s-strength-is-consensus--but-america-is-increasingly-divided--can-he-win-again" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The reasons why United States President Joe Biden has <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/25/1145679856/biden-president-announcement-2024-running-reelection">decided to run for a second term</a> are obvious. Presidential power is hard to give up, and time goes by very quickly amid the unfathomable demands placed on the office. </p>
<p>If past patterns are still in place, Biden can also expect to win in 2024. Most presidents are re-elected — since 1901, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/how-many-us-presidents-lost-second-term-b1640998.html">very few have failed to win second terms</a>.</p>
<p>What’s more interesting is the reason why Biden — <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/-old-80-year-old-biden-works-combat-worries-age-re-election-bid-rcna80993">despite concerns about his age</a> — continues to be the Democratic Party’s standard bearer. What does this say about the evolving state of American national politics?</p>
<h2>The anti-Trump</h2>
<p>Biden is arguably a provisional figure, and the prospect of his continuing tenure in office demonstrates that the U.S. has not yet moved on from the chaos generated by Donald Trump’s 2016 election. </p>
<p>In 2020, Biden was considered an adequate anti-Trump figure. Despite running a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/unsinkable-joe-biden-many-months-many-gaffes-later-biden-still-n1109776">relatively lacklustre campaign</a>, Biden’s unobtrusive nature allowed him to emerge as the consensus candidate of a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-united-states-government-us-democratic-party-mexico-7f6ca4a312f42eb4f1d08878ea94c369">divided Democratic party</a> that was nonetheless united in its intent on removing Trump. </p>
<p>Biden’s presidency has therefore been meant to serve two roles — first, to project a state of normalcy in contrast to the unpredictability of the Trump years and, second, to maintain access to power while the party coalesces internally. </p>
<p>This, of course, didn’t mean that Biden had no ideas. He arrived at the Oval Office with an experienced team that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/07/which-trump-regulations-were-overturned-biden/619583/">quickly overturned several Trump-era initiatives</a> and, through his <a href="https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2023/02/03/its-an-astonishingly-ambitious-agenda-joe-bidens-plan-to-remake-americas-economy">$2.2 trillion infrastructure plan</a>, implemented an ambitious agenda.</p>
<p>However, it’s clear that Biden’s personal approach to politics — people-centric, morally decent, pragmatic and consensus-driven — is now a part of the past given the extreme political polarization and distrust in democratic institutions that’s taken hold in post-Trump America.</p>
<p>The normalcy and state of national unity that Biden has pursued seem no longer attainable. </p>
<p>Since the Democrats’ <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-08/democrats-shouldn-t-be-shocked-by-miserable-midterm-election-results">underwhelming performance in the 2022 mid-term elections</a>, his intention to return the United States to normalcy has stalled. Concerns about the economy have caused the president’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-approval-rating-edges-lower-amid-economic-concerns-reutersipsos-2023-04-19/">approval ratings to dip</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A grey-haired man in a dark suit and sunglasses salutes as he disembarks a plane." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526351/original/file-20230515-24689-gvwioa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526351/original/file-20230515-24689-gvwioa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526351/original/file-20230515-24689-gvwioa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526351/original/file-20230515-24689-gvwioa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526351/original/file-20230515-24689-gvwioa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526351/original/file-20230515-24689-gvwioa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526351/original/file-20230515-24689-gvwioa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. President Joe Biden salutes as he boards Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Del., on May 15, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Biden’s strength now his weakness</h2>
<p>Biden’s approach to the presidency is also fundamentally disjointed from the current political environment. </p>
<p>His instinct is to operate according to what <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0268-2141.2003.00054.x">American political scientist Stephen Skowronek calls the “politics of articulation.”</a> This is defined as a focus on negotiated, moderate and incremental adjustments to a prevailing public policy framework that is able to command near-unanimous support across party lines. </p>
<p>For Biden, this approach remains unchanged.</p>
<p>Throughout his Senate career, for example, Biden as a Democrat was able to find common ground with both <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/us/politics/biden-segregationists.html">southern segregationists and Republicans</a> because they were in agreement on the bigger picture: the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470693599.ch8">social welfare state</a> and, from the 1990s onward, global neoliberalism. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-exactly-is-neoliberalism-84755">What exactly is neoliberalism?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Most federal politicians generally agreed on the need for a powerful federal government on social policy, the deregulation of international trade and a powerful military presence throughout the world. </p>
<p>But no longer. Instead, the Republican and Democratic parties are embracing distinct and mutually exclusive visions with no possibility for common ground. </p>
<p>The country has <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/">increasingly split into two distinctive and geographically confined camps</a>. As a result, the sort of personal, non-partisan Senate politics that Biden excelled at is no longer attainable as a model for federal policymaking. </p>
<p>For the immediate future, no president can hope to achieve national unity and it seems almost impossible that any American leader could earn approval ratings higher than 60 per cent. </p>
<p>Instead, it seems like Biden is now having to rely on the flawed alternative technique of Skowronek’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12367">“politics of disjunction.”</a> This approach involves presidents operating according to an older style of governing despite the fact that there is a breakdown of state and social relations as ideologies change dramatically.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A balding man speaks into the ear of another man with a full head of wavy salt-and-pepper hair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526352/original/file-20230515-39291-vkxf8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526352/original/file-20230515-39291-vkxf8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526352/original/file-20230515-39291-vkxf8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526352/original/file-20230515-39291-vkxf8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526352/original/file-20230515-39291-vkxf8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526352/original/file-20230515-39291-vkxf8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526352/original/file-20230515-39291-vkxf8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 1987 photo, Biden, then the Senate judiciary chairman, speaks with Sen. Edward Kennedy on Capitol Hill.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/John Duricka, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>No one really wins</h2>
<p>There is now an escalating conflict in the U.S. that only one side can truly win, even if that means by forcing the other side to bend to the will of the victor.</p>
<p>But can the traditional institutional structures of the American republic survive this tumultuous period? </p>
<p>Biden’s political approach isn’t going to fulfil the aspirations of either Democrats or Republicans, which could pave the way to the manipulation of both <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/04/15/987723528/democrats-unveil-long-shot-plan-to-expand-size-of-supreme-court-from-9-to-13">judicial</a> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/01/gop-contest-elections-tapes-00035758">and electoral</a> institutions.</p>
<p>So is Biden likely to win a second term given these new realities? </p>
<p>The answer here lies in another important aspect of the current American political scene. While bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill had been declining for some time, Trump was a destructive force who fuelled its near total annihilation. He is a political disruptor who is able to attack what he’s against but struggles to offer positive and enduring replacements.</p>
<p>When he lost the election in 2020, he left behind a deconstructed machine — an unorganized array of parts that need to be reassembled into something new. But there’s yet to emerge an electable alternative who will earn widespread public and elite support. </p>
<p>Biden makes this clear in his own campaign announcement, effectively framing his appeal around the argument that there are no alternatives. His campaign has painted the entire Republican party as extremists and framed the coming election as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/25/politics/joe-biden-running-2024/index.html">nothing less than a “battle for the soul of America.”</a></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A blond man in a blue suit and red tie grimaces as he gestures in front of a podium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526354/original/file-20230515-33248-5sc62o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526354/original/file-20230515-33248-5sc62o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526354/original/file-20230515-33248-5sc62o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526354/original/file-20230515-33248-5sc62o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526354/original/file-20230515-33248-5sc62o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526354/original/file-20230515-33248-5sc62o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526354/original/file-20230515-33248-5sc62o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former president Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in April 2023 in Manchester, N.H.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Charles Krupa)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Common disdain</h2>
<p>Within the Democratic Party, Biden has been effective as a coalition-builder of the party’s factions, suggesting a common disdain for Trump may be enough to keep the party united with him at the helm. He also benefits from the fact that he has no clear successor. </p>
<p>But Biden may also stay in power because the Republicans have yet to work out their ongoing relationship with Trump.</p>
<p>The former president’s conduct not only allows Biden to stay on as a candidate, it also keeps the Republican party in a holding pattern in terms of the necessary task of developing a more positive, forward-looking and institutionalized approach to policymaking. </p>
<p>A presidential race that once again pits Biden against Trump not only represents a repeat of 2020, but it will fail to move the dial in any significant way for the American public. Instead, to best move forward beyond this tumultuous era, both parties may need to find new leadership and new ideas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205262/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam Routley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Republican and Democratic parties are increasingly coming to embrace distinctive and mutually exclusive visions with no possibility for common ground. What does that mean for Joe Biden in 2024?Sam Routley, PhD Student, Political Science, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2046082023-05-05T12:13:22Z2023-05-05T12:13:22ZBiden’s dragging poll numbers won’t matter in 2024 if enough voters loathe his opponent even more<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524177/original/file-20230503-26-qs55un.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C11%2C7885%2C5245&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joe Biden doesn't need to be popular to win the 2024 election -- he just needs his opponent to be more unpopular.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-greets-children-as-he-attends-the-news-photo/1251351170?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Commentators were <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/15/bidens-base-blues-the-president-heads-into-2024-with-his-party-feeling-meh-about-him-00092190">quick to note</a> President Joe Biden’s low job approval and favorability ratings after he announced his long-expected reelection bid on April 25, 2023. </p>
<p>Others have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/06/opinion/biden-shouldnt-run-2024.html">publicly urged</a> Biden not to run again because of his advanced age. Biden’s popularity has <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/329384/presidential-approval-ratings-joe-biden.aspx">never really recovered</a> following the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and the COVID resurgence in the summer of 2021. </p>
<p>But if former President Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee – right now he’s <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/trump-leads-desantis-gop-primary-field-new-nbc-poll-rcna81141">leading the primary polls</a> by a fairly wide margin – then Biden is in better shape than the analysts and pundits give him credit for. That’s because Trump remains <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/one-important-way-in-which-joe-biden-and-donald-trump-are-exactly-the-same">even more unpopular</a> than Biden. </p>
<p>Recent political science findings reveal that for most candidates, it’s more valuable to have an unpopular opponent than to be personally popular yourself. This is a phenomenon called “<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/08/09/as-partisan-hostility-grows-signs-of-frustration-with-the-two-party-system/">negative partisanship</a>,” and it’s one of the key reasons why voters often feel like they’re constantly choosing between the lesser of two evils rather than the better of two goods.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524181/original/file-20230503-20-svvib6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a blue suit, red tie and white shirt, standing behind a Trump sign and next to a big American flag, gesturing with his right hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524181/original/file-20230503-20-svvib6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524181/original/file-20230503-20-svvib6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524181/original/file-20230503-20-svvib6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524181/original/file-20230503-20-svvib6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524181/original/file-20230503-20-svvib6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524181/original/file-20230503-20-svvib6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524181/original/file-20230503-20-svvib6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally on April 27, 2023, in Manchester, N.H.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-president-donald-trump-speaks-at-a-campaign-rally-on-news-photo/1485857181?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Party loyalty and negative partisanship</h2>
<p>It’s been well documented that rates of loyal partisan voting – that is, voting for the same party for president, U.S. Senate and U.S. House – <a href="https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/the-decline-of-senate-ticket-splitting/">have increased dramatically</a> over the past several decades. But in a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2015.11.001">2016 academic article</a> on the subject, political scientists Alan Abramowitz and Steven Webster found that these increases were highest among voters with strong negative feelings about the opposing party. They also found that these negative feelings about the other party have bigger effects on voters’ choices in elections than positive feelings about their own party. </p>
<p>In other words, the more you dislike the other party, the more loyal you’ll be to your own party. </p>
<p>These days, negative partisanship shows up everywhere in American politics, particularly for Democrats. </p>
<p>In the 2020 and 2022 elections, for example, Democratic donors from across the country contributed millions to Democratic candidates like <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2020&id=KYS1">Amy McGrath</a> in Kentucky and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2022&id=GA14&spec=N">Marcus Flowers</a> in Georgia. </p>
<p>What do these candidates have in common? They both lost to Republicans whom Democrats despise: McGrath lost to Sen. Mitch McConnell, and Flowers lost to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. </p>
<p>Neither of the Democratic opponents ever stood much of a chance. Their contributors were motivated not so much by the possibility of winning these races but by the satisfaction of putting up a fight against two of the Democrats’ most notorious foes in Washington. </p>
<p>As a candidate, Biden already has been the beneficiary of negative partisanship. In the 2020 primary, Biden was not most Democrats’ ideal candidate in terms of agreement on the issues. Supporters of Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/12/sanders-warren-voters-2020-1408548">reported more agreement</a> with their candidates’ ideological positions compared with Biden. </p>
<p>Despite this, Biden prevailed fairly easily, but not because he persuaded voters to come around to his issue positions. Instead, he harnessed negative partisanship: Democratic primary voters <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/268448/democrats-thinking-strategically-2020-nominee-choice.aspx">were not as concerned</a> with putting forward their ideal candidate as they were about beating Donald Trump in the general election. These voters – correctly or not – <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/electability-democratic-primary-polls_n_5e2b47d3c5b67d8874b17936">saw Biden</a> as the best shot of doing that. </p>
<p>In the end, the 2020 primary outcome was the result of strong negative partisanship against Donald Trump.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524185/original/file-20230503-1264-4x9ca6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of women in a protest crowd." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524185/original/file-20230503-1264-4x9ca6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524185/original/file-20230503-1264-4x9ca6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524185/original/file-20230503-1264-4x9ca6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524185/original/file-20230503-1264-4x9ca6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524185/original/file-20230503-1264-4x9ca6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524185/original/file-20230503-1264-4x9ca6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524185/original/file-20230503-1264-4x9ca6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Biden has the benefit of a Democratic electorate intensely angry at Republicans for legislative pushes on abortion and transgender rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/activists-gather-at-the-us-supreme-court-in-washington-d-c-news-photo/1252222712?adppopup=true">Astrid Riecken/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Not inspiring politics</h2>
<p>What does this mean for the 2024 presidential race? </p>
<p>Negative partisanship appears to be working in Biden’s favor. He has the benefit of a Democratic electorate that is intensely angry at Republicans for <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/13/florida-6-week-abortion-ban-bill-00091965">recent legislative pushes against abortion</a> and <a href="https://idahocapitalsun.com/2023/04/04/it-is-now-a-crime-in-idaho-to-provide-gender-affirming-care-to-transgender-youth/">transgender rights</a>. </p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly, Biden has a likely Republican opponent who is more loathed by Democrats – and many independents – than perhaps any politician in recent memory. </p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/04/Fox_April-21-24-2023_National_Topline_April-26-Release.pdf">recent Fox News poll</a>, 40% of voters report having a “strongly unfavorable” view of Biden – not the numbers you’re hoping for as an incumbent. But an even higher number, 45%, feel the same way about Donald Trump. </p>
