Has Trump Hit His Political Plateau? BU Experts Weigh Surprises and Portents of Midterms Results

BU experts weigh in on Tuesday’s election results and their portent for 2024

Hokusai-style illustration of a large, red wave.

Republican dreams about a “red wave” of victories shattered against the reality of Tuesday’s midterm voting. Photo by Tetiana Lazunova/iStock

Midterms 2022

Is DeSantis the New Trump? And Other Thoughts from the Midterms

BU experts weigh in on Tuesday’s election results and their portent for 2024

November 9, 2022

Rich Barlow

The pre-midterms polling seesaw of Republicans up, then Democrats, then Republicans, then—you get the point—came down less decisively for the GOP on Election Day than it had anticipated. While the party is leading in the race for control of the US House, it’s garnering fewer seats than expected. Republicans blew once-promising Senate races in states like Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, leaving control of that body within Democratic reach. (Some contests remain undecided, including Senate races in Nevada, Arizona, and Wisconsin, and Georgia’s which is headed for a runoff on December 6). Overall, Republicans’ coveted “red wave” was more of a trickle.

It wasn’t much of a party at Mar-a-Lago: many of former president Donald Trump’s endorsees for Senate, and especially governorships, tanked. (His Ohio pick, Senator-elect J. D. Vance, was an exception.)

We asked BU experts about any surprises—and any portents for democracy and policy in the next two years—they gleaned from the outcome. Their answers came in Wednesday morning, when many election results were still pending.

Thomas Whalen

College of General Studies associate professor of social sciences

Donald who? It appears that the likely 2024 GOP presidential nominee will be Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and not the former reality TV star–turned commander-in-chief. DeSantis achieved a resoundingly dominant reelection victory—think the NBA champion Golden State Warriors rolling over your local pickup basketball team—and in the process proved he is the REAL star of the Republican party. Indeed, he checks all the right boxes for the rank and file: young, conservative, and a proven winner.

Democrats will have a major challenge with him on the ballot in future national elections.

Speaking of the Dems, it appears the red electoral tidal wave that was to sweep them away into the dustbin of history did not come to pass—not even close. As I write this, control of the House and Senate are still up for grabs. If the Dems are able to hang on and maintain control of both chambers, it will rank as one of the greatest political upsets in history, up there with Truman defeating Dewey in 1948. Pollsters and pundits evidently have underestimated the importance of women’s reproduction rights as a galvanizing issue influencing voter choices in the polling booth. I would venture to say it represents a stunning indictment against the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The high court is never officially on the ballot, but it was in spirit this election cycle.

Finally, hovering in the background to all this is Vladimir Putin. If the Republicans do end up winning Congress, albeit by razor thin margins, the autocratic Russian leader will be performing cartwheels of joy in private. That’s because many members of the once proud party of Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan have stated they would be in favor of cutting aid to Ukraine in its desperate quest to drive the Russian army off its soil. Putin would view such a move as a needed reprieve from all the recent bad news coming from his humiliated forces on the battlefield. It would also serve to divide NATO, as many nations in this all-important Western military alliance would question American resolve and leadership going forward.

Alas, Putin would become the secret winner of the 2022 midterms.

Talk about the skunk showing up at the garden party!

Matthew Motta

School of Public Health assistant professor in health law, policy, and management

If you’d asked me in November 2021 what I thought the outcome of the 2022 midterms might be, I’d have expected the GOP to capture both the US House and the Senate. With Republicans poised to take over control of the House, and—as I write at 5 am EST on November 9—locked into a tight race for control of the Senate—that prediction is looking plausible.

But, that’s really not the full story.

In 2021, I expected a “red wave” in 2022. Typically, when partisan control of the White House changes, as it did in 2020, we tend to see a backlash to the president’s party in the following midterm. Add relatively sluggish economic growth, high levels of inflation, and dissatisfaction with the incumbent president into the mix, and I would’ve said that electoral fundamentals strongly favored the GOP.

That’s not what we saw on election night.

While Republicans look poised to take back the House, the shift in the chamber’s partisan composition is projected to be somewhere between 8 and 16 seats. That’s much smaller than the 40 seats that Republicans lost the last time we experienced a change in control of the executive branch—with the election of Donald Trump in 2016, in the 2018 midterms—and the time before that, when Democrats lost 63 seats in the House in 2010 following the election of Barack Obama.

