As surely as right-wing politicians and personalities were preemptively deploying disinformation to cast doubt on any losses in Tuesday’s midterm election, they can be counted on to overstate the implications of any victories. So it’s worth warding off the inevitable fiction about the developing congressional results with some factual context.
A Republican takeover of one or both chambers of Congress certainly has graver implications than it did in less troubled times, so it shouldn’t be taken lightly if it happens. California’s own Kevin McCarthy, who would likely become speaker of a Republican-controlled House, has fully embraced former President Donald Trump and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. He has even excommunicated fellow Republicans who differ, presaging more such strife in 2024. Moreover, the Kern County Republican could be expected to turn over the chamber to trumped-up investigations of Biden and other Democrats while halting legislative progress on climate change, health care and more.
That said, any midterm gains for McCarthy and company should not be overinterpreted as a mandate for their un-American politics. U.S. elections remain heavily influenced by structural factors that currently favor Republicans regardless of their drift into anti-democracy.
To begin with, U.S. midterm voters have a deeply ingrained habit of punishing the party that holds the White House. The president’s party has lost seats in the House in 36 of the 39 midterm elections since the Civil War and given up ground in the Senate in nearly two-thirds of those campaigns. Republicans dropped 41 seats in 2018, when Trump was president; Democrats lost 63 in 2014, the first midterm of Barack Obama’s presidency. Obama famously and forthrightly identified his party’s showing as a “shellacking”; Trump, of course, counterfactually called his rebuke a “great victory.”
Beyond the traditional midterm backlash, the economic ravages of global inflation put the incumbent party at a further disadvantage despite its limited power to do much about it. So does the not-unrelated problem of Joe Biden’s unpopularity, with a clear majority of voters disapproving of his performance.
Add to these headwinds the longer-term Republican advantages built into our means of electing Congress. Like the Electoral College in presidential years, the U.S. Senate overrepresents rural, conservative-leaning states and effectively disenfranchises millions of voters in populous states such as California. Gerrymandering of House districts, which is also facilitated by urban concentration of liberal voters, gives Republicans an edge in the lower chamber even when they win substantially fewer votes than Democrats.
Nevertheless, with Republican gains looking unexpectedly modest and control of both chambers remaining uncertain despite Democrats’ bare majorities and considerable obstacles, Tuesday’s results could serve to reveal Republican weakness in an election that was by every traditional indication theirs to lose. The conservative Supreme Court’s reversal of abortion and other constitutional rights may have undermined the party’s formidable advantage. So, obviously, does its growing hostility to democracy and the rule of law, as detailed by a House committee investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — an investigation that McCarthy tried to kill.
None of that would diminish the danger of putting an amoral, authoritarian sycophant such as McCarthy in charge of anything as important as half of Congress, even if he ends up with a tenuous majority. And it is disheartening that Democrats failed to harness more of the public’s appropriate rage at the reversal of Roe v. Wade, produce a more effective response to Americans’ economic struggles or convince more of the country of the necessity of preserving what flawed democracy we have.
But the structural and political context of the election should serve as an antidote to Republican overstatements of the import of any electoral achievements while discouraging their opponents from despairing of the country’s capacity to change course. What this election demonstrates above all is that pulling back from the brink isn’t easy, but it is possible.
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