In the 2018 midterm election, Democrats picked up forty seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, seven Governor offices, and hundreds of state legislative seats. A large reason for this Democratic victory was historic voter turnout for a midterm election:
Americans are more civically engaged than they have been in more than 100 years.
The two years between President Donald Trump’s win in 2016 and the 2018 midterms ushered in a new era of political engagement in America, not seen since the early 1900s and the 1960s civil rights and anti-war movements.
That culminated in November’s midterm elections. While House Democrats picked up 40 seats in a wave election (they didn’t fare nearly as well in the Senate), an important number to focus on is the sheer number of people who voted in 2018, compared to past midterms.
50.1 percent of the voting-eligible population in the US turned out to cast their ballots in this year’s midterms, according to the United States Elections Project, a database about the United States electoral system run by University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald. In raw numbers, that means 118,044,470 votes were cast.
It’s important to put this in context: 2018 saw the highest percentage of midterm voter turnout since 1914, when 50.4 percent of eligible voters went to the polls, as Vox’s Emily Stewart noted. (The next-highest rate was in the 1966 midterms, when 48.7 percent of eligible voters voted in the midterms.) And 2018 far surpassed the dismal turnout rates in the 2010 and 2014 midterms, the latter of which was only 36.7 percent — the lowest in 72 years.
High voter turnout should be seen as a good thing for anyone who truly values democracy, regardless of political party.
But, as it turns out, the Republican party doesn’t seem to value democracy. The Republican party instead saw the high voter turnout as a problem. Why was it a problem? Because most people support policies that are not supported by Republican politicians.
Whether it be universal health care, or a path to citizenship for Dreamers, or stricter gun laws, or boosting teacher pay, or raising the minimum wage, or investing in infrastructure, or expanding renewable energy, or protecting the environment, or expanding social security, or protecting unions, a large plurality of voters, even pluralities of Republican voters, support these policies. The only people who oppose these policies are Republican politicians and a shrinking minority of Republican voters.
In a democracy, the fact that most people support those policies should result in government enacting those policies. If Republican politicians believed in democracy, they should do something rather simple, they should also support those policies. But, likely because of a combination of being beholden to corporate donors, and not seeing value in bipartisanship, Republican politicians don’t seem to see that as their best option. Instead, they would rather just make it more difficult for all of the people who support those policies to be able to vote.
In Wisconsin, Republicans are trying to use the last few weeks of Republican Scott Walker’s term as Governor to limit early voting:
State lawmakers will vote next week on a number of Republican-backed proposals, including a plan to limit early voting in Wisconsin.
The so-called “extraordinary session,” approved by legislators on Friday and scheduled to begin Monday, is aimed at passing a number of new laws before Democratic Gov.-elect Tony Evers takes office in January.
One proposal would trim several days off Wisconsin’s early voting window — a move opponents have argued is aimed at suppressing certain voting populations, including students and minorities.
In Michigan, Republicans are trying to use the last few weeks of Republican Rick Snyder’s term as Governor to limit an automatic voter registration referendum that was overwhelmingly approved by voters:
As the Detroit Free Press reported, GOP lawmakers are proposing over a dozen measures in the lame duck session to lock in their policy priorities and undermine provisions approved by Michigan voters just weeks ago.
A set of bills sponsored by state Senate Majority Floor Leader Mike Kowall would fundamentally alter the Promote the Vote ballot proposal allowing same-day voter registration up to and including Election Day. Instead, that deadline would be pushed back to up to 14 days before the election. A provision in that ballot measure allowing for automatic voting registration (AVR) would also be altered to allow people to opt-out.
Michigan voters passed the original Promote the Vote proposal by 67 to 33 percent.
In Florida, Republicans are trying to stop the implementation of an overwhelmingly voter approved referendum to return the right to vote to felons:
A month after Florida voters approved a measure to restore the franchise to about 1.4 million former felons—the largest expansion of voting rights in decades—a battle over implementing that change is already beginning.
The state’s Republican elections chief is resisting swift implementation of the measure, which was approved by nearly 65 percent of Florida voters on November 6 and is scheduled to take effect on January 8. He’s asking the state Legislature, dominated by Republicans, to interpret the ballot initiative. As a result, the dismantling of one of the harshest disenfranchisement schemes in the country could be subject to delays, confusion, and lawsuits.
To those who crafted Amendment 4, the ballot language was straightforward. It read, “This amendment restores the voting rights of Floridians with felony convictions after they complete all terms of their sentence including parole or probation.” It stipulated an exception for people convicted of murder or a sexual offense.
This week, the first signs of obstruction arose. The secretary of state, Republican Ken Detzner, told the media on Tuesday that he believes the ballot language is unclear and, rather than give guidance to the elections supervisors, he wants the state Legislature to weigh in. “We need to get some direction from them as far as implementation and definitions—all the kind of things that the supervisors were asking,” he said. “It would be inappropriate for us to charge off without direction from them.”
The 2018 midterm elections had historic voter turnout, and historic numbers of votes for Democratic politicians who support policies most of the country also supports. It was democracy in action. Rather than rethink their policies, Republican politicians are choosing instead to make sure that historic voter turnout doesn’t happen again.