<p>It gets worse for Trump: According to a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/as-biden-runs-for-president-again-4-in-10-americans-say-hes-done-a-good-job">PBS NewsHour poll</a>, 64% of the public, including 68% of independents, say they do not want Trump to be president again. </p>
<p>It’s these numbers, not Biden’s, that tell more about whether the 2020 coalition of voters will show up for Biden again – assuming that Trump is the Republican nominee.</p>
<p>The evidence suggests that Democrats and left-leaning independents will rally around Biden, whatever his faults, because their top priority above all others is keeping Donald Trump out of office again. </p>
<p>The motivating power of negative partisanship means that the combined anger directed against Republican policies and the party’s likely nominee seem poised to make Democrats and left-leaning independents fall in line, despite their <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/lack-of-voter-enthusiasm-poses-hurdle-for-joe-bidens-re-election-ee3cfa57">lack of enthusiasm</a> for Biden.</p>
<p>This isn’t the most inspiring form of politics. Surely, most Americans would prefer to vote positively for a vision of the future they can get behind rather than just settling for the least objectionable leader available. </p>
<p>But, for now, negative partisanship is the central force in American politics, and it’s important to be clear-eyed about its role.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204608/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It doesn’t make for inspiring politics, but political scientists have determined that for candidates, it’s more valuable to have an unpopular opponent than to be personally popular yourself.Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2040792023-04-19T12:45:41Z2023-04-19T12:45:41ZSpeaker McCarthy lays out initial cards in debt ceiling debate: 5 essential reads on why it’s a high-stakes game<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521699/original/file-20230418-26-iftz44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C5%2C3673%2C2458&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Speaker Kevin McCarthy said the House would vote on a debt ceiling bill 'within weeks.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/c33e956e6b474714aaf9a87409ddb852?ext=true">AP Photo/Seth Wenig</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/speaker-kevin-mccarty-debt-ceiling-biden-1dd542c6c7acfc2287e68e6facae2be4">laid out an opening gambit</a> in what is likely to be a lengthy battle over the debt ceiling, suggesting that Republicans are open to a deal – but at a very high price.</p>
<p>On April 17, 2023, McCarthy <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/17/us/politics/mccarthy-debt-ceiling-increase.html">told a gathering</a> at the New York Stock Exchange that the Republican-controlled House would vote “in the coming weeks” on a bill to “lift the debt ceiling into the next year.” The catch? The Democrats would have to agree to freeze spending at 2022 levels and roll back regulations, among other conditions.</p>
<p>It is unlikely that such a bargain would get through the Democratic-controlled Senate or get the signature of President Joe Biden. As such, McCarthy’s comments might best be viewed as an early salvo in what could be protracted negotiations to avert a debt ceiling crisis.</p>
<p>Explaining why the U.S. has a debt ceiling in the first place – and why it is a constant source of political wrangling – is a complicated matter. Here are five articles from The Conversation’s archive that provide some of the answers.</p>
<h2>1. What exactly is the debt ceiling?</h2>
<p>So, some basics. The debt ceiling was established by the U.S. Congress in 1917. It limits the total national debt by setting out a maximum amount that the government can borrow.</p>
<p>Steven Pressman, an <a href="https://ww4.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/steven-pressman/">economist at The New School</a>, explained the original aim was “to let then-President Woodrow Wilson spend the money he deemed necessary to fight World War I without waiting for often-absent lawmakers to act. Congress, however, did not want to write the president a blank check, so it limited borrowing to $11.5 billion and required legislation for any increase.”</p>
<p>Since then, the debt ceiling has <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-america-has-a-debt-ceiling-5-questions-answered-164977">been increased dozens of times</a>. It currently stands at US$31.4 trillion – a figure already reached. As a result, the Treasury has taken “extraordinary measures” to enable it to keep borrowing without breaching the ceiling. Such measures, however, can only be temporary – meaning at one point Congress will have to act to lift the ceiling or default on its debt obligations, which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/business/debt-limit-wall-street.html">is expected to happen in July</a> or August.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-america-has-a-debt-ceiling-5-questions-answered-164977">Why America has a debt ceiling: 5 questions answered</a>
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<h2>2. ‘Catastrophic’ consequences</h2>
<p>How bad could it be if the U.S. does default on its debt obligations? Well, <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-us-defaults-on-debt-expect-the-dollar-to-fall-and-with-it-americans-standard-of-living-169079">pretty bad</a>, according to Michael Humphries, <a href="https://tci.touro.edu/academics/faculty/">deputy chair of business administration at Touro University</a>, who wrote two articles on the consequences. </p>
<p>“The knock-on effect of the U.S. defaulting would be catastrophic. Investors such as pension funds and banks holding U.S. debt could fail. Tens of millions of Americans and thousands of companies that depend on government support could suffer. The dollar’s value could collapse, and the U.S. economy would most likely sink back into recession,” he wrote.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-us-defaults-on-debt-expect-the-dollar-to-fall-and-with-it-americans-standard-of-living-169079">If the US defaults on debt, expect the dollar to fall – and with it, Americans' standard of living</a>
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<h2>3. Undermining the dollar</h2>
<p>And that’s not all. </p>
<p>Such a default could undermine the U.S. dollar’s position as a “unit of account,” which makes it a widely used currency in global finance and trade. Loss of this status would be a <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-debt-default-could-trigger-dollars-collapse-and-severely-erode-americas-political-and-economic-might-198395">severe economic and political blow</a> to the U.S. But Humphries conceded that putting a dollar value on the price of a default is hard: </p>
<p>“The truth is, we really don’t know what will happen or how bad it will get. The scale of the damage caused by a U.S. default is hard to calculate in advance because it has never happened before.”</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-debt-default-could-trigger-dollars-collapse-and-severely-erode-americas-political-and-economic-might-198395">US debt default could trigger dollar’s collapse – and severely erode America’s political and economic might</a>
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<h2>4. Can McCarthy make a deal?</h2>
<p>Many of these concessions are known, such as allowing a single member of the House to call for a vote to remove him as speaker. But there many be others that remain secret and <a href="https://theconversation.com/house-speaker-mccarthys-powers-are-still-strong-but-hell-be-fighting-against-new-rules-that-could-prevent-anything-from-getting-done-197391">could be influencing McCarthy’s decision-making</a>, argued <a href="https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/faculty/brand">Stanley M. Brand</a>, a law professor at Penn State and former general counsel for the House. These could make it much harder to reach a deal with Biden over the debt ceiling.</p>
<p>“Some of the new rules spawned by McCarthy’s concessions may appear to democratize the procedures for considering and passing legislation. But they are likely to make it difficult for members to get the working majority necessary to pass legislation,” Brand explained. “That could make things such as raising the statutory debt ceiling, which is necessary to avert a government shutdown and financial crisis, and passing legislation to fund the government, difficult.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/house-speaker-mccarthys-powers-are-still-strong-but-hell-be-fighting-against-new-rules-that-could-prevent-anything-from-getting-done-197391">House Speaker McCarthy's powers are still strong – but he'll be fighting against new rules that could prevent anything from getting done</a>
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<h2>5. The GOP endgame: A balanced budget</h2>
<p>Another condition McCarthy agreed to in January is to push for a “balanced budget” within 10 years. His most recent speech on the debt ceiling made no mention of this, but it’s likely hardliners within his party will continue to demand it – putting his ability to negotiate a compromise in jeopardy. </p>
<p>The U.S. government hasn’t had a balanced budget since 2001, the year President Bill Clinton left office. <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/linda-bilmes">Linda J. Bilmes</a>, a senior lecturer in public policy and public finance at Harvard Kennedy School who worked in the Clinton administration from 1997 to 2001, explained how they achieved that rare feat and <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-helped-balance-the-federal-budget-in-the-1990s-heres-just-how-hard-it-will-be-for-the-gop-to-achieve-that-same-rare-feat-198363">why it’s unlikely to be repeated today</a>. </p>
<p>“Back in 1997, after the smoke cleared, both the Clinton administration and the Republicans in Congress were able to claim some political credit for the resulting budget surpluses,” she wrote. “But – crucially – both parties recognized that a deal was in the best interest of the country and were able to line up their respective members to get the votes in Congress needed to approve it. The contrast with the current political landscape is stark.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-helped-balance-the-federal-budget-in-the-1990s-heres-just-how-hard-it-will-be-for-the-gop-to-achieve-that-same-rare-feat-198363">I helped balance the federal budget in the 1990s – here's just how hard it will be for the GOP to achieve that same rare feat</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204079/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to raise the debt ceiling – and avoid an unprecedented US default – but only if Democrats agree to freeze spending and agree to several other demands.Bryan Keogh, Managing EditorMatt Williams, Senior International EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2030272023-04-18T12:43:50Z2023-04-18T12:43:50ZThe presidential campaign of Convict 9653<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520530/original/file-20230412-28-gtwh6p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3949%2C2883&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Eugene Debs, center, imprisoned at the Atlanta Federal Prison, was notified of his nomination for the presidency on the socialist ticket by a delegation of leading socialists who came from New York to Atlanta.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/for-the-first-time-in-history-a-candidate-for-president-has-news-photo/530858130?adppopup=true">George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 4, 2023, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the indictment of former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump on <a href="https://manhattanda.org/district-attorney-bragg-announces-34-count-felony-indictment-of-former-president-donald-j-trump/">34 felony charges</a> related to alleged crimes involving bookkeeping on a 7-year-old hush money payment to an adult film actress.</p>
<p>Trump is unlikely to wind up in an orange jumpsuit, at least not on this indictment, and probably not before November 2024, in any case. Yet if he does, he would not be the first candidate to run for the White House from the Big House. </p>
<p>In the election of 1920, Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party presidential candidate, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eugene-V-Debs">polled nearly a million votes</a> without ever hitting the campaign trail. </p>
<p>Debs was behind bars in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, serving a <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fiery-socialist-challenged-nations-role-wwi-180969386/">10-year sentence for sedition</a>. It was a not a bum rap. Debs had defiantly disobeyed a law he deemed unjust, <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1239/sedition-act-of-1918">the Sedition Act of 1918</a>. </p>
<p>The act was an anti-free speech measure passed <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/espionage-act-of-1917-and-sedition-act-of-1918-1917-1918">at the behest of President Woodrow Wilson</a>. The law made it <a href="https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/40/STATUTE-40-Pg553.pdf">illegal for a U.S. citizen</a> to “willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the United States government” or to discourage compliance with the draft or voluntary enlistment into the military.</p>
<p>By the time he was imprisoned for sedition, Eugene Victor Debs had enjoyed a lifetime of running afoul of government authority. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eugene-V-Debs">Born in 1855</a> into bourgeois comfort in Terre Haute, Indiana, he worked as a clerk and a grocer before joining the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen in 1875 and finding his vocation as an <a href="https://debsfoundation.org/index.php/landing/debs-biography/">advocate for labor</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520533/original/file-20230412-18-1i8t9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A balding man's profile illustrating an old newspaper article headlined 'There will be work for all and wealth for all willing to work for it.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520533/original/file-20230412-18-1i8t9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520533/original/file-20230412-18-1i8t9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520533/original/file-20230412-18-1i8t9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520533/original/file-20230412-18-1i8t9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520533/original/file-20230412-18-1i8t9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520533/original/file-20230412-18-1i8t9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520533/original/file-20230412-18-1i8t9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eugene Debs ran for president five times, including in 1904, when he wrote this column for The Spokane Press.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085947/1904-10-26/ed-1/seq-3/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Representing American socialism</h2>
<p>For the next 30 years, Debs was the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/18/eugene-v-debs-and-the-endurance-of-socialism">face of socialism in America</a>. He <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eugene-V-Debs">ran for president four times</a>, in 1900, 1904, 1908 and 1912, garnering around a million votes in the last cycle.</p>
<p>“The Republican, Democratic, and Progressive Parties are but branches of the same capitalistic tree,” <a href="https://ehistory.osu.edu/exhibitions/1912/content/SocialistParty">he told a cheering mass of people</a> in Madison Square Garden during the 1912 campaign. “They all stand for wage slavery.” </p>
<p>In 1916, he opted to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eugene-V-Debs">seek a seat in Congress</a> and deferred to socialist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Allan-L-Benson">journalist Allan L. Benson</a> to head the party’s ticket. Both lost.</p>
<p>In April 1917, when America joined World War I’s bloodbath in Europe, Debs became a fierce opponent of American involvement in what he saw as a death cult orchestrated by rapacious munitions manufacturers. On May 21, 1918, wary of a small but energized and eloquent anti-war movement, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jsch.12219">Wilson signed the Sedition Act into law</a>. </p>
<p>Debs would not be muzzled. One June 18, 1918, in an address in Canton, Ohio, <a href="https://newspapers.library.in.gov/cgi-bin/indiana?a=d&d=RPD19180701.1.11&srpos=2&e=01-07-1918-01-07-1918--en-20--1--txt-txIN-%22Eugene+V.+Debs%22------">he declared that</a> American boys were “fit for something better than for cannon fodder.” </p>
<p>In short order, he was arrested and convicted of violating the Sedition Act. At his sentencing, he told the judge he would not retract a word of his speech even if it meant he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. “I ask for no mercy, <a href="https://www.cantondailyledger.com/story/opinion/columns/2018/07/02/eugene-debs-recalled-as-free/11615035007/">plead for no immunity</a>,” he declared. After a brief stint in the West Virginia Federal Penitentiary, he was sent to serve out his sentence at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520552/original/file-20230412-22-mce10q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A vintage newspaper clipping with the headline 'Socialists Declare Old Parties Are Crumbling.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520552/original/file-20230412-22-mce10q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520552/original/file-20230412-22-mce10q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520552/original/file-20230412-22-mce10q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520552/original/file-20230412-22-mce10q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520552/original/file-20230412-22-mce10q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1386&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520552/original/file-20230412-22-mce10q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520552/original/file-20230412-22-mce10q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1386&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Last-minute pre-election campaigning on Debs’ behalf by the Socialist Party is described in the New York Tribune of October 27, 1920.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030214/1920-10-27/ed-1/?sp=2&q=Socialist+Party+1920&st=image&r=0.205,-0.077,0.823,0.351,0">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Imprisonment only enhanced Debs’ status with his followers. On May 13, 1920, at its national convention in New York, the Socialist Party unanimously nominated “Convict 2253” as its standard bearer for the presidency. Debs was later given new digits, so the campaign buttons read “For President, Convict No. 9653.”</p>
<p>As Debs’ name was entered into nomination, a wave of emotion swept over the delegates, who cheered for 30 minutes before bursting into a rousing chorus of the “Internationale,” <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1920/05/14/96891587.html?pageNumber=3">the communist anthem</a>. </p>
<h2>A ‘front cell’ campaign</h2>
<p>Debs’ opponents both were better funded and enjoyed freedom of movement: They were <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/elections/election1920.html">Warren G. Harding, the GOP junior senator from Ohio, and James M. Cox</a>, governor of Ohio, for the Democrats. </p>
<p>Yet Debs did not let incarceration keep his message from the voters. In a wry response to <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/harding/campaigns-and-elections">Harding’s “front porch” campaign</a> style, in which the Republican candidate received visits from the front porch of his home in Marion, Ohio, the Socialist Party announced that its candidate would conduct <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1920/07/11/issue.html">a “front cell” campaign</a> from Atlanta. </p>