Additionally, in a “wave” election, we might well have known the results of the Senate race on election night. Republicans would’ve easily captured the chamber. That, of course, is not what we saw. Although Nevada and Georgia continue to count ballots, Democrats need only to win one to retain control of the chamber, assuming a victory in Arizona. Scandals that loomed over Herschel Walker’s (R-Ga.) candidacy might help explain why he performed worse in the polls than other Republicans in the state, e.g., incumbent governor Brian Kemp, and why Senate control could be undecided for several weeks. The race will head to a runoff if neither candidate gets 50 percent of the vote.

Moreover, while concerns about access to reproductive healthcare in a post-Roe world and fears about democratic backsliding appear to have given way to concerns about crime and the performance of the economy as the campaign wore on, these considerations may have nevertheless inspired turnout on the ideological left and/or had a disproportionately strong influence on those who voted early. The answers to all of these questions will be borne out in the coming days, as we churn through available turnout data, exit polls, and precinct-level election results.

Here’s what this all means. In my view, the outcome of the midterms wasn’t particularly surprising. Republicans are poised to win back control of the House, and are locked into a tight battle for control of the Senate as well. I was a bit surprised, though, by how we got to this point: less of a red wave, and more of a creeping red tide.

Shauna Shames

College of Arts & Sciences visiting associate professor of political science

Usually in a midterm election, the president’s party loses seats in Congress. This year, with inflation up, gas prices high, new election rules and district lines in place, and a whole lot of noise and anger from conservative candidates and voters, election forecasters generally expected large Republican gains. The red wave, however, never materialized. Many ballots have yet to be counted, and the fate of party control over both the House and Senate is TBD, but the general headline from last night’s results is that rumors of the Democratic Party’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

We are, and remain, a deeply divided country, but the results from last night are encouraging in many ways. Turnout seems to have been higher than usual, even amid a continuing pandemic and a flagging economy. In several key state-level ballot measures, common sense and moderation prevailed, including what appears to be a red state’s rejection of an attempt to add anti-abortion language to Kentucky’s constitution. And there are several firsts to celebrate: voters here in Massachusetts made history by electing the first woman and openly LGBTQ governor, Maura Healey, along with an almost entirely female set of new constitutional officers for the commonwealth. New York also elected its first woman governor, and Maryland, a former slaveholding state, elected its first Black governor. An Orlando [Florida] district elected the first member of Generation Z, a bright youngster who looks like he could be one of my BU students, who has an amazing life story, and ran on a platform including a heartfelt commitment to gun control—a key issue among my students and Gen-Z more generally.

Perhaps most significantly for the Republican Party, the 2022 results are arguably a signal that the power of Donald Trump and the MAGA faction is waning. Several Trump-endorsed candidates in key races—Mehmet Oz for Senate and Doug Mastriano for governor in Pennsylvania, Tudor Dixon for governor in Michigan—lost their races, while others, such as both the Republican gubernatorial and Senate candidates in Arizona, Kari Lake and Blake Masters, were, as of this writing, locked in races too close to call. Some Trump-endorsed candidates won, but only in the reddest of red areas, whereas the party knows it needs to win more in competitive districts if it wants to recapture the Congress and retake the White House. And Trump’s greatest Republican rival, Ron DeSantis, easily won reelection, which curtails any plan for an easy return to party nomination for a 2024 Trump run.

Shawn M. Lynch

College of General Studies lecturer in social sciences

It will be some time before we know the final outcome of the 2022 elections, but on the morning after, I believe there are some things we do know.

First, the Roe decision did have a big impact on turnout, according to exit polls. Second, Trump’s candidates did poorly, and Ron DeSantis won reelection handily over a weak Republican-turned-Democrat, Charlie Crist. Trump does nothing but fundraise and sputter his falsehoods about 2020. He cost Republicans the Congress and the White House, whereas DeSantis now is a proven winner. I believe we will see a widening gap between those who want to continue to serve Trump’s massive but eggshell-thin ego and those who want to leave him behind for a proven winner. The party may split along those lines at some point, especially if they both run in 2024. Third, there was no red wave, because millennials and Gen Z blunted it by voting. The polling failed because most polls are done over the phone, and millennials and Gen Z won’t answer an unknown number. Pollsters are going to have to find a way to poll those generations better.

