The results of a special election this week poured fuel on a debate raging among American political observers.
The topic: Are Democrats actually in better shape than they appear heading into this year’s presidential election?
Because by conventional standards, they seem to be in pretty rough shape. Poll after poll shows Donald Trump ahead of President Joe Biden, nationally and in swing states.
In fact, Trump has never enjoyed surveys this good, not in either of his past two elections, which he won and nearly won.
On the other side, doubters of these polls insist that what matters is results. Real election results. By that standard, Democrats are enjoying a hot streak.
This week they reclaimed the New York City district previously held by Republican congressman George Santos — the accused fraudster infamous for lying about being Jewish, about where he went to school and worked, and about his mother dying in a terrorist attack.
It’s no isolated success, either. Democrats defied both the polls and history last year for an incumbent party — they gained a Senate seat, almost held the House, gained two state governorships, took control of four state legislative chambers and won a string of special elections.
‘See you in November’
A triumphant-sounding Democratic congressman celebrated Tuesday’s result with a taunt about this fall’s presidential election.
The polling numbers for U.S. President Joe Biden have given Democrats cause for concern about his re-election chances in November. (Matt Rourke/The Associated Press)
“We’ll see you in November,” Rep. Ted Lieu said Wednesday, the day after Democrats won Santos’s seat. He ascribed the win to voters recognizing which of the major parties actually cares about governing.
“What are Republicans focused on? Stupid stuff, like baseless impeachments with no evidence, stopping a national security package that’s going to improve America’s national security, and doing things that no one in America really wants them to do…. The American people want a Congress that actually does something.”
Needless to say, Republicans drew contradictory conclusions from the result.
They pointed to the Democrats’ advantages in this race: they spent heavily; ran a well-known former congressman and mayor against an unknown Republican criticized for avoiding public events; and in a district with a history of swinging wildly between parties, they capitalized on Santos’s inimitable array of personal scandals.
“There are a lot of factors there. That [result] is in no way a bellwether of what will happen this fall,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said. “There is a fervour among the American people. People know this country is on the wrong track.”
Shift in voter habits
So what’s going on here?
What’s undisputedly happening is that there’s a shift helping Democrats perform better than they once did in low-turnout contests like Tuesday’s byelection in New York.
The parties are undergoing a realignment in their voter coalitions — with the college-educated, and the most politically engaged, voters drifting toward the Democrats.
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Just look at the historical trendline.
College-educated voters now constitute nearly half of the Democratic electorate — that’s double their share from 2000. These voters now make up a far higher share of the Democratic electorate than the Republican one.
It’s a historic reversal: these voters used to identify primarily as Republicans.
Republicans used to win most college-educated voters until 2000, but a gradual shift occurred, and it accelerated during the Trump era, culminating in Democrats winning college graduates by about 12 points in 2020.
These sorts of voters are statistically likelier to turn out in an election like Tuesday’s: a low-participation race, during a winter blizzard, to decide a single seat that won’t change control of Congress.
This extended a hot streak for Democrats that began in mid-2022, when the Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to an abortion, unleashing a torrent of anger and activism on the political left.
Does win streak translate to another presidency?
Democrats have been repeatedly over-performing polls. And not just that: they’ve been improving on past election results. In four districts that have held special elections since the 2022 midterms, Democrats have improved on their previous score in all four, including by a whopping 15 points in a couple of them.
Is any of this predictive of what might happen in this fall’s presidential election?
The head of an election data company acknowledges Democrats have reason to be pleased with recent results.
Supporters of Democrat Raphael Warnock react during an election night party in Atlanta, Ga., on Dec. 6, 2022, after a projected win for Warnock in the midterm runoff for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
“They have certainly done very well in special elections,” said Drew McCoy, president of Decision Desk HQ, in an interview this week.
But he adds a big caveat. These results don’t tell us much about a presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
“Special elections tend not to be predictive,” McCoy said.
This goes back to the types of voters who show up in presidential versus non-presidential elections. In the midterm elections of both 2022 and 2018, 43 per cent of voters had a college degree.
This is significantly higher than the percentage who had one in presidential elections, six points higher than in 2016 and four points higher than in 2020. Given the close results in presidential swing states, that’s a potentially game-changing difference.
Concerns about the fall
The Democrats’ lead pollster in the New York race this week, Mike Bocian, said the turnout numbers left him feeling positive about November.
He said the Democratic candidate, Tom Suozzi, tapped into a deep desire of voters for solutions, rather than virulent partisanship.