<p>In 1920, broadcast radio was not a factor in electioneering, but another electronic medium was just beginning to be exploited for political messaging. On May 29, 1920, in a carefully choreographed event, newsreel cameras filmed a delegation from the Socialist Party arriving at the Atlanta penitentiary to inform Debs officially of his nomination. The intertitles of the silent screen described “the most unusual scene in the political history of America – Debs, serving a ten-year term for ‘seditious activities,’ accepts Socialist nomination for Presidency.” </p>
<p>After accepting “a floral tribute from Socialist women voters,” the “Moving Picture Weekly” reported, the denim-clad <a href="https://ia801302.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?id=movingpicturewe1014movi_1&itemPath=%2F0%2Fitems%2Fmovingpicturewe1014movi_1&server=ia801302.us.archive.org&page=leaf000474">Debs was shown giving</a> “a final affectionate farewell” before heading “back to the prison cell for nine years longer.” </p>
<p>At motion picture theaters across the nation, audiences watched the staged ritual and, depending on their party registration, reacted with cheers or hisses. </p>
<p>The New York Times was aghast that a felon might canvass for votes from the motion picture screen. </p>
<p>“Under the influence of this unreasoning mob psychology, the acknowledged criminal is nightly applauded as loudly as many of the candidates for the Presidency who have won their honorable eminence by great and unflagging service to the American people,” <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1920/06/12/98297951.html?pageNumber=14">read an editorial from June 12, 1920</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520537/original/file-20230412-16-nukmwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A vintage telegram regarding President Harding's commutation of Eugene Debs' sentence." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520537/original/file-20230412-16-nukmwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520537/original/file-20230412-16-nukmwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520537/original/file-20230412-16-nukmwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520537/original/file-20230412-16-nukmwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520537/original/file-20230412-16-nukmwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520537/original/file-20230412-16-nukmwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520537/original/file-20230412-16-nukmwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One year after the election of 1920, President Harding commuted Debs’ sentence and he was released from prison on Christmas Day, 1921.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2002697246/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Public opinion turns</h2>
<p>On Nov. 2, 1920, when <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1920">the election results came in</a>, Harding had trounced his Democratic opponent by a record electoral majority, 404 electoral votes to Cox’s 127, with 60.4% of the popular vote to Cox’s 34.1%. Debs was a distant third, but he had won 3.4% of the electorate – 913,693 votes. Debs’ personal best showing was in the presidential election of 1912, with 6% of the vote. To be fair, that was when he was more mobile.</p>
<p>Even with the Great War over and the Sedition Act repealed by a repentant U.S. Congress on Dec. 13, 1920, President <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1921/02/01/archives/wilson-refuses-to-pardon-debs-rejects-palmers-recommendation-to.html">Wilson, during his final months in office, steadfastly refused</a> to grant Debs a pardon. But public opinion had turned emphatically in favor of the convict-candidate. President Harding, who took office in March 1921, finally <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/01/06/warren-harding-eugene-debs/">commuted his sentence</a>, effective on Christmas Day, 1921, along with that of 23 other Great War prisoners of conscience convicted under the Sedition Act.</p>
<p>As Debs exited the prison gates, his <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/471549359/?terms=%22Debs%22%20%22cameras%22%20&match=1">fellow inmates cheered</a>. He raised his hat in one hand, his cane in the other, and waved back at them. Outside, the newsreel cameras were waiting to greet him.</p>
<p>It was the kind of photo op that Donald Trump might relish.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Doherty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Can you run for president from a prison cell? One man did in the 1920 election and got almost a million votes.Thomas Doherty, Professor of American Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2014542023-03-28T12:16:07Z2023-03-28T12:16:07ZWhen it comes to explaining elections in Congress, gerrymandering is overrated<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517245/original/file-20230323-1499-zruol1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5861%2C3907&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A voter casts his ballot at an early voting location in Alexandria, Va., Sept. 26, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/YE2022NotebookPoliticalPolarization/c72b8665161a4480b08712cb24c5f2ee/photo?Query=voting%20U.S.%202022&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=5052&currentItemNo=209">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past decade, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/07/09/gerrymandering-unfair-and-unjust/frvQvECvoJOmLH8nx0Gz1M/story.html">a consistent refrain</a> in discussions of politics has been that <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/gerrymander">partisan gerrymandering</a> – the drawing of congressional district lines to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/gerrymandering">disproportionately advantage one party</a> over the other – is unfair and distorts the balance of power in Congress. </p>
<p><a href="https://publicintegrity.org/politics/elections/who-counts/ohio-votes-under-extreme-gerrymandering-that-favors-republicans/">Democrats in particular have complained</a> that the process advantages Republicans. Republicans have been quick to blame Democrats for the same thing in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/29/maryland-democrats-gerrymandering-map-thrown-out/">states such as Maryland</a>.</p>
<p>But ultimately, the parties’ efforts to gain a seat advantage in the most recent round of redistricting ended up <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-alternate-maps/">mostly</a> in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/22/gerrymandering-midterms-democrats-republicans/">wash</a> – and 2022’s razor-thin midterm election results reflected this. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FeSk64QAAAAJ&hl=en">a political scientist</a> who studies Congress, elections and political representation, I know that redistricting is both more complex and less nefariously partisan than many commentators give it credit for. The truth is that gerrymandering has always been overrated as an explanation of election outcomes in Congress. </p>
<p>Let’s run through some of the reasons.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517232/original/file-20230323-16-1i19ef.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in front of a white stone building with columns, wearing a baseball cap holding a sign 'End gerrymandering in Maryland.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517232/original/file-20230323-16-1i19ef.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517232/original/file-20230323-16-1i19ef.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517232/original/file-20230323-16-1i19ef.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517232/original/file-20230323-16-1i19ef.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517232/original/file-20230323-16-1i19ef.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517232/original/file-20230323-16-1i19ef.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517232/original/file-20230323-16-1i19ef.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters gather outside the Supreme Court in 2019 to argue that gerrymandering is manipulating elections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/organizations-and-individuals-gathered-outside-the-supreme-news-photo/1133036023?adppopup=true">Aurora Samperio/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Does gerrymandering skew election outcomes?</h2>
<p><a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S2-C1-1/ALDE_00001031/">The Constitution requires</a> that every 10 years, following the decennial census, states redraw the geographic boundaries of congressional districts. The purpose is largely to make sure the districts are as equal as possible based on population. </p>
<p>Most states <a href="https://redistricting.lls.edu/redistricting-101/who-draws-the-lines/">rely on their state legislatures</a> to draw these lines. Critics of this process charge that in many cases, this results in gerrymandering: the drawing of districts specifically to maximize the number of seats for the party that controls the legislature. </p>
<p>In many individual states, partisan majorities in state legislatures have drawn boundaries that result in congressional delegations that don’t reflect the statewide vote. In 2021, for example, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/politics/us-redistricting/south-carolina-redistricting-map/">Republicans in South Carolina drew districts</a> that handed their party six out of the delegation’s seven seats in Congress, despite the party’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/south-carolina/president">winning only 56%</a> of the vote in 2020’s presidential election. </p>
<p>Democrats in Illinois, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/illinois-results">won 59% of the presidential vote</a> in 2020; but after the 2022 midterm elections, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_congressional_delegations_from_Illinois">they occupy 82%</a> of the state’s congressional delegation, or 14 out of 17 seats, thanks to the heavily Democratic state Legislature’s redistricting. </p>
<p>The fact that both parties excel at gerrymandering meant that their efforts before the 2022 midterms essentially canceled each other out. As a result, the balance of seats in the new Congress largely matches the national political climate in the midterms. In <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/election-results/2022/house/">2022, Republicans won 51%</a> of House seats, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/upshot/2022-republicans-midterms-analysis.html">51% of the nationwide popular vote</a> for Congress.</p>
<p>These numbers present a problem for gerrymandering critics, particularly those <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3749510-partisan-redistricting-gave-republicans-control-of-the-house-will-a-conservative-supreme-court-take-that-advantage-back/">blaming it</a> for the Democrats’ current minority status in Congress. If gerrymandering were significantly advantaging one or the other party, these numbers would not match up.</p>
<p>But this alignment between seats and votes isn’t a new trend. In the three most recent Congresses, the balance of congressional seats between the two parties is nearly identical to the percentage of the vote each party received nationwide in congressional races. In the 2018 midterms, for example, Democrats won <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/house/house-charts/2018-house-popular-vote-tracker">54% of congressional votes nationwide</a>, and ended up with <a href="https://history.house.gov/Congressional-Overview/Profiles/116th/">54% of the seats</a> in the House. </p>
<p><iframe id="StHAP" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/StHAP/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Data I’ve collected for other cycles does show a discrepancy between seats and votes during the Obama years, and it’s probably true that the redistricting process before 2012 cost Democrats a few seats in that decade.</p>
<p>But gerrymandering hasn’t always benefited Republicans: Democrats enjoyed a bigger and more sustained advantage from their district boundaries during the 1970s and 1980s. And if gerrymandering was ever the main cause of Democrats’ seat disadvantage in the House, it’s not today. </p>
<h2>Geography matters, just not the way you think</h2>
<p>Democrats and their allies have been particularly outspoken in their disparagement of gerrymandering, in some cases using some of the same fatalistic language about elections as former President Donald Trump. </p>
<p>For example, one argument during the Obama years was that gerrymandering made it “<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-its-impossible-for-democrats-to-win-the-house">impossible</a>” for Democrats to win the House. Sometimes the <a href="https://captimes.com/opinion/paul-fanlund/opinion-supreme-court-election-is-a-chance-to-beat-the-far-right-at-its-long/article_af9b5d76-a584-54ad-9226-7c9d7a806d12.html">language mirrored Trump’s</a> — that gerrymandering had “<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/the-midterms-are-about-courts-rigging-the-outcome.html">rigged</a>” congressional elections in favor of Republicans. </p>
<p>Aside from the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/13/us/politics/republican-candidates-2020-election-misinformation.html">well-demonstrated dangers</a> of casting doubt on the nation’s election systems, the evidence simply doesn’t support this doomsday perspective. Democrats do have major problems with geography, but they run much deeper than unfairly drawn lines. </p>
<p>Over the past 30 years, U.S. counties have <a href="https://www.politico.com/interactives/2022/20-counties-that-will-decide-the-2022-midterm-elections/">consistently become less competitive</a> between the parties in presidential elections. </p>
<p>In 1992, the vast majority of counties were won by slim margins, and thus winnable by either party. Only 1 in 3 counties was won by either party by more than 10 percentage points. </p>
<p>But today, the story is the opposite. Nearly 4 out of every 5 counties in 2020 were won decisively – by 10 points or more – by either Joe Biden or Donald Trump.</p>
<p><iframe id="Ylzqe" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Ylzqe/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The problem for Democrats is that these emerging landslide counties almost exclusively vote for Republicans. The thing about counties, though, is that their boundaries don’t change. This means that the massive geographic advantage Republicans enjoy cannot be blamed solely on gerrymandering. </p>
<p>The real explanation is the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2012.720229">geographic sorting</a> of the two parties over the past 30 or more years. Democrats have diminished as a presence in rural counties, particularly in the South and Midwest, while gaining numbers in counties with large cities like Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago. </p>
<p>These latter areas have such large populations that by winning them decisively, Democrats can stay competitive nationally despite Republicans’ more even geographic spread of support across the country.</p>
<p>The data largely indicates that it is this phenomenon, not gerrymandering, that is responsible for Democratic electoral underperformance. The clustering of Democratic votes in big cities makes it more difficult for any entity – including courts and nonpartisan commissions – to draw district lines that get Democrats the most possible seats in Congress. Because Democrats live in denser, more tightly packed places, they can’t distribute their votes as efficiently among geographic districts throughout a state.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, because Republican support is more evenly distributed geographically, there are more and better options for them to win lots of districts, rather than just lots of votes. Put simply, because of where they tend to live, Republicans are wasting fewer of their votes than Democrats.</p>
<h2>Gerrymandering is still a problem</h2>
<p>None of this means that partisan gerrymandering is not happening, or that efforts shouldn’t be made to fix it. </p>
<p>If both parties are gerrymandering so effectively that they cancel out each other’s gains, this has major implications for political institutions and culture even if they aren’t reflected in the national balance of power. </p>
<p>Gerrymandering has been increasingly the subject of <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/north-carolina-supreme-court-poised-085218358.html">court challenges</a>, further bringing politics into the supposedly nonpolitical U.S. judicial system.</p>
<p>It also has tangible effects on regular Americans. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2018.05.007">My own research</a> shows that changing district lines can disorient voters and reduce turnout. It could also cut into voters’ sense that their votes make a difference. </p>
<p>Democrats from South Carolina and Republicans from Illinois, would, I believe, feel better represented if they could see delegations that more accurately reflected their state’s electorate.</p>
<p>Additionally, partisan gerrymandering often means disregarding important local city and county boundaries, as well as local cultures, neighborhoods and industries – what political scientists call “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2019.0576">communities of interest</a>” – that have little to do with partisanship but mean a lot to everyday people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A loud chorus of Democrats – and some Republicans, too – has for years claimed gerrymandering is costing their party seats in Congress. Is it true?Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1996532023-02-20T11:40:02Z2023-02-20T11:40:02ZWhy Biden is the Democrats’ best hope of winning the 2024 election<p>The 2024 US presidential election race is already under way. In recent <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/democratic_nomination_polls/">polls</a>, President Joe Biden is the clear favourite among Democrats for the 2024 nomination. No one else comes close, with Vice-President Kamala Harris a distant second, some twenty points behind. </p>
<p>Biden is the only candidate who would preserve the coalition that he built during the last two and a half years. He has managed to construct a base support of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-heads-us-west-campaign-midterms-close-2022-11-03/">young voters</a>, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/">suburban voters</a>, as well as maintaining the share of Hillary Clinton’s support among Black and Hispanic voters.</p>
<p>With his recent <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/02/07/remarks-of-president-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-address-as-prepared-for-delivery/">announcement</a> that he will veto any legislation that attempts to end social security or Medicare, Biden has made himself a champion of senior voters. This influential voting block has over <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2023-02-10/gop-puts-seniors-in-play-for-biden-and-democrats">recent years</a>, been a cornerstone of the Republican base. </p>
<p>If Biden can gain votes from senior voters, he will establish a bipartisan coalition that would be difficult to beat.</p>
<p>The Republican party race is wide open. Former president Donald Trump has already <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/15/donald-trump-announces-presidential-run-2024-midterms-ron-desantis">announced</a> his bid to be the Republican party’s presidential nominee for the third time in 2024. <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3760170-heres-where-trumps-gop-rivals-stand-on-potential-2024-bids/">Speculation</a> has already begun as to who might oppose Trump for the Republican candidacy.</p>
<p>Many pundits have <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/13/politics/ron-desantis-florida-power-2024/index.html">tipped</a> Florida governor Ron DeSantis to be Trump’s main opponent in the primaries next year.</p>
<p>In their latest head-to-head figures, polling organisation, FiveThirtyEight, <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/">gives</a> Biden an even chance against DeSantis, and gives Biden a three-point lead against Trump. With <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/50995dff-be37-4f0b-9056-989e10cb1603">inflation</a> on the decline in the US, and the jobs market <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3842074-economy-jobs-inflation-unemployment-report/">booming</a>, those ratings should become more favourable for Biden.</p>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/ap-norc-poll-biden-2024-presidential-prospects-c843c5af6775b4c8a0cff8e2b1db03f6">Polls</a> show concerns about Biden’s age. One suggested that just 23% of Democrats under the age of 45 want Biden to run for a second term at 82.</p>
