A Final Take on The 2022 Midterm Elections

Raphael Warnock wins reelection and finishes up banner election cycle for Democrats. Also, why Warnock winning is good news for Joe Manchin and why Georgia still leans red.

I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to subscribe, you can sign up here.

Associated Press

Last night, the 2022 midterms finally ended as Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock won reelection over Herschel Walker in Georgia’s Senate runoff. As I wrote in my Daily Beast piece on the outcome, it’s a very good thing that a candidate as incompetent, unqualified, and dishonest as Walker lost … but it’s a bit terrifying that more than 1.7 million Georgia voters cast a ballot for him:

Herschel Walker deserved to lose, but what does it say about the Republican Party that so many of the party’s voters were willing to support a candidate who had no business being a U.S. Senator—no less running for the office? American democracy survived 2022, but Walker’s narrow defeat is a disquieting reminder that we’re hardly out of the woods yet.

I have a few other thoughts on last night and the 2022 midterm results in general … in no particular order.

• How bad a candidate was Herschel Walker? This bad.

  Ryan Matsumoto @ryanmatsumoto1

  Georgia is a great example of the difference candidate quality makes: Governor: R+8 Lt. Governor: R+5 Sec. of State: R+9 Attorney General: R+5 Ag. Commissioner: R+8 In. Commissioner: R+8 State School Superintendent: R+8 Commissioner of Labor: R+7 Senate: On track for D+2-4

  Republicans ran the table in Georgia this year. Every candidate won more than 50 percent of the vote, thus all avoiding runoffs … except for Walker. But, as Ryan points out, candidate quality still matters, and nowhere was that more true this cycle than in Georgia.

• There is some bad news here for Democrats. For all the talk about Georgia being a swing state, it still pretty clearly leans red. This doesn’t mean Biden can’t win there in 2020, particularly if Trump is on the ballot. It seems he’s a liability there more than nearly any other swing state. But Georgia is not like Arizona, where Democrats won the Senate and governor’s races as well as secretary of state (the Dem candidate is leading in the attorney general race, but it still hasn’t been called). Bad candidates definitely hurt the GOP, but it’s worthy of note that Arizona’s really bad candidate (Blake Masters) did worse than Georgia’s really bad candidate. Over the long term, Georgia is likely moving in the right direction for Democrats, but it hasn’t happened yet.

• Republicans are going to blame Donald Trump for Walker’s loss because of his early endorsement, but a lot of prominent Republicans were on board with Walker, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who announced his endorsement in October 2021. That almost certainly helped clear the field for Walker to be the Senate nominee. Indeed, this anecdote from Jonathan Martin is a good reminder that many Republicans thought Walker was a great candidate for the GOP.

Jonathan Martin @jmart

When @alexanderburns and I interviewed Trump for “This Will Not Pass” in April ‘21 the fmr prez’s phone rang. He took the call, put it on speaker & let us listen to the chat w/o first telling the caller we were there. It was Lindsey Graham calling w good news: Herschel was in

• With Warnock’s reelection, Democrats now have a 51-49 advantage in the Senate, which should make it much easier to pass legislation and avoid committee roadblocks that, to date, have slowed the confirmation of executive branch appointees and judges.

  In Biden’s first two years, the Senate confirmed 84 of his federal judicial nominees, including 25 appeals court judges and one Supreme Court Justice. Now Senate Democrats can move more quickly on remaking the federal judiciary and blunting the impact of Donald Trump’s spate of judicial confirmations.

• Politically, there’s another more implicit benefit. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin will continue to be a pain in the ass for Democrats, but it will matter a lot less. Now Manchin can vote with Republicans on certain issues and not sink legislation or nominees supported by the rest of the Democratic caucus. Indeed, Manchin told reporters last week that a Dem caucus of 51 seats would “make it easier for me” because it would take pressure and attention off his every move. I also suspect that this makes him more likely to seek reelection since he can run as a guy who played a decisive role in passing meaningful legislation but is still not fully on board the Democratic train.

  Manchin running again in 2024 is essential for Democrats because he’s probably the only person in the state of West Virginia with any chance of keeping his Senate seat blue. Of course, that doesn’t mean Manchin will win. I’d still wager that a senate race in a state Donald Trump won by 39 points leans red, but with Manchin on the ticket, Democrats have a fighting chance. And now that Democrats have a 51-49 advantage, they have a slightly better chance of keeping the Senate (though the edge still lies with the Republicans).