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One of the most potent midterm election slogans was offered by the Republicans in 1946: “HAD ENOUGH?” The GOP swept into power after years of New Deal dominance.
We like to say that what counts is not what you are against, but what you are for. Not always, though. Sometimes “Had enough?” is enough.
Midterm elections often are waged as a rebuke to the party in control of the White House. Political scientists call this a thermostatic election. Voters adjust the temperature by turning the dial away from perceived overreaches.
But at times candidates have an agenda, detailed or implicit. Those are the years that produce the biggest change.
In 1974, the “Watergate Babies” ran to clean up politics and shake up a hidebound Democratic Party. Often they were Democrats from suburban districts, shifting the party’s focus away from New Deal–style economic issues toward issues of transparency and good government.
George Miller, a congressman elected that year from California, declared, “We were a conquering army. We came here to take the Bastille. We destroyed the institution by turning the lights on.”
In 1994, Republicans led by Newt Gingrich won the House for the first time in 40 years. On the Capitol steps, more than 300 candidates signed a “Contract With America,” a pledge to bring to the floor for a vote on 10 measures, such as a congressional term limits constitutional amendment, within the first 100 days of taking office.
In 2018, the midterm halfway through Donald Trump’s first term, dozens of Democrats won with an anticorruption pledge put forward by the group End Citizens United.
The scandals of just a decade ago seem quaint. Back then, we worried that Trump would profit from guests staying at his hotel near the White House. Now he brazenly grifts, increasing his net worth by at least $2 billion. The most recent astonishing news suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin offered favorable oil concessions to investors who have donated to Trump’s super PAC or have financial ties to his son-in-law Jared Kushner as part of a bid to force a deal on Ukraine.
Today, Democrats are running on affordability. Diesel prices and exorbitant hamburgers speak for themselves. But it is not clear what the party would do about affordability if it were to win.
Corruption is the other big issue on the campaign trail. Here, the Outs have begun to say what they would do if they become the Ins.
End Citizens United, once again, has enlisted candidates to sign an “Unrig Washington” pledge. Candidates vow to ban congressional stock trading, refuse corporate PAC money, and “crack down on dark money.” Those are strong planks, though they may fall short of a Gingrich-style manifesto.
Some of the most talked-about candidates have embraced similar themes. Abdul El-Sayed, seeking a Senate seat in Michigan, calls for getting “Money Out of Politics.” James Talarico, running a surprisingly strong Senate race in Texas, rails against “billionaire mega-donors and their puppet politicians” in a “rigged system.” Jon Ossoff, the incumbent Georgia senator, has gone viral with his intensely delivered stump-speech exposés of executive branch corruption.
A survey by the Brennan Center earlier this year found an unusual and wide revulsion against corruption. It also found that voters blame Democrats as well as Republicans.
GOP candidates sense this mood too. They focus not on money in politics but on fraud in government. In Minnesota, which last year was rocked by Medicaid fraud allegations, state house Speaker Lisa Demuth, running for governor, declared that “fraud was exploding here in Minnesota.” Bobby Charles, running for governor in Maine, pledged to investigate alleged fraud in the state’s Medicaid system. Public disquiet about government waste, always lurking, could be forged into a potent issue once candidates find a way to distance themselves from the current administration.
There’s another issue heard on the hustings that reflects voter disquiet about out-of-touch institutions: Supreme Court reform. Josh Turek, running for the Senate in Iowa, has joined Talarico and others in urging action. Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD-D) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who would chair the Judiciary Committee in their chambers if their party won, recently roused a crowd of Turek supporters at the Polk County Steak Fry with calls for term limits for the justices.
Right now, it’s Democrats demanding reform. In the past, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have supported term limits. Could they do so again? Polls show wide and consistent public support, such as the Fox News survey showing 78 percent approval.
As I wrote last week, due to retirements and primary defeats in safe districts, we know that at least 83 new House members will be elected in a few weeks — and of course, depending on switches in party control, possibly many more. There already has been a wave election in both parties.