<p>However, only 462 Democrats were surveyed, and the poll was conducted before Biden’s well-received State of the Union <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2023/">address</a>, although his popularity has reportedly failed to gain a bump in the <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2023/02/13/state-of-the-union-brings-no-approval-bump-for-biden/">polls</a>.</p>
<p>Other reports <a href="https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/cognitive-decline-democrats-increasingly-voice-fears-about-biden-2024/">suggest</a> that there is a split between the opinions of rank-and-file Democrats and party leaders over Biden. </p>
<p>Yet, according to one analyst, <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3855901-data-says-democrats-need-biden-to-run-for-a-second-term/">data</a> indicates that it is in the Democrats best interests to support Biden. The Democrats long-term influence, according to Allan J. Lichtman’s Thirteen Keys to the White House <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Keys-to-the-White-House-1688399">theory</a>, depends on Biden running for a second term.</p>
<p>Lichtman’s 13 keys are a checklist of true or false statements of which only five can be false if Biden wants to be re-elected. In the current climate, four of Lichman’s keys could be argued to be false - midterm gains in Congress, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/22/justice-department-finds-more-classified-documents-at-joe-bidens-home">no scandal</a> (classified documents have been found in Biden’s home in Wilmington), foreign or military success (not looking likely in Ukraine) and a charismatic incumbent.</p>
<p>After Republican <a href="https://about.bgov.com/brief/balance-of-power-republican-majority-in-the-house/">gains</a> in the midterms, the developing Chinese spy balloon <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/chinas-spy-balloon-unidentified-objects-shot-down-what-we-know-so-far/">crisis</a>, no victory likely in Ukraine, and negative opinion <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/">polls</a> for Biden (which some might see as evidence of a lack of charisma). Democrats can only afford one more false statement - either an economy in decline for Biden to not run again, according to Litchman.</p>
<p>If Democrats have any intention of pushing forward with progressive domestic legislation, then it is more likely to be passed in a president’s second term than first.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholars.org/contribution/what-can-us-presidents-accomplish-second-term">Research</a> has indicated that presidents are less effective with foreign policy in their second term because their diplomatic promises have less weight, and so focus tends to revert to domestic issues.</p>
<p>Domestic policies affect the electorate directly and so can have a detrimental effect on potential re-election. As no third term is available because of the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-22/">22nd amendment</a>, presidents are more willing to address domestic issues during their second term. </p>
<p>After <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/14/1136423401/how-democrats-were-able-to-perform-better-than-expected-in-midterm-elections">outperforming</a> expectations in last November’s midterms, Democrats will be hopeful of regaining a majority in the House and establishing a clear majority in the Senate.</p>
<p>Such a situation would allow the liberal wing of the Democrats to push forward socially progressive bills that promote a green agenda, protect reproductive rights and voting rights, and counter the threat of a conservative supreme court.</p>
<p>Even without a clear majority in both the House and Senate, a second Biden term could benefit the US. The partisan <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/12/17/in-a-politically-polarized-era-sharp-divides-in-both-partisan-coalitions/">divide</a> has hamstrung US politics in recent years and instances of bipartisan collaboration have been few and far between.</p>
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<p>Of all the contenders for the White House, none of the others has the experience or capability to reach across the political divide as effectively as Biden.</p>
<p>Before the 2020 Democratic nomination campaign, Biden was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/us/politics/biden-speech-fred-upton.html">criticised</a> by Democrats for his willingness to put political differences aside to get work done in Congress.</p>
<p>Of course, the bipartisan legislature requires the Republicans to work with Biden. He stated in the State of the Union address that his presidency illustrated the benefits of cross-party partnerships.</p>
<p>Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/02/07/remarks-of-president-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-address-as-prepared-for-delivery/">claimed</a> that 300 laws he had signed were the result of bipartisan efforts. “If we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together in this new Congress,” he told Republicans.</p>
<p>A second Biden term might lead to increased bipartisan cooperation and close some of the nation’s political divide, at least in Congress. But to do this, Biden’s presidency would not be the exception and not the norm.</p>
<p>Political scientist Stephen Skowronek’s <a href="https://politicalscience.yale.edu/publications/presidential-leadership-political-time-reprise-and-reappraisal-third-edition">work</a> shows how long-term political changes in the US are based on shared beliefs that weaken over time and are then replaced by new political cycles.</p>
<p>In Skowronek’s <a href="http://web.mit.edu/lroyden/Public/skowronek-time.pdf">theory</a>, presidents including Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan created a new political cycle, one that changes attitudes and policies for a generation.</p>
<h2>Big achievements happen in two terms</h2>
<p>At the start of his first term, commentator Michelle Goldberg <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/opinion/biden-president-progressive.html">believed</a> that Biden might be the first president since Reagan to be able to lead a new cycle.</p>
<p>Before the 2020 election, Skowronek <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/interview-stephen-skowronek/">thought</a> that Biden was too moderate to be a president that had long-term influence and create that kind of significant change.</p>
<p>But the COVID and economic <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/28/gdp-2020-economy-recession/">crises</a> , racial <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2021/06/09/pandemics-and-protests-america-has-experienced-racism-like-this-before/">division</a>, and major political <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2022/11/25/long-read-the-2022-midterm-results-show-how-the-us-party-realignment-is-continuing/">shifts</a> – indicated by recent electoral success of policies that build toward a more equitable economy and social democracy – have provided Biden with an opportunity to create a new political cycle, one could heavily influence those who come after him.</p>
<p>If he can gain bipartisan support, in the same way that Franklin D. Roosevelt did in creating the New Deal <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/remnants-of-the-new-deal-order">era</a> of the 1930s, Biden can make significant changes that will have long term implications beyond his second term.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199653/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dafydd Townley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Joe Biden’s appeal to suburban and older voters will make him difficult to beat, some experts argue.Dafydd Townley, Teaching Fellow in International Security, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1991512023-02-20T11:39:59Z2023-02-20T11:39:59ZIf Biden doesn’t run in 2024, here are the main rivals for the Democratic nomination<p>Joe Biden has made it clear he <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/21/politics/biden-2024-intention-reelection/index.html">intends to stand</a> for re-election in 2024. But despite his <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-the-union-bipartisan-bidens-landmark-speech-sounds-like-a-campaign-launch-for-2024-199128">state of the union address</a> reflecting a fighting spirit that many interpreted as another indication for a 2024 bid, Biden’s intention may not necessarily hold up. </p>
<p>Within the Democratic party, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-biden-turns-80-some-democrats-see-age-as-issue-for-potential-2024-bid-11668917528">concerns</a> have grown over the president’s age and his low <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/">approval ratings</a>. Recent news of <a href="https://theconversation.com/biden-and-trump-are-both-accused-of-mishandling-classified-documents-but-there-are-key-differences-198623">classified documents</a> found in his Delaware home have certainly not helped in soothing these concerns. </p>
<p>If Biden does not run, the 2024 Democratic primaries would become a much more open contest. And there are several potential candidates.</p>
<h2>Kamala Harris</h2>
<p>As the current vice president, Kamala Harris would appear to be the obvious second choice if Biden decides not to run. But, much like the president, she has done very poorly in approval ratings. In early February, she had an <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/kamala-harris/">approval rating</a> of just 39%. </p>
<p>While a vice president’s approval ratings have historically been <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/psq.12381">tied to those of the president</a>, Harris would have to find a balance between setting herself apart from Biden and not diminishing the administration’s efforts.</p>
<h2>Stacey Abrams</h2>
<p>When Georgia flipped blue in 2020, many credited Stacey Abrams for the success. The former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives was a prominent campaigner for Democrats ahead of the 2020 election. </p>
<p>But despite this success in the south being attributed to her, Abrams comes with a difficult electoral record. She stood for governor in Georgia in 2018 and 2022 and lost both times, which could certainly cast some doubts on her electability within the party and among the voting public.</p>
<h2>Pete Buttigieg</h2>
<p>Pete Buttigieg went from local to national politics within the span of just a few months. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 and won the Iowa caucuses. But he dropped out of the race shortly thereafter. When Biden took office, he appointed Buttigieg as transport secretary – and since his move to Washington, Buttigieg has continued to make a name for himself.</p>
<p>Within the Democratic party, he appears to enjoy much popularity. He was “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/16/politics/pete-buttigieg-kamala-harris-midterm-surrogates/index.html">the most requested surrogate on the campaign trail</a>” ahead of the 2022 midterms. If elected, Buttigieg would be the youngest ever president and the first openly gay man to become president. </p>
<p>But the proposed changes to the Democratic primary schedule may pose a challenge for Buttigieg, who has previously had significant difficulties securing support from minority voter groups.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/diversity-and-moderation-over-tradition-why-democrats-moved-south-carolina-to-the-start-of-the-2024-presidential-campaign-196931">Diversity and moderation over tradition – why Democrats moved South Carolina to the start of the 2024 presidential campaign</a>
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<h2>Amy Klobuchar</h2>
<p>The first woman elected to represent Minnesota in the US Senate, Amy Klobuchar has been on the national political stage since 2007. During the confirmation hearings for supreme court associate justice Brett Kavanaugh, she made headlines and drew praise for her sharp line of questioning. Klobuchar previously ran for president in 2020 and put her support behind Biden after exiting the race. </p>
<p>She is seen as a moderate, someone who could unite both sides of the party and might be a close alternative to Biden. However, she has lower <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Amy_Klobuchar">name recognition</a> than her possible opponents within the party and had difficulties securing excitement for her campaign in 2020, an issue that could block her path again. </p>
<h2>Gavin Newsom</h2>
<p>California governor Gavin Newsom, who won a second term at the midterms, made headlines last year when he paid for <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/15/gavin-newsom-california-abortion-sanctuary-red-state-billboards-00057060">billboards</a> in conservative states like Texas and Indiana advertising that abortion is still legal in California. </p>
<p>Newsom is <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Gavin_Newsom">less disliked</a> than Biden and Harris but is still <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/2024/national/">polling</a> in the single digits according to latest data. But this may be explained by his slightly lower name recognition among voters. Data from the January <a href="https://scholars.unh.edu/survey_center_polls/726/">Granite State Poll</a> in New Hampshire shows that some voters felt they do not know enough about him to form an opinion yet. </p>
<p>If Newsom enters the race for the Democratic nomination, his early campaign strategies would thus need to be focused on raising his public profile across the nation. </p>
<h2>Elizabeth Warren</h2>
<p>Elizabeth Warren, the senator for Massachusetts since 2013, previously ran for president in 2020 and quickly became known as the candidate with the most detailed plans for every issue on the agenda. While she did not win the nomination, she has since continued to make waves on Capitol Hill with passionate speeches on issues such as abortion rights.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Angry’: Elizabeth Warren decries the supreme court decision over abortion rights, May 2022.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Behind Biden and Harris, who naturally have high name recognition due to their positions, Warren is <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Elizabeth_Warren">best known</a> among potential candidates. Additionally, she is <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Elizabeth_Warren">less disliked</a> than the president and vice president. </p>
<p>Among voters in two of the key proposed early primary states, New Hampshire and South Carolina, Warren enjoys particular popularity according to recent data from the <a href="https://scholars.unh.edu/survey_center_polls/726/">Granite State Poll</a> and <a href="https://scpolicycouncil.org/research/poll-south-carolina-no-longer-sold-on-trump-biden-lukewarm-with-democrats">South Carolina Policy Council</a> polling. </p>
<h2>Gretchen Whitmer</h2>
<p>After winning a second terms as governor in the November 2022 midterms, defeating a Trump-backed Republican and increasing her win margin from 2018, Gretchen Whitmer has entered the 2024 stakes as a <a href="https://ukpsaapg.co.uk/exploring-the-2022-us-midterms-brief/">wild-card contender</a>. </p>
<p>Whitmer was first elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in 2000, and gained national attention for her <a href="https://eu.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/05/18/whitmer-rape-abortion/39492691/">speech on abortion rights</a> in 2013, where she revealed that she had been sexually assaulted as a young woman. She was the target of a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/26/1131607112/michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer-kidnapping-convictions">kidnapping plot</a> thwarted by the FBI in October 2020.</p>
<p>Whitmer is well known for her ability to work across the aisle and has passed more than 900 <a href="https://democraticgovernors.org/updates/coalition-of-prominent-michigan-republicans-endorses-gov-gretchen-whitmer/">bipartisan bills</a> as governor. With Michigan poised to move up in the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/04/politics/democrats-dnc-2024-primary-calendar-president/index.html">Democratic primary calendar</a>, Whitmer could have an early home advantage if she decides to run.</p>
<p>Whether vice president or wild card favorite, no Democrat except Biden has declared an intention to run. The ball is in the president’s court. But if he decides not to run amid increased calls for him to step aside, the Democratic party certainly has options and the primaries could shape up to become a highly competitive contest.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199151/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Leicht does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Democratic party has some other strong options.Caroline Leicht, PhD Candidate, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1974752023-02-03T13:30:25Z2023-02-03T13:30:25ZCivil rights legislation sparked powerful backlash that’s still shaping American politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506449/original/file-20230125-16-70s0sb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3868%2C2598&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A group of voters lining up outside the polling station, a small Sugar Shack store, on May 3, 1966, in Peachtree, Ala., after the Voting Rights Act was passed the previous year. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/group-of-voters-lining-up-outside-the-polling-station-a-news-photo/3088626?phrase=Voting%20Rights%20Act&adppopup=true">MPI/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For nearly 60 years, conservatives have been trying to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/03/voting-rights-act-democracy/617792/">gut the Voting Rights Act</a> of 1965, the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. <a href="https://jepson.richmond.edu/faculty/bios/jhayter/">As a scholar of</a> American voting rights, I believe their long game is finally bearing fruit.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96">The 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision</a> in <a href="https://www.bunkhistory.org/resources/1027">Shelby County v. Holder</a> seemed to be the death knell for the Voting Rights Act.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/08/15/the-court-right-to-vote-dissent/">In that case</a>, the court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act that supervised elections in areas with a history of disenfranchisement.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court is currently considering a case, <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/merrill-v-milligan-2/">Merrill v. Milligan</a>, that might gut what remains of the act after Shelby.</p>
<p>Conservative legal strategists want the court to say that Alabama – <a href="https://www.naacpldf.org/merrill-v-milligan-supreme-court/">where African Americans</a> make up approximately one-quarter of the population, still live in concentrated and segregated communities and yet have only one majority-Black voting district out of seven state districts – should not consider race when drawing district boundaries. </p>
<p>These challenges to minority voting rights didn’t emerge overnight. The Shelby and Merrill cases are the culmination of a decadeslong conservative legal strategy designed <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/john-roberts-supreme-court-voting-rights-act/671239/">to roll back</a> the political gains of the civil rights movement itself.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A receipt for a $1.50 poll tax paid in 1957 by Rosa Parks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A number of Southern states had a poll tax that was aimed at preventing by Black people, many of whom couldn’t afford to pay it. This is a receipt for a $1.50 poll tax paid in 1957 by Rosa Parks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/mss85943.002605/?sp=2&r=0.026,-0.021,1.01,0.419,0">Library of Congress, Rosa Parks Papers</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Victory – and more bigotry</h2>
<p>The realization of civil and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/07/02/the-civil-rights-act-was-a-victory-against-racism-but-racists-also-won/">voting rights laws</a> during the 1960s is often portrayed as a victory over racism. The rights revolution actually gave rise to more bigotry.</p>
