Impact of overturning Roe on the midterms? Look at Kavanaugh‘s impact on 2018 elections
by B.J. Rudell, opinion contributor - 06/26/22 5:00 PM ET
In the 2018 midterms, 40 U.S. House seats flipped from Republican to Democrat; 38 of those races had public polling. In 27 of those, the Republican candidate led in September and/or October, coinciding with U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation hearings; those 27 Republican candidates went on to lose in November.
In considering how the overturning of Roe v. Wade might impact the 2022 midterms, we must understand 2018.
Many have sought to make sense of the last midterms — how it was a check on President Donald Trump’s power, or how winning over older voters was key. These are rational, supportable arguments. They’re also slow-burn issues.
Because Democrats were girding for the 2018 midterms beginning in the early morning hours of Nov. 9, 2016 — after the unexpected happened. It took time. In Gallup’s first presidential poll of Trump during his first week in office, he received 13 percent support from Democrats and 42 percent from independents. Over the next two years, he never again earned that much support from either group. In the final Gallup poll begun right before the midterms, Trump garnered 5 percent support from Democrats and 34 percent from independents.
So yes, a majority of the country had had enough, and history showed first-term presidents often lost House seats in the first midterms. But Democrats needed to take back 24 seats. Even with Trump’s approval rating in the 30s, Democratic victory was nowhere close to assured, even if they won all seats that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won “or that Trump won by less than three percentage points.”
So, what would cause 27 Republican House candidates to lose in November despite polling well in September and/or October? An unexpected spark. A closely watched, political galvanizing event that hardens views and spurs action.
On the eve of Christine Blasey Ford’s Senate testimony, in which she claimed Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her, 32 percent of respondents in an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll stated that they believed Ford, while 26 percent believed Kavanaugh; 42 percent were undecided, and 58 percent said they planned to follow the Senate proceedings “closely or very closely.”
After Blasey Ford’s testimony, those who believed her jumped to 45 percent, compared to only 33 percent who believed Kavanaugh. The trust gap between these two had doubled. And much of America was engaged.
This is when the midterms were decided. Everything leading up to it was, for many Americans, a gradual erosion of political and societal norms. But nonetheless, it was gradual. Often politically imperceptible. A general state of un-ease favoring the status quo over an electoral revolution. But Republicans giving an accused sexual predator a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court was the lightning rod that struck the political life out of 27 House Republicans who, up to that point, had had a good shot at winning in November and keeping the chamber in GOP hands.
Nearly four years later, the overarching circumstances are comparable, though the stakes are infinitely higher.
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https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3537642-impact-of-overturning-roe-on-the-midterms-look-at-kavanaughs-impact-on-2018-elections/