Finally, if Republicans do take the House, we will face a wasted two years, where the clowns of the GOP, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, will run amok, screaming about conspiracy theories, but never legislating. The GOP has no platform, no ideas, and no real agenda apart from score-settling and dismantling Social Security. Their likely control of the House is just another way Americans shoot themselves in the foot again and again. It’s the definition of insanity to hand Republicans control of anything. It is a party of delusional narcissists and traitors to the Constitution. This wasted two years, however, plus the Trump/DeSantis split, will make a Democratic victory in 2024 all the more likely. But I make no predictions.

Rick Reibstein

College of Arts & Sciences lecturer in earth and environment

This election, the New York Times editorial board warned of the danger to democracy from Republicans promoting “baseless concerns” about election integrity. Historians will examine this moment in which Republicans worked to suppress voting, denied Biden’s clear victory, promoted racist fantasies about voter fraud, refused to accept court judgments, etc. Many insults to human dignity and aspirations can be experienced in a democracy and overcome, but losing the mechanism by which we choose our leaders is losing the whole thing. It is good that election deniers did not sweep to victory—though many remain in state legislatures—because we need a high-functioning democracy to create a sustainable and more equitable world.

We have lost the idea that democracy can just happen by itself. It won’t. It needs us. Thank you, everyone who knows and acts on this. Those who retain concepts of civil discourse and mutual respect must continue to engage. Their mature perspective can tame the unruly children, but not if they withdraw from the scene. Remaining active—not just defending, but creating constructive politics—is imperative.

Right-wing money and media are funding their movement at all levels—local, state, federal, international, but they are not “we the people.” We who are can comment, visit legislators, discuss, organize, reach out, propose legislation, lobby, listen, teach, join, run, learn, work with others on our common problems, and form the civil society we need. The New York Times recently ran a story about open-minded kids living with their parents who listen to Fox TV all day long. The lies have become so deeply entrenched that the kids can’t make any headway dislodging them. The parents are well-meaning and loving, though, so the kids stay with them. You can read about this and cry—and you can have hope.

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Rich Barlow

Senior Writer

Rich Barlow is a senior writer at BU Today and Bostonia magazine. Perhaps the only native of Trenton, N.J., who will volunteer his birthplace without police interrogation, he graduated from Dartmouth College, spent 20 years as a small-town newspaper reporter, and is a former Boston Globe religion columnist, book reviewer, and occasional op-ed contributor. Profile

Comments & Discussion

Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 23 comments on Is DeSantis the New Trump? And Other Thoughts from the Midterms

Tom

November 9, 2022 at 2:48 pm

DeSantis is Trump with a brain and without most of the personality disorders.

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1. Iris
  
  November 10, 2022 at 8:39 am
  
  No , he isn’t. He is much better in everything!
  And Florida is very lucky to have someone so smart, caring as a leader!
  
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2. richard l scotti
  
  November 12, 2022 at 12:43 am
  
  Very Well Said!!
  
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Virginia Sapiro

November 10, 2022 at 6:54 am

Why is this article accompanied by pictures of red waves? That graphic depicts a misleading message. Understand what “political waves” are. Certainly not wins that are much smaller than expected. Or losses.

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The Perpetual Student

November 10, 2022 at 8:17 am

Where did anyone ever get the idea that Republicans want to dismantle Social Security? This rumor has persisted ever since Newt Gingrich was quoted out of context a generation ago. I was surprised to see it repeated above. At this point, Social Security is so deeply embedded that it really couldn’t be eliminated. Granted, the rise of 401Ks has improved the landscape for many retirees, but Social Security is still a component. Many don’t plan for retirement and will remain largely dependent on Social Security.

Red wave? Red ripple? I’d say it’s more like a rising tide. As an undergrad, I recall my professor reminding us students that political values change slowly — over generations — and not to over-read any instant change as a trend. Society generally trends away from extremes. Whichever party figures this out will win next time around. This election was a huge win for moderate Republicans, but not for the extremists.