<p>The Voting Rights Act criminalized the use of discriminatory tests and devices, including literacy tests and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/10/21/239081586/the-racial-history-of-the-grandfather-clause">grandfather clauses</a> that exempted white people from the same tests that stopped Black people from voting. It also required federal supervision of certain local Southern elections and barred these jurisdictions from making electoral changes without <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/about-section-5-voting-rights-act">explicit approval from Washington</a>.</p>
<p>These provisions worked. </p>
<p>After 1965, <a href="https://www.crmvet.org/docs/ccr_voting_south_6805.pdf">Black voters instigated a complexion revolution</a> in Southern politics, as African Americans voted in record numbers and elected an unprecedented number of Black officials. </p>
<p>In fact, the VRA worked so well that it gave rise to another seismic political shift: White voters left the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/emerging-republican-majority/595504/">Democratic Party</a> in record numbers.</p>
<p>As Washington protected Black voting rights, this <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/158320/western-origins-southern-strategy">emerging Republican majority</a> capitalized on fears of an interracial democracy. Conservatives resolved to turn the South Republican by associating minority rights with white oppression. </p>
<p>In 1981, conservative political consultant and GOP strategist Lee Atwater recognized that Republicans might exploit these fears. <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/">He argued</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” – that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.“</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘Retard civil rights enforcement’</h2>
<p>It wasn’t just Southerners who aimed to undo the revolution enabled by the Voting Rights Act. </p>
<p>President Richard Nixon helped begin this process by promising Southerners that he wouldn’t enforce civil rights. In fact, in a secret meeting with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/27/us/strom-thurmond-foe-of-integration-dies-at-100.html">segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond</a>, Nixon promised to ”<a href="https://www.amacad.org/publication/past-future-american-civil-rights">retard civil rights enforcement</a>.“ </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three men in suits at a large gathering smoking cigars, clapping and looking happy." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Conservative political consultant and GOP strategist Lee Atwater, center, at the GOP National Convention in Dallas, Aug. 23, 1984, recognized that Republicans might capitalize on white people’s fears of rising Black political power.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RNCCigars/b716a9e732ca4ea39fd610b1faa0171f/photo?Query=Lee%20Atwater&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=51&currentItemNo=11">AP Photo/Ed Kolenovsky</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan also used white people’s <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/">growing fear of African American political clout</a> to his advantage. </p>
<p>Reagan’s administration, according to voting rights expert <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=26493">Jesse Rhodes</a>, used executive and congressional control to reorganize the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>The objective?</p>
<p>To undermine how Washington enforced the Voting Rights Act – without appearing explicitly racist.</p>
<p>One of the Reagan administration’s strategies was to associate minority voting rights with so-called reverse discrimination. They argued that laws privileging minorities discriminated against white voters. </p>
<h2>Undoing progress</h2>
<p>Here’s the background to that strategy:</p>
<p>The years following 1965 were characterized by the <a href="https://jointcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/VRA-report-3.5.15-1130-amupdated.pdf">dilution of Black Southerners’ voting power</a>. Realizing that they couldn’t keep African Americans from voting, Southerners and segregationists resolved to weaken votes once they’d been cast. They gerrymandered districts and used other means that would dilute minority voting power. </p>
<p>African Americans took the fight to the courts. In fact, nearly 50 cases involving vote dilution <a href="https://www2.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr12v943a.pdf">flooded the court system after 1965</a>.</p>
<p>Over the course of the 1970s, the Supreme Court met the challenge of <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt14-S1-8-6-6/ALDE_00013453/">vote dilution</a> by mandating the <a href="https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2905&context=law_lawreview">implementation of majority-minority districts</a>. </p>
<p>Conservatives during the early 1980s had become increasingly alarmed by the Supreme Court’s and Department of Justice’s preference for drawing racial district boundaries to give minorities more influence in elections in such ”<a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Majority-minority_districts">majority-minority districts</a>.“ <a href="https://www.democratic-erosion.com/2021/10/24/unpacking-redistricting-are-majority-minority-districts-really-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/">These districts</a> aimed to guarantee that minorities could elect candidates of their choice free from machinations such as vote dilution. </p>
<p>With little regard for vote dilution itself, conservative politicians and their strategists argued that majority-minority districts discriminated against whites because they privileged, like affirmative action policies, equality of outcomes in elections <a href="https://edeq.stanford.edu/sections/section-1-equality-opportunity-and-alternatives/equality-outcome">rather than equal opportunity to participate</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A gray-haired man in a suit walking in front of a lot of marble steps." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edward Blum, a longtime conservative legal activist, has brought and won many cases at the Supreme Court rolling back civil rights gains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/edward-blum-a-long-time-opponent-of-affirmative-action-in-news-photo/1437982045?phrase=Edward%20Blum&adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tidal wave</h2>
<p>This strategy paid off. </p>
<p>During the 1980s, Republicans used congressional control, a Republican White House and judicial appointments to turn the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/magazine/voting-rights-act-dream-undone.html">federal court system and the Department of Justice even further right</a>. </p>
<p>By the 1990s, conservatives replaced federal officials who might <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/01/09/proving-his-mettle-in-the-reagan-justice-dept/416680ce-9ee7-485f-86f8-df6570cab56f/">protect the Voting Rights Act</a>. In time, these developments, and growing conservatism within the courts, prompted conservative litigation that continues to shape civil rights laws.</p>
<p>A tidal wave of anti-civil rights litigation, led by <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/supreme-court-edward-blum-unc-harvard-myth.html">a well-funded man</a>, Edward Blum, flooded the court system. Blum sought to undermine the Voting Rights Act’s supervision of local elections and undo racial quotas in higher education and employment. </p>
<p>Blum, <a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Captured%20Courts%20Equal%20Justice%20report.pdf">a legal strategist</a> affiliated with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, helped engineer these now-famous test cases – <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-casemaker-cases/cases-edward-blum-has-taken-to-the-supreme-court-idUKBRE8B30Z120121204">Bush v. Vera (1996), Fisher v. University of Texas (2013) and Shelby v. Holder (2015)</a>. He also orchestrated <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/24/edward-blum-supreme-court-harvard-unc/">two pending cases</a> at the court that could reshape the consideration of race in college admissions, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/20-1199">Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College</a> and <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/21-707">Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina</a>. </p>
<p>These cases, at their core, attacked the rights revolution of the 1960s – or rights that privilege minorities. The argument? </p>
<p>These protections are obsolete because Jim Crow segregation, especially its overt violence and sanctioned segregation, is dead.</p>
<h2>New claim, old game</h2>
<p>Nearly 30 years of Republican or divided control of Congress and, to a lesser degree, the executive office gave rise to increasingly conservative <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/156855/republican-party-took-supreme-court">Supreme Court nominations</a> that have not just turned the court red; they all but ensured favorable outcomes for conservative litigation.</p>
<p>These include the Shelby and Merrill cases and, more recently, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/24/edward-blum-supreme-court-harvard-unc/">litigation</a> that seeks to remove racial considerations from college admissions.</p>
<p>In the Shelby case, the court held that the unprecedented number of African Americans in <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/fifty-years-after-march-selma-everything-and-nothing-has-changed/">Alabama</a> – and national – politics meant not merely that racism was gone, it meant that the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/how-shelby-county-broke-america/564707/">Voting Rights Act is no longer relevant</a>. </p>
<p>These cases, however, have all but ignored <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/165283/suppress-black-vote-jim-crow">the uptick</a> in conservatives’ claims of <a href="https://www.retroreport.org/video/poll-watchers-and-the-long-history-of-voter-intimidation/">voter fraud and political machinations</a> at polling stations in predominantly minority voting districts. </p>
<p>In fact, the rise of voter fraud allegations and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/11/19/true-danger-trump-his-media-allies-denying-election-results/">contested election results</a> is a new iteration of old, and ostensibly less violent, racism.</p>
<p>The Voting Rights Act was not only effective; Washington was also, initially, committed to its implementation. The political will to maintain minority voting rights has struggled to keep pace with the continuity of racist trends in American politics.</p>
<p>The work of protecting minority voting rights remains <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/01/05/democracy-january-6-coup-constitution-526512">unfinished</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Maxwell Hayter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Conservatives and the GOP have mounted a decadeslong legal fight to turn the clock back on the political gains of the civil rights movement.Julian Maxwell Hayter, Associate Professor of Leadership Studies, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1971122023-01-03T18:55:05Z2023-01-03T18:55:05ZSpeaker of the House faces political peril from member deaths and resignations – especially with a narrow majority<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502982/original/file-20230103-90208-fzjg6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C9%2C3129%2C2223&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy wants to be speaker of the House. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/house-minority-leader-kevin-mccarthy-speaks-to-reporters-news-photo/1454009418?phrase=Kevin%20McCarthy&adppopup=true">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/29/politics/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-bid/index.html">arm-twisting</a>, <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a42355661/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-multiple-ballots/">dealmaking</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/29/battleground-republicans-vote-mccarthy-speaker-00075846">vote hunting</a> around Kevin McCarthy’s quest to be named House speaker have put on full display the fact that razor-thin majorities in both the House and the Senate are becoming a fact of life at the federal level.</p>
<p>In multiple ballots conducted on Jan. 3, 2023 to elect the speaker of the House, McCarthy <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/01/03/us/house-speaker-vote">failed to get the required number of votes</a>. Additional balloting is expected in the race for speaker.</p>
<p>Slim margins might make for <a href="https://rollcall.com/2022/12/30/speaker-race-headed-toward-dramatic-floor-election/">dramatic television</a>, but they create legislative and institutional uncertainty that has very real consequences for how Congress is run and how policy gets made. </p>
<p>Because the GOP’s 10-seat House majority is so small, McCarthy has had to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/02/politics/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-struggle/index.html">placate the moderate wing, the right wing and the far-right wing</a> of his conference – all at the same time – in his quest for the speaker’s gavel. </p>
<p>The GOP’s slim majority may actually get slimmer. This is because of seat vacancies caused by the early departures of members of Congress. These vacancies happen with regularity, and could have major impacts on the Republicans’ legislative agenda over the next two years. </p>
<p>A slim majority means that the Republican leadership can’t afford to lose support from even small groups of members within their party. But each congressional session, some members depart Congress early, leaving vacancies that can complicate party leaders’ efforts to placate their competing factions or blocs. Imagine, for example, that a moderate Republican member dies or resigns in the next few months. Will that person be replaced with another moderate? A Trump-aligned Republican? A Democrat? </p>
<p>With such a small advantage, the potential effect of this replacement is huge – not just for McCarthy, but for Congress as a whole, and the American people, whose lives are affected by legislation passed by Congress.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A flag-draped casket is in the middle of a large, stately hall, surrounded by people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Visitors file past the flag-draped casket of Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, as he lies in state in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol on March 29, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/visitors-file-past-a-flag-draped-casket-of-rep-don-young-as-news-photo/1239598559?phrase=Don%20Young&adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How do vacancies occur?</h2>
<p>The 117th Congress, which met from Jan. 3, 2021, to Jan. 3, 2023, set a modern record with 15 vacancies, a rate unmatched going back to the 1950s. This was partly because of six member <a href="https://www.adn.com/politics/2022/03/18/alaska-us-rep-don-young-has-died-according-to-former-aides/">deaths, including Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska</a>, the longest-serving House member at the time. A number of these vacancies occurred in the first days of the 117th, when several Democratic House members, including Cedric Richmond of Louisiana and Marcia Fudge of Ohio, took positions in the new Biden administration. </p>
<p><iframe id="7wXRs" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7wXRs/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>High-profile vacancies in recent history were due to other causes. Some members were forced to resign because of scandal, like Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., who was convicted in 2022 for <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/26/1089034831/nebraska-fortenberry-resigns">lying to the FBI about illegal campaign contributions</a>. Others cut short their current term, leaving Congress after losing their primaries, as <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Cantor_announces_resignation,_effective_August_18">Rep. Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, did in 2014</a>. House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, resigned after facing <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/speaker-john-boehner-retiring-from-congress-at-the-end-of-october-214056">threats of being ousted from leadership in 2015</a>. </p>
<p>And although the 117th was a banner Congress for vacancies, the historical data demonstrates that they happen all the time. Based on my analysis, there are usually at least a handful of vacancies per two-year congressional cycle. </p>
<p>Resignation is the most common reason for departure in recent Congresses. However, at least one member – and often more than one – has died in all but one Congress in the past 70 years. The number of deaths that regularly occur among members is more than sufficient to change how the majority party functions in a closely contested Congress like this one. </p>
<p>This potentially leaves party leaders captive to some particular interest, either in their party or in the opposition party.</p>
<h2>How are vacancies filled?</h2>
<p>Although U.S. Senate vacancies are often – though not always – <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/vacancies-in-the-united-states-senate637302453.aspx">filled through an appointment by the governor of that state</a>, the <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/2021-01-08_IF11722_dcbc4bdca5fddd5b46b49cc06ba113d2ac8d43f0.pdf">Constitution mandates that House vacancies be filled by special elections</a> scheduled by the governor. </p>
<p>These elections usually happen within a few months of the vacancy. What this means is that there are real possibilities for the size of a party’s majority to shrink, or grow, between election years. And even if a majority party shift doesn’t happen, a district could still replace a moderate departing representative with an extremist, or vice versa. </p>
<p>Special elections have received <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/yes-special-elections-really-are-signaling-a-better-than-expected-midterm-for-democrats/">significant focus</a> from the media and the public in recent years. That’s mainly because their results, when compared with the most recent result for that seat, can be bellwethers for how the next set of congressional elections will turn out. </p>
<p>For example, a number of special elections throughout 2022 — <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/31/alaska-palin-peltola-house/">including the Alaska race to replace Young</a> — showed even or Democratic-leaning results compared with 2020, giving <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/24/upshot/midterms-elections-republicans-analysis.html">early indications</a> that the “red wave” many experts predicted would not actually materialize.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Speaker of the House John Boehner, a Republican, announced his resignation from Congress on Sept. 25, 2015, and gave this speech.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What does this mean for the 118th Congress?</h2>
<p>A vacating member, and the special election that decides a successor, is not just an electoral crystal ball. It can have major implications for the balance of power in Congress; any GOP leader will have to manage these implications. </p>
<p>On the right, there is the <a href="https://www.legistorm.com/organization/summary/128166/House_Freedom_Caucus.html">44-member House Freedom Caucus</a> and, more specifically, the “MAGA Squad” – think Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz and Andy Biggs. To the left, there’s a swath of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/politics/moderate-republicans-kevin-mccarthy-speaker/index.html">more moderate Republicans</a> from such states as New York and Ohio with no intention of letting far-right firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene control the agenda.</p>
<p>These are two factions of Republicans who want vastly different action in the 118th Congress. The moderate bloc understands that, with a Democratic Senate and Joe Biden as president, compromise with Democrats may be necessary for legislative achievement. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the far-right bloc has made other priorities clear, such as relentlessly investigating Biden, his administration and his family. Managing these competing demands will be hard enough for the new House speaker and unexpected vacancies could make the task even harder.</p>