Bocian lauded Suozzi’s centrist message on what’s been a difficult issue for Democrats — the border and immigration. Suozzi advocated more border security, but also more legal immigration, and he contrasted that with Republicans’ alleged obstructionism after that party blocked a border deal.
“That is where the public is,” Bocian told a podcast hosted by The New Republic magazine. “What they want, mostly, is solutions.”
Yet he acknowledged lingering concerns about the fall.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks after meeting with members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters at their headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 31, 2024. (Andrew Harnik/The Associated Press)
One worry is whether lower-propensity voters will turn out in droves for Trump; the former president twice broke a record for most votes received by a Republican candidate.
The other is whether the Democratic base holds together. Young voters, and voters of colour, are unusually disenchanted with Biden, which is a major reason he has fallen behind in the polls.
Bocian said Biden’s campaign must communicate to these voters the threat of a national abortion ban should Republicans win this fall.
Behind that, he said, the campaign has to adjust its usual timetable.
Rather than wait until later in the race to contact base voters in a final get-out-the-vote push, he urged immediate outreach.
“I think that’s gotta change this cycle,” Bocian said. “We need to be reaching out early, often, and making the case to these younger voters and voters of colour.”
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
VANCOUVER – An incumbent BC United legislative member has reversed her decision not to seek re-election and has announced she’ll run as an Independent in the riding of West Vancouver-Capilano in the upcoming British Columbia election.
Karin Kirkpatrick has been a vocal critic of BC United Leader Kevin Falcon’s decision last month to suspend the party’s campaign and throw support behind the B.C. Conservatives under John Rustad.
Kirkpatrick announced her retirement this year, but said Monday that her decision to re-enter the race comes as a direct result of Falcon’s actions, which would force middle-of-the-road voters to “swing to the left” to the NDP or to move further right to the Conservatives.
“I did hear from a lot of constituents and a lot of people who were emailing me from across B.C. … that they didn’t have anybody to vote for,” she said. “And so, I looked even at myself, and I looked at my riding, and I said, ‘Well, I no longer have anybody to vote for in my own riding.’ It was clearly an issue of this missing middle for the more moderate voter.”
She said voters who reached out “don’t want to vote for an NDP government but felt deeply uncomfortable” supporting the provincial Conservatives, citing Rustad’s tolerance of what she calls “extreme views and conspiracy theorists.”
Kirkpatrick joins four other incumbent Opposition MLAs running as Independents, including Peace River South’s Mike Bernier, Peace River North’s Dan Davies, Prince George-Cariboo’s Coralee Oakes and Tom Shypitka in Kootenay-Rockies.
“To be honest, we talk just about every day,” Kirkpatrick said about her fellow BC United incumbents now running as Independents. “We’re all feeling the same way. We all need to kind of hold each other up and make sure we’re doing the right thing.”
She added that a number of first-time candidates formerly on the BC United ticket are contacting the group of incumbents running for election, and the group is working together “as good moderates who respect each other and lift each other up.”
But Kirkpatrick said it’s also too early to talk about the future of BC United or the possibility of forming a new party.
“The first thing we need to do is to get these Independent MLAs elected into the legislature,” she said, noting a strong group could play a power-broker role if a minority government is elected. “Once we’re there then we’re all going to come together and we’re going to figure out, is there something left in BC United, BC Liberals that we can resurrect, or do we need to start a new party that’s in the centre?”
She said there’s a big gap left in the political spectrum in the province.
“So, we just have to do it in a mindful way, to make sure it’s representing the broadest base of people in B.C.”
Among the supporters at Kirkpatrick’s announcement Monday was former longtime MLA Ralph Sultan, who held West Vancouver-Capilano for almost two decades before retiring in 2020.
The Metro Vancouver riding has been a stronghold for the BC Liberals — the former BC United — since its formation in 1991, with more than half of the votes going to the centre-right party in every contest.
However, Kirkpatrick’s winning margin of 53.6 per cent to the NDP’s 30.1 per cent and the Green’s 15.4 per cent in the 2020 election shows a rising trend for left-leaning voters in the district.
Mike McDonald, chief strategy officer with Kirk and Co. Consulting, and a former campaign director for the BC Liberals and chief of staff under former Premier Christy Clark, said Independent candidates historically face an uphill battle and the biggest impact may be splitting votes in areas where the NDP could emerge victorious.
“It really comes down to, if the NDP are in a position to get 33 per cent of the vote, they might have a chance of winning,” McDonald said of the impact of an Independent vote-split with the Conservatives in certain ridings.