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1. Shawn Lynch
  
  November 10, 2022 at 9:58 am
  
  https://www.wamc.org/commentary-opinion/2022-04-15/senator-rick-scott-wants-to-sunset-social-security-and-medicare
  
  Articles such as this, in answer to your question..
  
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2. Doug D'Agrosa
  
  November 11, 2022 at 2:30 pm
  
  You are right, society does trend away from “extremes”, but the definition of what is extreme is ever changing. It used to be extreme for African-Americans to be free, for women to vote, for gays to have the same legal rights as married heterosexuals. Those things are not seen as extreme anymore. Banning books, outlawing certain types of abortions/medical procedures, outlawing gay marriage etc are being pushed by a certain part of today’s GOP, and THAT is seen as extreme in today’s general society. To think this weeks mid-term elections with high gas prices, high inflation (worldwide) and a President with approval ratings in high-thirties may still hold a voting majority in the Senate and only lose 15 to 8 seats in House, is a rejection by this county of extremism.
  
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3. richard l scotti
  
  November 12, 2022 at 12:45 am
  
  Another Well Said!!
  
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Carlos

November 10, 2022 at 8:37 am

DeSantis is an amazing leader, just like Trump. He is all about freedom and anti wokeness. His tough on crime policies protect Americans from thugs, unlike democrats. This is one of the reasons why people are leaving blue states and relocating to Florida. Democrats caters to thugs. Thugs love that bail reform policies that keeps them out of jail. Also, Trump is considered one of the best President ever, but DeSantis could supersede that one day.

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1. Pedro
  
  November 10, 2022 at 3:32 pm
  
  I’m a former Floridian who thanks his lucky stars every day that he now lives in Massachusetts. My parents can’t wait to leave Florida and the rising tide of MAGA residents and join me up here. It’s all subjective.
  
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2. Amy Williams
  
  November 11, 2022 at 8:26 am
  
  Amen, Carlos!
  
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3. Daniel Bennette
  
  November 12, 2022 at 8:05 am
  
  Trump was one of the worst Presidents we’ve ever had. He tried to convince people he could run the country and his organization at the same time but he actually could not do either correctly evidenced by his two impeachments and three bankruptcies. While he did have some good ideas at times, his personality did not allow him to effectively implement those strategies. Trump and DeSantis will split the Republican Party and make it harder to gain a majority. If Trump is as sore a loser against DeSantis as he was against President Biden, then he will sabotage the GOP with his sour grapes attitude.
  
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4. Jeff R
  
  November 12, 2022 at 8:28 am
  
  Are you serious?
  
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megan

November 10, 2022 at 11:33 am

ummm he is disgusting and has done terrible things for Florida’s people, coming from a girl who just moved from Florida.

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1. Sam
  
  November 15, 2022 at 2:31 pm
  
  Open minded to your assertion that Desantis has done terrible things – could you provide some thoughtful examples (or at least one example). Just saying it without any other info to back it up does not add anything useful to the conversation.
  
  On the other hand I can think of a few significant things he did that seem to have worked pretty well. For instance, he kept Florida schools open during Covid which we are now coming to realize was probably the right things to do. We are also learning that places where schools were closed have had a huge negative impact on kids’ learning and mental health.
  
  Furthermore the state’s economy weathered the pandemic reasonably well with the mortality rate being about the same as the national average (middle-of-the-pack of all states) even though the state has a large population and is the oldest in the country. Desantis resisted shutting down schools and businesses which has proven in hindsight to be the better policy. For comparison, California’s did shut down schools and businesses from which people suffered greatly but the mortality rate was about the same as Florida’s.
  
  Going on this alone would in my mind make Desantis a pretty good governor.
  