<p>Beyond the tensions among Republicans, Democrats will be ready to pounce on any opportunity to divide and conquer. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/29/us/politics/george-santos-what-next.html">recent revelations</a> surrounding incoming Rep. George Santos, a Republican from New York, who allegedly fabricated huge portions of his résumé and personal story during his campaign, represent one such potential opportunity. If Santos is forced to resign, a Democratic victory in a special election in his Long Island swing district could cut the GOP’s majority from 10 to eight.</p>
<p>Even if special elections don’t change a party’s control over certain seats, vacancies can and will throw the 118th House of Representatives into chaos by shifting the balance of power from one ideological bloc to another. More chaos, that is, than it is already enduring.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197112/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Congress that ended on Jan. 3, 2023, had 15 vacancies, a rate unmatched since the 1950s. If that rate continues, whoever leads the now-closely divided House will face trouble.Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1958612022-12-22T13:13:05Z2022-12-22T13:13:05ZHow Democrats won the West<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502278/original/file-20221221-25-1fj47s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C2977%2C1998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, celebrates her re-election to a U.S. Senate seat representing Nevada in November 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2022NevadaSenate/4f7fbd0b5e5843ee9f91b4c0d271ca03/photo">AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/12/politics/catherine-cortez-masto-nevada-senate/index.html">U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s win</a> in Nevada guaranteed that Democrats would retain control of the Senate after the 2022 midterm elections. It also confirmed the strength of the Democratic Party in the West. </p>
<p>Since 1992, Democrats have flipped the region away from Republican control, a shift that began with the end of the Cold War and carried through a Pacific Coast economic recession, anti-racism demonstrations and violence in Los Angeles and the area’s increasing diversity.</p>
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<p>I am a professor of political science who has published on the subject of critical elections and how regional realignments in voting patterns have had an impact on presidential elections at the national level.</p>
<p>This shift has been particularly obvious during presidential elections. From 1952 to 1988, Republican politicians dominated the West – the <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/state-by-state/west-region.html">13 states</a> of Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico – in presidential contests, as well as a number of statewide contests. In the presidential elections during those years, Democratic candidates took an average of just 13.9% of the Electoral College votes from those Western states. And in those elections, Democrats received an average of 46.4% of the Western popular vote.</p>
<p>But since 1992, Democrats have won an average of 76% of the Electoral College vote in the West through the 2020 election, with an average of 55% of the two-party vote in those 13 states from the Pacific through the Rockies. Democrats garnered 58% of the Western state vote in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.</p>
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<h2>Government changes alter the economy</h2>
<p>The shift began in the late 1980s, with a series of post-Cold War military base closures across the nation. A presidentially appointed Base Realignment and Closure Commission determined which military bases should remain open and which should close, as the nation’s military needs changed. The West bore a disproportionate share, losing 48 bases, while the rest of the nation as a whole lost 120.</p>
<p>That was true especially in the first two rounds of closures, in 1988 and 1991, under President George H.W. Bush, a Republican. The second set of closures, in 1993 and 1995, under Democratic President Bill Clinton, still leaned heavily on the West, but not as much as the earlier rounds had.</p>
<p>Closing a military base has socioeconomic costs: It means an area <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/details?prodcode=RS22147">loses jobs and revenue for local businesses</a>, especially those that supplied the base or served its personnel or their families. There are also costs of military spouses losing their jobs, and of changes to a community’s sense of itself, often built up over decades, especially in rural areas. And this compounded the region’s economic woes, making Westerners more open to switching their votes from an “R” to a “D.”</p>
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<h2>A recession hits</h2>
<p>Additional economic pressure came during the 1990-91 recession, which disproportionately hit the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1993/02/art3full.pdf">according to Mary C. Dzialo et al.</a> The West suffered the highest levels of unemployment among all four geographic regions, and those who lost jobs or business were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230100428_8">quick to blame Republicans</a>, especially President George H.W. Bush, for the tough economic times.</p>
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<h2>Racial violence</h2>
<p>When four Los Angeles Police Department officers were not found guilty in 1992 of charges in the beating of Rodney King the previous year, the city of Los Angeles was engulfed in the flames of a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/us/los-angeles-riots-fast-facts/index.html">violent demonstration against racism</a>. Our analysis shows that it was the most severe of the 1980s and 1990s, in terms of deaths, injuries and arrests.</p>
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<p>Instead of acknowledging the police brutality in this case that triggered the societal anger, President Bush focused on “<a href="https://doi.org/10.17953/amer.38.1.41017563463290q7">the brutality of a mob, plain and simple</a>,” according to UCLA sociologist Darnell Hunt. Bush also failed to understand the social and economic factors that had cost Los Angeles jobs and “federal support for housing, education and inner-city community building,” Hunt wrote. </p>
<p>Republicans’ lack of understanding and effort opened up an opportunity for Democrats among minorities and sympathetic whites in the region.</p>
<h2>Increasing diversity</h2>
<p>The West was also getting more diverse, in comparison to other regions. The National Equity Atlas calculates a diversity index for each region, on a <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/about-the-atlas/methodology/demographics_indicators">range from zero to 1.79</a>, in which zero indicates that everyone in the area is of the same racial or ethnic group, and 1.79 indicates that equal numbers of people are in each racial or ethnic group. </p>
<p>A look at the index from 1980 to 2019 shows that the West has long been more diverse than the rest of the country, and significantly more so in the 1990s. The rest of the country began to catch up, but the West is still more diverse than the rest of the nation. </p>
<p><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/160373/democrats-racially-diverse-republicans-mostly-white.aspx">Nonwhites have leaned Democratic in greater numbers</a> thanks to the party’s increased focus on better treatment for minorities, as well as <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/11/29/dont-care-that-a--just-that-hes-indiscreet-about-it/">the open embrace of white supremacy by some members of the Republican Party</a>.</p>
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<h2>Political independence</h2>
<p>The region’s people also showed they were willing to shift their political allegiances when independent candidate Ross Perot ran for president in 1992. The West averaged more support for the Texas businessman than the average for all other regions, 23.6% to 18.1%.</p>
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<p>Nationally, voters also rewarded the charismatic Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in 1992, who actually took more votes away from incumbent Republican George H.W. Bush than Perot did.</p>
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<h2>Winning the West means winning the White House</h2>
<p>These economic, social, demographic and political factors of the early 1990s helped contribute to the Democrats flipping the region to their column. This translated into national success for Democrats, who in the eight elections from 1992 to 2020 nearly doubled their average Electoral College votes from the 1952 to 1988 period. Meanwhile, the GOP national average of Electoral College votes declined. </p>
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<p>Democrats have won nearly two-thirds of the national Electoral College races in the past 30 years. And the Republicans have won the popular vote just once since 1992, that being in 2004. It’s a trend likely to give Democrats an electoral advantage nationally unless the GOP does a better job of appealing to Western voters.</p>
<p><em>Nicole Morales, a LaGrange College undergraduate student, contributed to this work.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John A. Tures does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Democrats have ridden the West to presidential electoral success since 1992, reversing their poor performances from the 1950s through the 1980s.John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1962672022-12-21T13:41:50Z2022-12-21T13:41:50ZTeddy Roosevelt’s failed Bull Moose campaign may portend the future of the GOP and Donald Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501401/original/file-20221215-22-9ln2hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=715%2C187%2C3194%2C2251&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A bold and brash Teddy Roosevelt during a visit to the Badlands in 1885. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-politician-and-future-president-of-the-united-news-photo/3090049?phrase=teddy%20roosevelt&adppopup=true">MPI/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What happens when a former president decides he wants his old job back, regardless of what stands in his way? </p>
<p>As Donald Trump launches <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/politics/trump-2024-presidential-bid/index.html">his third run</a> for the White House, it is useful to look back at another ex-president, <a href="https://virginia.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/theodore-roosevelts-bull-moose-party-1912-election/ken-burns-the-roosevelts-video/">Theodore Roosevelt</a>, whose campaign to regain the office from his successor, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/taft/campaigns-and-elections">William Howard Taft</a>, divided the Republican Party and ensured the victory of Democrat <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/wilson-election-1912/">Woodrow Wilson</a> in the presidential election of 1912.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://faculty.lawrence.edu/podairj/">my view</a> as a scholar of 20th-century American history, Roosevelt’s sense of entitlement, moral narcissism and belief in his own indispensability led him to turn his back on his party.</p>
<p>The disastrous results may presage what awaits the GOP in 2024.</p>
<h2>The Roosevelt charm and ego</h2>
<p>There is little question that <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/theodore-roosevelt/">Roosevelt’s presidency</a> from 1901 to 1909 was filled with successes – <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tr-domestic/">labor rights</a>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/03/this-day-in-politics-december-3-1027800">anti-monopoly initiatives</a>, <a href="https://www.doi.gov/blog/conservation-legacy-theodore-roosevelt">the birth of environmentalism</a>, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/roosevelt/domestic-affairs">consumer protection</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/United-States/Theodore-Roosevelt-and-the-Progressive-movement">democratic electoral reforms</a>, <a href="https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2020/august/theodore-roosevelt-naval-expansion-and-guaranteeing">a modern navy</a>, even <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1906/roosevelt/biographical/#:%7E:text=Theodore%20Roosevelt%2C%20President%20of%20the,recommended%20by%20the%20peace%20movement">a Nobel Peace Prize</a>. </p>
<p>As the first modern president, Roosevelt was an activist, a nationalist and a celebrity. And it is this last quality that may have defined Theodore Roosevelt most of all. </p>
<p>He reveled in his notoriety and visibility. </p>
<p>“My father,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1980/02/21/princess-alice-roosevelt-longworth/81b5fa2d-69a4-431d-8233-2f4a02b21ffa/">his daughter Alice</a> remarked, “always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.” </p>
<p>He was exuberant, vociferous and a showman – a showoff, his critics complained – whose favorite exclamation, “Bully,” expressed perfectly his almost childlike zest for life in the public eye. </p>
<p>“You must always remember,” one of his ambassadors ruefully observed, “that the president is 6 years old.” </p>
<h2>A bitter fight between two former friends</h2>
<p>It was thus wrenchingly difficult for Roosevelt, having made an impulsive <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tr-politics/">promise not to run again</a>, to turn over his office to his hand-picked successor, Taft.</p>
<p>Regret set in almost immediately, and as soon as Roosevelt returned
from a yearlong trip to Africa and Europe in June 1910, he <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1912-republican-convention-855607/#:%7E:text=William%20Howard%20Taft%20and%20Theodore,chances%20for%20victory%20in%20November.">began to pick arguments</a> with the cautious and uncharismatic Taft. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two white men dressed in business suits and overcoats are standing next to each other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501389/original/file-20221215-20-brhb6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501389/original/file-20221215-20-brhb6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501389/original/file-20221215-20-brhb6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501389/original/file-20221215-20-brhb6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501389/original/file-20221215-20-brhb6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1255&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501389/original/file-20221215-20-brhb6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501389/original/file-20221215-20-brhb6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1255&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Theodore Roosevelt, left, and William Howard Taft standing together on Jan. 1, 1912.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/news-photo/2664156?phrase=william%20howard%20taft&adppopup=true">Topical Press Agency/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some were imagined, others real, but they were essentially beside the point.</p>
<p>Roosevelt wanted the limelight that went with the presidency again. In early 1912, he announced that he would <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/william-h-taft-recalls-dispute-theodore-roosevelt-1922">run against the incumbent president</a> of his own party, a longtime close friend and colleague whose nomination he had engineered four years earlier. </p>
<p>Because Taft controlled the Republican Party machinery, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30238426">Roosevelt’s path to the nomination</a> ran through the new mechanism of state primaries, an early product of Progressive reform. </p>
<p>Roosevelt took nine of the 12 that were contested, but most of the delegates to the Republican convention were selected by local bosses, and Taft won almost all of them.</p>
<p>At the national convention in Chicago in June, Roosevelt broke with tradition and appeared in person. He challenged the credentials of Taft delegates, especially those from the South, which held a quarter of the total votes despite the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/segregation-era.html">Republican Party’s moribund position</a> in the region at that point. </p>
<p>When his objections failed and Taft was nominated on the first ballot, Roosevelt could have done what virtually every defeated candidate for a party nomination does: swallow his disappointment and, however grudgingly, offer his support to the winner. </p>
<p>But that response was not in Roosevelt’s DNA. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="This cartoon shows a man dressed as clown who is beating a large drum as he walks through a circus." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501157/original/file-20221214-13948-dpu0jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501157/original/file-20221214-13948-dpu0jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501157/original/file-20221214-13948-dpu0jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501157/original/file-20221214-13948-dpu0jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501157/original/file-20221214-13948-dpu0jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501157/original/file-20221214-13948-dpu0jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501157/original/file-20221214-13948-dpu0jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 1912 Harper’s Weekly illustration, Theodore Roosevelt is seen campaigning as a Bull Moose Party candidate for president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/theodore-roosevelt-shown-trying-to-get-support-for-his-news-photo/107460122?phrase=teddy%20roosevelt%20bull%20moose&adppopup=true">Stock Montage/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Embarrassed and furious, he charged that Taft had stolen the nomination through fraud and announced <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1912-republican-convention-855607/">the formation of a new party</a> as his personal vehicle. </p>
<p>Unofficially called <a href="https://millercenter.org/transforming-american-democracy-tr-and-bull-moose-campaign-1912">the Bull Moose Party</a>, the <a href="https://dp.la/exhibitions/outsiders-president-elections/third-party-reform/roosevelt-progressive-party">Progressive Party duly nominated Roosevelt</a> at a hastily organized <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2007663527/">August convention</a>, in an atmosphere replete with high moral dudgeon.</p>
<p>The delegates adopted “Onward, Christian Soldiers” as their anthem and heard their leader describe the upcoming campaign as an “Armageddon” and a “battle for the Lord.”</p>
<p>Roosevelt spent a great deal of his time on the general election campaign trail, during which he barely <a href="https://wisconsinlife.org/story/shot-in-the-chest-theodore-roosevelt-kept-talking-in-milwaukee/">survived an assassination attempt</a>, claiming that <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/history/trspeech.html">he had been cheated</a> of the Republican nomination.</p>
<p>Roosevelt also <a href="https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record?libID=o285244">stooped to personal vitriol</a>, describing Taft as having “brains less than a guinea pig” and appearance-shaming the 300-pound-plus president as a “fathead.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle-aged man dressed in a business suit stands above a crowd of people as he delivers a speech." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501395/original/file-20221215-20-i8nf0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501395/original/file-20221215-20-i8nf0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501395/original/file-20221215-20-i8nf0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501395/original/file-20221215-20-i8nf0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501395/original/file-20221215-20-i8nf0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501395/original/file-20221215-20-i8nf0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501395/original/file-20221215-20-i8nf0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teddy Roosevelt campaigning for president on the Bull Moose ticket.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/teddy-roosevelt-campaigning-for-president-on-the-news-photo/514900304?phrase=teddy%20roosevelt%20bull%20moose&adppopup=true">Bettmann/GettyImages</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Taft was deeply hurt by the rift with his former friend. He ran <a href="https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/explore/savior-spoiler-teddy-roosevelt-third-party-candidate-1912/">a less than energetic campaign</a> and was resigned to losing the general election almost as soon as he won the nomination.</p>