He said B.C. history shows it’s very hard for an Independent to win an election and has been done only a handful of times.
“So, the odds do not favour Independents winning the seats unless there is a very unique combination of circumstances, and more likely that they play a role as a spoiler, frankly.”
The B.C. Conservatives list West Vancouver School District Trustee Lynne Block as its candidate in West Vancouver-Capilano, while the BC NDP is represented by health care professional Sara Eftekhar.
Kirkpatrick said she is confident that her re-entry to the race will not result in a vote split that allows the NDP to win the seat because the party has always had a poor showing in the riding.
“So, even if there is competition between myself and the Conservative candidate, it is highly unlikely that anything would swing over to the NDP here. And I believe that I have the ability to actually attract those NDP voters to me, as well as the Conservatives and Liberals who are feeling just lost right now.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Egypt on Tuesday for his 10th trip to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began nearly a year ago, this one aimed partly at refining a proposal to present to Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire deal and release of hostages.
Unlike in recent mediating missions, America’s top diplomat this time is traveling without optimistic projections from the Biden administration of an expected breakthrough in the troubled negotiations.
Also unlike the earlier missions, Blinken has no public plans to go to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on this trip. The Israeli leader’s fiery public statements — like his declaration that Israel would accept only “total victory” when Blinken was in the region in June — and some other unbudgeable demands have complicated earlier diplomacy.
Blinken is going to Egypt for talks Wednesday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and others, in a trip billed as focused both on American-Egyptian relations and Gaza consultations with Egypt.
The tamped-down public approach follows months in which President Joe Biden and his officials publicly talked up an agreement to end the war in Gaza as being just within reach, hoping to build pressure on Netanyahu’s far-right government and Hamas to seal a deal.
The Biden administration now says it is working with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar to come up with a revised final proposal to try to at least get Israel and Hamas into a six-week cease-fire that would free some of the hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Americans believe public attention on details of the talks now would only hurt that effort.
American, Qatari and Egyptian officials still are consulting “about what that proposal will contain, and …. we’re trying to see that it’s a proposal that can get the parties to an ultimate agreement,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday.
The State Department pointed to Egypt’s important role in Gaza peace efforts in announcing last week that the Biden administration planned to give the country its full $1.3 billion in military aid, overriding congressional requirements that the U.S. hold back some of the funding if Egypt fails to show adequate progress on human rights. Blinken told Congress that Egypt has made progress on human rights, including in freeing political prisoners.
Blinken’s trip comes amid the risk of a full-on new front in the Middle East, with Israel threatening increasing military action against the Hezbollah militant organization in Lebanon. Biden envoy Amos Hochstein was in Israel on Monday to try to calm tensions after a stop in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has one of the strongest militaries in the Middle East, and like Hamas and smaller groups in Syria and Iraq it is allied with Iran.
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged strikes across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas started the war in Gaza. Hezbollah says it will ease those strikes — which have uprooted tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border — only when there’s a cease-fire in Gaza.
Hochstein told Netanyahu and other Israeli officials that intensifying the conflict with Hezbollah would not help get Israelis back in their homes, according to a U.S. official. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said Hochstein stressed to Netanyahu that he risked sparking a broad and protracted regional conflict if he moved forward with a full-scale war in Lebanon.
Hochstein also underscored to Israeli officials that the Biden administration remained committed to finding a diplomatic solution to the tensions on Israel’s northern border in conjunction with a Gaza deal or on its own, the official said.
Netanyahu told Hochstein that it would “not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north.” The prime minister said Israel “appreciates and respects” U.S. support but “will do what is necessary to maintain its security and return the residents of the north to their homes safely.”
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, meanwhile, warned in his meeting with Hochstein that “the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes will be via military action,” his office said.
In Gaza, the U.S. says Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal in principle and that the biggest obstacles now include a disagreement on details of the hostage and prisoner swap and control over a buffer zone on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Netanyahu has demanded in recent weeks that the Israeli military be allowed to keep a presence in the Philadelphi corridor. Egypt and Hamas have rejected that demand.
The Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people. Militants also abducted 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages. About a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, said Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count. The war has caused widespread destruction, displaced a majority of Gaza’s people and created a humanitarian crisis.
Netanyahu says he is working to bring home the hostages. His critics accuse him of slow-rolling a deal because it could bring down his hardline coalition government, which includes members opposed to a truce with the Palestinians.
Asked earlier this month if Netanyahu was doing enough for a cease-fire deal, Biden said, simply, “no.” But he added that he still believed a deal was close.
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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