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2. Rex
  
  November 17, 2022 at 2:38 pm
  
  Megan, I would echo Sam’s comments about providing some examples of these “terrible things” that you allude to… Also, “he is disgusting” how exactly..? Some substance might be useful… Simply hurling insults and slander without basis seems to convey extreme bias and ignorance…
  
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Student Tired of Woke Indoctrination

November 10, 2022 at 3:55 pm

The BU Today tag lines is “News, Opinion, Community.” Can we drop the News and Community and just call it “Opinion”? I tried to read the article above about the Midterm elections however the writer’s bias was so loud I couldn’t hear the message through all their rhetoric. The fact BU Today would rather espouse their own opinions than report on current events make it hardly worthy of being called “news” and definitely is not fostering any type of “community”. “Opinion” is the only representative sentiment from the tagline so why not be honest about it?

This story and the fact the BU Today wrote an earlier headline that compared Republicans to Fascist, illustrate how Liberal and far Left leaning BU Today is. If the reader can tell a journalist’s personal political leanings, they have failed in their role. BU Today leave no doubt that their views are in absolute lock step alignment with the opinions and agenda of Democratic Party political positions. Journalism is dead in 2022. I just wish the pundits trying to fill the void left would stop masquerading as if what they were propagating was anything other than conjecture and their own skewed opinions. The original trend this story touched on but that the writers failed to accurately interpret or contextualize was that the actions and policies of the Democratic party have been a bridge too far for most Americans. Democrats has lost reaching a meeting of the minds with majority of the country and through that breakdown the support of the majority of American. A divide has formed between the positions and values of the mass versus the extreme views of the left and direction Progressives champion to move America toward. Among those dissenters are parents and student that are tired of Institutions of Higher Education’s usurp their duty to education as the instead exhibit the proclivity to push woke indoctrination. What students want are a return to traditional teaching wherein professors leave their own political positions and prejudices out of the classroom and approach to subject matter on the basis of concepts free of biased personal commentary. With as radicalized as universities have gotten is that even possible anymore?

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Amy Williams

November 11, 2022 at 8:34 am

Regardless of party, our culture is being crushed by a surge of immoral behavior towards our children, a complete failure of our Education system in teaching our children adequate skills to compete with the rest of the world, and a total disregard for Freedom of Speech/Thought for those who disagree with us. China must “copy” all of our “Innovative” ideas, because they all stem from the ability to think “Freely”- when you remove this, you are left with nothing. Elon Musk apparently understands this- our top Universities obviously don’t.

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Doctor

November 11, 2022 at 9:28 am

Your six “experts” demonstrate your commitment to the completely tone-deaf echo chamber of academia. I encourage you (authors and readers) to bravely venture out into regions of this country that aren’t within eyeshot of BU’s campus, and you may be shocked to see how disconnected your opinions are from basically anyone who doesn’t spend their entire adult life hiding from the world within the walls of a university.

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Sonny

November 12, 2022 at 1:34 pm

The GOP and conservatism are cancers, any losses for them is good for America and the vast majority of people who live here.

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1. Sam
  
  November 16, 2022 at 1:36 pm
  
  As mentioned above I am open to hearing more specific ideas about what is so detestable about conservatism – hint: like liberalism, it’s not all one thing, not all good and not all bad, which is why it’s helpful to be specific.
  
  But your comment sounds hateful, extreme and intolerant. It does not add anything to the discourse and only perpetuates more hate without solving any actual problems that the country faces. It would be helpful for liberals and conservatives to look inward at the part both play in destroying sane political engagement.
  
  People should be vigorously arguing about ideas and solutions, rather than spitting hatred at political opponents. People should be looking for evidence about which policies work best in the real world and arguing accordingly.
  
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  1. Rex
    
    November 17, 2022 at 8:05 am
    
    Thank you Sam
    
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2. Rex
  
  November 17, 2022 at 6:20 am
  
  Wow Sonny, your comments are always stunning… extremism, whether from the right or left (left in this case), is the real cancer…
  
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Has Trump Hit His Political Plateau? BU Experts Weigh Surprises and Portents of Midterms Results

BU experts weigh in on Tuesday’s election results and their portent for 2024

Is DeSantis the New Trump? And Other Thoughts from the Midterms

BU experts weigh in on Tuesday’s election results and their portent for 2024

Explore Related Topics:

Rich Barlow

Senior Writer

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Is DeSantis the New Trump? And Other Thoughts from the Midterms

BU experts weigh in on Tuesday’s election results and their portent for 2024

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