<p>Unlike Roosevelt, Taft’s career ambition was not to be president but chief justice of the Supreme Court, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/taft/life-after-the-presidency">one that he achieved</a> in 1921.</p>
<h2>Does history repeat itself?</h2>
<p>The result in November, as Roosevelt knew it would be, was <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/presidential-election-1912">a landslide victory for Wilson</a>, who carried 40 of the then 48 states. </p>
<p>But between them, Roosevelt and Taft had taken over half the popular vote, a stark reminder of the importance of intraparty unity and of accepting defeat with grace and dignity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man is surrounded by a crowd of people as he delivers his speech." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501398/original/file-20221215-11305-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501398/original/file-20221215-11305-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501398/original/file-20221215-11305-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501398/original/file-20221215-11305-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501398/original/file-20221215-11305-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501398/original/file-20221215-11305-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501398/original/file-20221215-11305-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Woodrow Wilson speaks at his presidential inauguration in 1913. At right is outgoing president William Howard Taft.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woodrow-wilson-speaking-at-his-inauguration-news-photo/640476559?phrase=president%20woodrow%20wilson&adppopup=true">Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While unintended, Roosevelt’s self-aggrandizement had another consequence that still burdens his legacy with the weight of historical responsibility.</p>
<p>Wilson, a product of the antebellum South, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/158356/woodrow-wilson-racism-princeton-university">carried the racial attitudes</a> of his region and class into the White House.</p>
<p>He segregated parts of the federal civil service, offered praise to the racist film “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/hundred-years-later-birth-nation-hasnt-gone-away">Birth of a Nation</a>” when it appeared in 1915, insulted and demeaned <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/wilson-legacy-racism/417549/">Black civil rights leaders</a> on the rare occasions when he deigned to meet with them at all, and even refused to offer Black Southerners the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/shfgpr00">federal jobs</a> they had negotiated under Republican administrations.</p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/teddy-roosevelt-s-racist-progressive-legacy-historian-says-part-monument-n1234163">Roosevelt’s racial animosities</a> were not as deeply held as <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/wilson-and-race-relations/">those of Wilson</a>, he nonetheless helped usher in an era of greater racial discrimination.</p>
<p>Mark Twain <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/history-doesnt-repeat-but-it-often-rhymes_b_61087610e4b0999d2084fb15">once said</a> that “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.”</p>
<p>As today’s <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3766318-georgia-loss-fuels-gop-divisions-over-trump/">sharply divided GOP</a> looks to the 2024 election, Roosevelt’s promotion of his own ego and vanity over the institutional well-being of the political party through which he had become New York governor, vice president and president provides an ominous example of the tendency of history to rhyme. </p>
<p>Just as it was in 1912, the <a href="https://time.com/6233840/donald-trump-gop-hostage-announcement/">Republican Party is being held hostage</a> to the whims of a former president who has shown that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-sore-loser/2020/11/14/b6c58500-2375-11eb-a688-5298ad5d580a_story.html">he will storm away</a> from a game he loses, petulantly overturning the board as he leaves.</p>
<p>If Trump does so, I believe the continued existence of the Republican Party will be in jeopardy. </p>
<p>The GOP survived 1912. </p>
<p>It may not be as fortunate next time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jerald Podair does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If Donald Trump decides to leave the Republican Party and start his own, Teddy Roosevelt and the presidential election of 1912 offer the GOP an ominous warning. Hint: The Democrats win.Jerald Podair, Professor of History, Lawrence UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1951822022-12-09T15:07:00Z2022-12-09T15:07:00ZSinema out, Warnock in – Democrats narrowly control the Senate and Republicans the House, but gridlock won’t be the biggest problem for the new Congress<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500040/original/file-20221209-33244-9tmah6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C3%2C1995%2C1488&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will gridlock mean the new Congress won't get anything done?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/political-gridlock-royalty-free-illustration/167590826?phrase=gridlock%20congress&adppopup=true">mathisworks/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, a general sense of the political landscape in the upcoming 118th Congress has taken shape. With <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/09/sinema-arizona-senate-independent-00073216">Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s announcement that she is leaving the Democratic Party</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/06/us/elections/results-georgia-us-senate-runoff.html">Sen. Raphael Warnock’s victory in Georgia’s runoff</a>, Democrats will maintain control in the Senate, while Republicans will take <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/16/republicans-win-house-majority/">control of the House</a>. </p>
<p>Divided government <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/divided-government-senate-house-control/">sparks fears of gridlock</a>, a legislative standstill. At face value, this makes sense. Given the different policy priorities of the two major parties, you might expect to see each party passing legislation out of the chamber it controls that has little chance in the other chamber – and thus no chance of becoming law.</p>
<p>Logically, this means a less productive legislature than one in which a single party with a unified agenda controls both chambers and the presidency. </p>
<p>But as a <a href="https://www.park.edu/people/dr-matthew-harris/">political scientist who studies partisanship</a>, I believe that divided government – including during the upcoming legislative session – will not produce greatly different legislative results than unified government.</p>
<p>This isn’t exactly a hopeful story, though. </p>
<h2>Not much passes</h2>
<p>The first reason that divided government isn’t less productive than unified government is that unified government isn’t very productive in the first place. It’s really hard to get things done even when the same party controls both chambers and the presidency. </p>
<p>Most legislation only clears the Senate if it has the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/08/26/finding-60-votes-in-an-evenly-divided-senate-a-high-bar-but-not-an-impossible-one/">60 votes</a> needed to break a filibuster. Neither party has come close to a so-called “filibuster-proof majority” of 60 seats since 2010, when Democrats briefly held 60 seats prior to Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death and the election of Republican <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republican-scott-brown-defeats-democrat-martha-coakley-massachusetts/story?id=9602776">Scott Brown</a> to that seat. Thus, even a unified government is likely only passing measures that have some degree of minority party support.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500051/original/file-20221209-35091-9vw3eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bunch of tired-looking men in suits at a meeting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500051/original/file-20221209-35091-9vw3eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500051/original/file-20221209-35091-9vw3eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500051/original/file-20221209-35091-9vw3eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500051/original/file-20221209-35091-9vw3eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500051/original/file-20221209-35091-9vw3eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500051/original/file-20221209-35091-9vw3eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500051/original/file-20221209-35091-9vw3eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It can take a lot of talking and listening to get legislation passed in Congress. Here, a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Nov. 30, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/senate-foreign-relations-committee-member-sen-chris-murphy-news-photo/1445832873?phrase=U.S.%20Senate%20chamber&adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are ways to force passage of legislation when one party doesn’t want it to pass. A process called <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/14/1026519470/what-is-budget-reconciliation-3-5-trillion">budget reconciliation</a> is not subject to filibuster, but it can only be used on provisions that deal directly with changes in revenues or spending. This is what happened with the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/06/senate-reconciliation-inflation-reduction-act/">Inflation Reduction Act</a> of 2022, which Democrats were able to pass via reconciliation, with Vice President Kamala Harris <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/07/us/climate-tax-deal-vote">casting the tiebreaking vote</a>.</p>
<p>Further, legislative success under unified government assumes that the majority party is united. There is no guarantee of this, as seen in 2017 when Republican senators John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/07/27/539907467/senate-careens-toward-high-drama-midnight-health-care-vote">joined Democrats</a> in blocking the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.</p>
<p>Between 2011 and 2020 the vast majority of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/opinion/joe-biden-mitch-mcconnell-congress.html">new laws clearing</a> the House – roughly 90% – and the Senate – roughly 75% –did so with a majority of minority party members in support. </p>
<p>Even <a href="https://www.niskanencenter.org/unified-or-divided-government-it-wont-matter-as-much-as-you-think-for-biden-and-the-democrats/">landmark legislation</a> usually has support from most minority party members in at least one chamber. For example, the <a href="https://rollcall.com/2020/01/16/senate-passes-usmca-bill-giving-trump-a-win-on-trade/">substantial 2020 revision of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA</a>, passed the House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support, as did the defense bill that <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/12/17/congress-adopts-defense-bill-that-creates-space-force/">created the Space Force</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500053/original/file-20221209-24-m7pg4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people going down the stairs of the US Capitol building on a sunny day." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500053/original/file-20221209-24-m7pg4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500053/original/file-20221209-24-m7pg4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500053/original/file-20221209-24-m7pg4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500053/original/file-20221209-24-m7pg4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500053/original/file-20221209-24-m7pg4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500053/original/file-20221209-24-m7pg4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500053/original/file-20221209-24-m7pg4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While Congress is not that productive, sometimes it passes legislation. In 2020, lawmakers stream out of the Capitol after passing the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/membes-of-congress-tream-out-of-the-capitol-after-passing-news-photo/1208426121?phrase=CARES%20Act%20pass&adppopup=true">Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Rewards – and risks – in crossing lines</h2>
<p>On a more positive note, divided government may still provide opportunities for legislative breakthroughs. </p>
<p>The reason? The local orientation of Congress – lawmakers need to respond to their district’s voters. </p>
<p>In the House, according to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-house.html">New York Times</a> analysis, Republicans won 10 of the most competitive districts, including five in New York state alone. But the <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/cook-pvi/2022-partisan-voting-index/district-map-and-list">Cook Partisan Voting Index</a>, which measures how strongly a district leans in favor of one party or the other, scores some of these districts as tilting Democratic – potentially giving these Republican members of Congress reason to reach across the aisle. The same goes for Democratic lawmakers whose districts tilt Republican.</p>
<p>But these kinds of mixed districts can also make it hard for sitting lawmakers to vote with their own party. While parties will work to keep a united front, research suggests that voters may punish those members of Congress who toe the party line <a href="https://spia.uga.edu/faculty_pages/carson/ajps10_ckly.pdf">too closely</a> – providing a potential incentive for crossing party lines. Democratic legislators in Republican-leaning districts who voted for the Affordable Care Act, the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, or the stimulus bill, all Democratic Party priorities, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/23056913.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A89d46a3bbedec3e663adcbbf16bebac0&ab_segments=&origin=&acceptTC=1">suffered electorally</a> in the 2010 midterms, receiving a lower vote share than those who voted against the legislation. In many cases, these lawmakers lost their seats.</p>
<p>Still, defections may be more likely given weak leadership, and currently it’s not certain who will fill the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3754389-gop-rep-says-there-are-20-firm-no-votes-against-mccarthy-as-speaker/">speaker’s role</a> in the next Congress.</p>
<h2>More consequential aspects</h2>
<p>You don’t have to search for long to see examples of large legislative achievements produced during periods of divided government. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/divided-government-senate-house-control/">Divided government produced</a> welfare reform in the 1990s and Social Security reform in the 1980s. The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/748/all-actions?overview=closed">Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act</a> passed a Republican Senate and a Democratic House overwhelmingly in March 2020. </p>
<p>Certainly, there have been times during which unified governments have pushed legislation through with little minority party support. The <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Obamacare_overview#Congressional_passage">Affordable Care Act</a> and the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republican-tax-bill-house-senate-trump-n831161">Trump tax cuts</a> were among them. But bipartisan legislative victories are much more common. </p>
<p>There are probably more consequential aspects to the GOP’s takeover of the House of Representatives than concerns over legislative gridlock. </p>
<p>House Republicans have already talked about using the investigatory powers of the chamber to investigate everyone from <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/17/politics/house-republicans-white-house-hunter-biden">Hunter Biden</a> to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/22/fauci-says-he-will-cooperate-with-house-republican-probe-into-covid-origins.html">Anthony Fauci</a>. A debt ceiling showdown, in which the GOP might use the threat of default on the U.S. government’s debt to force spending cuts, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-29/gop-s-thune-sees-debt-ceiling-hike-as-vehicle-for-budget-cuts">looms</a> for what feels like the dozenth time in the past several years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195182/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Harris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With Democrats running the Senate and the GOP in control of the House, there’s concern that Congress won’t get anything done. Turns out, unified government isn’t very productive in the first place.Matt Harris, Assistant Professor, Political Science, Park UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1948942022-11-18T12:14:45Z2022-11-18T12:14:45ZNancy Pelosi was the key Democratic messenger of her generation – passing the torch will empower younger leadership<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496096/original/file-20221118-12-4r4lvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C107%2C5964%2C3880&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nancy Pelosi's stepping aside will leave the door open for others.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-nancy-pelosi-is-greeted-by-senate-news-photo/1244855354?phrase=pelosi&adppopup=true">Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she will not run for another senior post opens the door for a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/us/politics/pelosi-jeffries-clark-house-democrats.html">new generation of national leaders in the Democratic Party</a>. </p>
<p>Pelosi confirmed she is <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/video/pelosi-steps-down-from-house-leadership-ends-groundbreaking-era/">stepping away from leadership positions</a> on Nov. 17, 2022, a decision that jump-starts a process that has long been desired by younger Democrats: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/pelosi-future-house-republican-majority/">generational change</a> and with it, potentially, new ideas to take the party forward.</p>
<p>That shift to younger leadership was shelved in February 2020. Then – after <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-calendar-isnt-helping-biden-but-his-iowa-performance-points-to-bigger-problems/">poor performances by Joe Biden in early primaries</a> – Democratic primary voters unified with astonishing swiftness behind his candidacy. The thinking was that a veteran party establishment official was needed to block Donald Trump and that the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/04/908524877/how-progressive-democrats-fared-this-primary-season-and-what-it-means">progressive agenda desired by some younger Democrats</a> might pose too great an electoral risk. </p>
<p>Turnover in the youth-challenged leadership of the Democratic House and Senate caucuses has similarly been frozen since then, with all Democratic legislative leaders over 70. As a <a href="https://batten.virginia.edu/people/gerald-warburg">professor of public policy who served as an assistant to members of leadership in both houses of Congress</a>, I understand why Democratic voters opted for stability in 2020. But now the coming change may be welcomed by Democrats and Republicans alike as an opportunity to pass the torch to a new, post-baby boomer generation with fresh ideas. Generational change may soon come on both sides of the political aisle.</p>
<h2>Power as a means, not an end</h2>
<p>Pelosi’s decision is both practical and timely. It comes as the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/16/1133125177/republicans-control-house-of-representatives">Republicans retake the House</a> with a wafer-thin majority and a divided <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/16/house-gop-analysis-congress">GOP caucus at war with itself</a>. Even former Republican speakers John Boehner and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/nancy-pelosi-house-speaker/">Newt Gingrich</a>, Pelosi’s longtime critics, are acknowledging her historic accomplishments, while noting her legacy will now include stepping away while at the top of her game.</p>
