Larsson läser
Janerik Larsson
Janerik Larsson
John Cassidy i The New Yorker hör sannerligen inte till det republikanska partiets fanclub, men även han är förbluffad över att mellanårsvalet blev ett så kraftfullt bakslag för demokraterna:
How dissatisfied was the electorate? According to the national exit poll, fifty-nine per cent of voters said that they were angry or disappointed with the Obama Administration. Seven in ten said that the economy is in bad shape, and just one in three said it is improving. Sixty-five per cent of respondents said that the country was seriously off-track. That last figure is twelve points higher than the equivalent finding in the exit poll taken during the 2012 Presidential election.
This toxic environment created the conditions for a classic midterm backlash against an unpopular President. Something very similar happened to George W. Bush, in November, 2006.
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And yet, despite all of this, it would be premature to call the 2014 election a major turning point. There’s little evidence that the country has taken a big swing toward the Republican Party’s ideology or policy positions, or, even, that it has any great liking for the G.O.P. The same exit poll that showed fifty-nine per cent of respondents were dissatisfied or angry with the Obama Administration found that sixty-one per cent of respondents were angry or disappointed with Republican leaders in Congress. It found that fifty-three per cent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party and that fifty-six per cent have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party.
As for policy, the exit poll showed that the economy remains the biggest issue, by far, in voters’ minds. Jobs and wages are what people care about most, and, in both of these areas, they tended to support Democratic positions. One quick example: at the same time as they were electing a Republican senator and a Republican governor, the voters of Arkansas approved, by a two-to-one margin, a raise in the state’s minimum wage.
We also shouldn’t forget that this was a midterm electorate, not a Presidential-election electorate. According to the exit poll, the number of seniors who voted yesterday was twice as large as the number of eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-olds. In 2012, there were more young voters than seniors. I haven’t seen the final figures for the racial breakdown of yesterday’s electorate, but, according to the exit poll’s preliminary findings, the percentage of non-white voters was also down significantly from 2012. Come 2016, the 2012 demographic trends will almost certainly reassert themselves.
In short, this was a big protest vote, and a big defeat for President Obama.