<p>Pelosi rose to become the most powerful woman in American history and the most effective legislator of the 21st century. She accomplished this at a time when polarization in politics meant she has endured vilification from political opponents that has had a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/politics/david-depape-pleads-not-guilty-federal-charges/index.html">direct and violent impact</a> on her family.</p>
<p>A key to understanding the Pelosi legacy is weighing what she chose to do with her power. As I have <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3674393-pelosi-lawrence-and-the-arc-of-power%EF%BF%BC/">written elsewhere</a>, some politicians seek power fundamentally as a means to an end. For them leadership posts offer the tools needed to improve citizens’ lives or to advance an ideology. Such figures can be seen across the political divide in Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and Gingrich. You don’t have to agree with their politics to see that they sought power primarily as a means to change policy: They had active legislative agendas.</p>
<p>Other leaders, however, seem to seek out power as part of a never-ending vanity project. </p>
<p>The history of Pelosi’s two four-year speakerships – from 2007 to 2010 and then again from 2019 to 2022 – provide evidence that she had an action agenda. Pelosi is on record repeatedly insisting that when one gains power, one should use it – and risk losing it – to promote the national interest and protect the most vulnerable. </p>
<p>Her record bears out that approach. In 2008 through 2010, she pushed controversial measures through the House, including the <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/data/troubled-assets-relief-program">TARP economic bailout</a>, the stimulus package, the Affordable Care Act, and the cap and trade climate bill – risking her political capital and imperiling the Democratic majority in the House.</p>
<p>Similarly in 2022, she pursued an ambitious legislative agenda despite concerns that it might contribute to a <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/10/23/republican-wave-midterms-congress">Republican “red wave</a>” in the midterm elections. That wave did not materialize, but historically <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-16/republicans-win-control-of-the-us-house-with-narrow-margin">small Republican gains</a> were enough to mean she would lose the speakership of the House.</p>
<h2>Managing imperiled presidencies</h2>
<p>The longevity of Pelosi’s tenure is all the more remarkable given the fact that she worked alongside four different – and often troubled – presidencies. She <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/january-4-2007-nancy-pelosi-becomes-first-woman-elected-speaker-house-representatives/">first became House speaker in 2007</a> under the lame duck presidency of George W. Bush. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A woman in a light jacket stands behind a man in a suit as he waves." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496055/original/file-20221118-23-g25i8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496055/original/file-20221118-23-g25i8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496055/original/file-20221118-23-g25i8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496055/original/file-20221118-23-g25i8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496055/original/file-20221118-23-g25i8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496055/original/file-20221118-23-g25i8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496055/original/file-20221118-23-g25i8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Nancy Pelosi looks on as President George W. Bush delivers the State of the Union address.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/january-2000-credit-rich-lipski-twp-washington-dc-president-news-photo/104570328?phrase=pelosi&adppopup=true">Rich Lipski/The The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Then she served that role under Obama just before his “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/11/03/131046118/obama-humbled-by-election-shellacking">shellacking” in midterm elections</a>; Trump through <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics-features/trump-second-impeachment">two impeachments</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/january-6-us-capitol-attack-128973">an insurrection</a>; then Biden, saddled with bitter national divisions. The Pelosi speakership was the one constant as four different presidents dealt with national threats. </p>
<p>Yet Pelosi managed to work through a deeply polarized Congress scores of bills that impacted the lives of everyday Americans. Her legislative accomplishments include her stewardship of the landmark <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/index.html">Affordable Care Act</a>. She worked with Bush to <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/02/20080213-3.html">rescue the American economy</a> in the financial crisis of 2008 – when the Republican caucus refused to provide votes needed to shore up the economy. </p>
<p>She also worked with the reluctant Trump administration to provide <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/27/950133658/trump-signs-covid-19-relief-package-after-threatening-to-derail-it">pandemic relief</a> amid a global health crisis and in early 2022 shepherded through Congress the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/11/06/fact-sheet-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal/">largest infrastructure investment bill</a> ever. </p>
<h2>Toughness leading a divided caucus</h2>
<p>Profiles of Pelosi invariably comment on her toughness, a quality admired by both Obama and <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/boehner-pelosi-republicans/">Boehner</a>. She also led a Democratic caucus often divided by ideology, region, culture, identity politics and generational differences. Some on the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/01/politics/pelosi-progressives-infrastructure-biden-agenda">left suspected her</a> establishment ties. Critics on the right gleefully <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/nancy-pelosi-and-coming-battle-house-leadership/575278/">vilified her as some “San Francisco socialist</a>.”</p>
<p>Even the professorial Obama confessed he sometimes felt <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2010/02/family-feud-pelosi-at-odds-with-obama-032863">hectored by her passionate advocacy</a>. Republicans campaigned repeatedly on the simple pledge to “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/31/pelosi-attack-gop-strategist-condemn/">Fire Pelosi</a>,” spending hundreds of millions on crude ads devoid of a legislative agenda.</p>
<p>One can disagree with her positions, however, while still recognizing that Pelosi has been a fierce and effective advocate advancing her majority’s agenda.</p>
<p>The record shows that her results-oriented approach has been consistent in its goals and clear in its principles. Such clarity has provided leadership to the nation in fractured times. Her singular focus on advancing her caucus’ legislative agenda has made her the key Democratic Party messenger of her generation. </p>
<p>She has now had the courage to step back, making way for a new leaders and new ideas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerald Warburg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced she will step aside from senior leadership. It could lead to generational change in the Democratic Party.Gerald Warburg, Professor of Practice of Public Policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1948402022-11-17T12:17:10Z2022-11-17T12:17:10ZFour more years? Joe Biden and other Democratic hopefuls for the 2024 presidential nomination<p>If US president Joe Biden was looking for an excuse not to run in 2024, he didn’t get it in the midterms. Democrats not only avoided the dreaded “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63569850">red wave</a>”, but also managed to retain control of the Senate, held Republicans to a razor-thin majority in the House, and swept key gubernatorial contests. </p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/13/politics/democrats-biden-midterm-elections-senate-house/index.html">once-in-a-generation inflation</a> and Biden’s stubbornly <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/">low approval ratings</a>, Democrats defied expectations and enjoyed the best midterms of any president’s party in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/10/why-democrats-had-best-midterms-presidents-party-years">decades</a>. </p>
<p>Biden’s victory lap was made even sweeter by the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/midterm-election-results-trump-candidates-disappoint-on-election-day.html">defeat</a> of the most high-profile Trump-supporting candidates, sparking widespread <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-is-the-gops-biggest-loser-midterm-elections-senate-house-congress-republicans-11668034869">criticism</a> of the former president from within conservative circles. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Trump has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/politics/trump-2024-presidential-bid/index.html">announced</a> his 2024 presidential bid as planned, officially launching the next election cycle on November 15 and throwing down the gauntlet to Biden – who has styled himself as the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e34bec7c-f813-463d-ae00-a8458bf6c437">only candidate</a> who can beat Trump.</p>
<p>What does all this mean for Biden? Will he – and should he – seek reelection?</p>
<p>Murmurs that Biden should <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/biden-2024-poll-democrats-b2175636.html">step aside</a> in 2024 have gone quiet for the time being. But don’t expect that to last. Two-thirds of voters indicated in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/10/joe-biden-2024-president-election">exit polls</a> that they prefer Biden not to run for reelection. Those voters included over 40% of Democrats, leaving many on the left grumbling that victories happened <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/us/politics/biden-2024-election.html">in spite of Biden</a> not because of him.</p>
<p>Yet even if Biden’s approval ratings get a bounce, he can’t change his age. Biden, who turns 80 this month, is already the oldest president in America’s history, and his second term would take him to 86. Biden insists that he’s in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/10/joe-biden-2024-president-election">fine shape</a>. But voters may have other thoughts, especially given several recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/opinion/biden-democrat-2024.html">flubs</a> that seem to go beyond his usual penchant for gaffes.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, Biden has so far <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/10/joe-biden-2024-president-election">indicated</a> that he will run in 2024, with a firm decision expected in early 2023. That sets up at least several months of Democrat introspection, guessing games and hypotheticals on who’s best positioned to lead the party. Although a direct challenge to Biden is unlikely, if he does opt to bow out, the contest for his successor would be a wide open field.</p>
<p>Here are Democrats most likely to vie for the nomination:</p>
<h2>Kamala Harris</h2>
<p>As vice president, Kamala Harris should be the clear heir apparent to Biden. While still a potential front-runner, Harris would need a serious rebrand to clinch the nomination. Harris’s <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/kamala-harris/">approval ratings</a> are even worse than Biden’s and many Democrats perceive her nomination as “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/opinion/biden-democrat-2024.html">party suicide</a>,” especially against a potential Republican juggernaut like Trump or <a href="https://theconversation.com/ron-desantis-the-florida-governor-who-may-steal-the-republican-nomination-from-under-his-mentor-donald-trumps-nose-194423">rising star</a> Ron DeSantis.</p>
<p>As the first woman and person of colour to rise <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/us/politics/kamala-harris.html">to the VP office</a>, Harris would also be a barrier-breaking president. Yet even in a Democratic party eager to diversify, Harris may lack the political acumen and appeal to win over a general electorate. The fact that Biden has filled her governing portfolio with low-priority, low-visibility agenda items won’t help her cause — and neither will her own <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kamala-harris-gaffes-awkward-moments">reputation for gaffes</a>.</p>
<h2>Pete Buttigieg</h2>
<p>A Harvard graduate and former McKinsey consultant who <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/04/pete-buttigiegs-polygot-magic/588169/">speaks eight languages</a>, Pete Buttigieg, the former small-town mayor of South Bend, Indiana, came to national prominence during the 2020 presidential campaign. He’s since been a notably visible secretary of transportation, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/01/pete-buttigieg-infrastructure-law-campaign-00054427">promoting Biden’s 2022 infrastructure bill around the country</a>. An openly gay husband and father, Buttigieg would bring a different kind of diversity to the Democratic ticket, even as he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pete-buttigieg-a-self-described-outsider-couldnt-persuade-black-voters-he-understood-their-struggle/2020/03/02/663030ca-5b36-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html">struggled</a> to win over crucial black voters in 2020.</p>
<p>Buttigieg’s erudite, wonkish reputation plays well within a demographic eager for a president with policy chops. At just 40 years old, he also resonates with a younger, urban, educated voter, though it’s unclear how he’d fare with other swaths of the electorate. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Buttigieg was reportedly one of the most sought-after “<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3731647-ranking-the-democrats-who-could-run-for-president-in-2024/">surrogates</a>” for Democrats campaigning in 2022. And, with several years of Washington service under his belt, Buttigieg may be better poised to parry criticism in this cycle that he lacks requisite governing experience.</p>
<h2>Gretchen Whitmer</h2>
<p>After holding onto the governorship in the swing state of Michigan with a double-digit win over a Trump-supporting candidate, Gretchen Whitmer’s <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3731647-ranking-the-democrats-who-could-run-for-president-in-2024/">stature</a> within the Democratic party has continued to rise. A vocal advocate for <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-11-07/abortion-rights-gretchen-whitmer-tudor-dixon-michigan-governor">abortion rights</a>, she has also been one of the most visible Democrats confronting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/07/opinion/michigan-right-wing-extremism.html">right-wing extremism</a>. At the same time, Whitmer has managed to dodge the death knell label of “coastal elite,” and has leaned into her nickname, “<a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/05/04/gretchen-whitmer-big-gretch-rap-song/3077499001/">Big Gretch</a>.”</p>
<p>Whitmer has little experience on the national stage, and she’s far from a household name. But she was reportedly shortlisted for Biden’s vice-presidential pick in 2020, and would likely appeal to electorates in critical “rust-belt” states in the midwest. But Whitmer did take considerable heat for her heavy-handed management of the COVID-19 pandemic, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-michigan-governor-idUSKBN22W2V0">triggering outrage</a> – and not just among Republicans.</p>
<h2>Gavin Newsom</h2>
<p>California governor Gavin Newsom had his own brush with pandemic politics, but <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/14/1035848090/california-recall-governor-newsom-results-elder">survived a recall election</a> in his home state by a wide margin in 2021. Newsom, who cut his teeth in business before pivoting to politics, has long been thought to harbour presidential ambitions. Formerly California’s lieutenant governor and San Francisco’s mayor, Newsom has a CV that, on paper, looks ready for prime-time.</p>
<p>An alleged strike against Newsom is that he’s too smooth and <a href="https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/gavin-newsom-hollywood/">too “Hollywood</a>.” As leader of California, a solidly “blue” or Democrat-voting state, he also doesn’t bring much to the national electoral math. Still, Newsom is positioned to raise his profile over the next year, with US$24 million (£20 million) in a <a href="http://www.apple.com/">campaign war chest</a> and the political prominence that comes with running one of the biggest states in the country.</p>
<h2>Amy Klobuchar</h2>
<p>Amy Klobuchar, the senior US senator from Minnesota, won plaudits in the 2020 Democratic primaries for her pragmatic approach to politics. Rated as the <a href="https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2019/02/28/grassley-klobuchar-most-effective-senators-of-115th-congress-according-to-study/">“most effective” Democratic senator</a> by a recent Vanderbilt University study, Klobuchar doesn’t dazzle in the traditional sense – and may even be seen as boring. Yet she’s earned a reputation for leadership, chairing both the Senate rules committee and the judiciary subcommittee on competition policy, antitrust, and consumer rights.</p>
<p>Klobuchar won’t be many Democrats’ first pick for president, even if one of her favourite lines in 2020 was that <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2019/10/02/how-klobuchar-won-where-other-democrats-havent/">she’d never lost a campaign in her life</a> (that streak ended when she withdrew from the nomination race, giving her support to Biden). Still, in a Democratic field without a clear frontrunner, Klobuchar — who has largely avoided big political missteps (although has been marred by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/us/politics/amy-klobuchar-staff.html">accusations of mistreating her staff</a>) – could become a viable candidate simply by process of elimination.</p>
<h2>Bernie Sanders</h2>
<p>At 81 years old, Bernie Sanders doesn’t exactly solve the Biden age problem. Although swapping out one octogenarian candidate for another might not seem viable, it’s hardly an impossibility. Sanders, a big-government liberal who identifies as a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-socialist-is-bernie-sanders">“democratic socialist”</a>, not only has a cult following among his famed “Bernie Bros.” He also has the most crossover appeal to <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/bernie-sanders-democrats-guts-court-trump-voters-meet-the-press">former Trump voters</a>.</p>
<p>Sanders, who ran for president in both 2016 and 2020, has spent a lifetime championing efforts to tackle inequality through expanded entitlements. While a “last hurrah” run by Sanders might be more about making a point than winning, his celebrity is hard to discount. If Sanders chooses not to run, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3578887-the-memo-no-really-what-if-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-runs-for-president/">Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> is the most likely successors to carry his mantle, while Senator <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6315260259112">Elizabeth Warren</a> may also consider another run.</p>
<p>All moves now depend on Biden. He has said before that he would “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-13/biden-would-not-be-disappointed-with-trump-rematch-in-2024">not be disappointed</a>” to face Trump in a rematch, and his recent response to critics who don’t want him to run was: “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6315260259112">watch me</a>”. For now, that leaves other presidential hopefuls – and the Democrats’ base – watching, and waiting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Biden remains the default candidate for the Democrat nomination for the 2024 election, but he is ageing and many believe the party would benefit from a younger candidate.Julie M Norman, Associate Professor in Politics & International Relations & Co-Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCLThomas Gift, Associate Professor and Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.