Kuttner on TAP: Did We Just Save Democracy?

We had a very narrow path to saving American democracy this year, and we just might have begun that journey. For starters, it’s likely that Democrats will hold the Senate. Catherine Cortez Masto seems on track to eke out a narrow win in Nevada once all ballots are counted. That success, along with the almost certain victory of Democrat Mark Kelly in Arizona, means that Democrats are likely to keep 50 Senate seats whether or not Raphael Warnock wins the December 6 runoff in Georgia.

So even if Democrats very narrowly lose the House, Biden will have a Senate that can confirm nominees, conduct investigations, and block crazy Republican legislation. And if it’s clear that Democrats have kept control even without the Georgia seat, that is likely to depress Republican turnout more than Democratic turnout when Georgians vote. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, an anti-Trump Republican, cruised to re-election, and we can expect an honest vote count.

More remarkably, the anticipated Trumpian claims of election fraud, as well as Republican attempts to use it to their advantage, totally fizzled. Trump’s calls were widely ignored. Almost everywhere, it was a normal election.

Efforts at voter intimidation at polling places were blocked. With a few exceptions, even conservative courts refused to connive with Republican strategies to deter or depress voting.

In every major race that the AP has called, the loser has accepted defeat. Most statewide Republican candidates who campaigned around claims of ballot mischief were defeated.

For the most part, state and local election officials, of both parties, behaved like professionals, defending the right to vote. The few genuine cases of technical problems with voting, as in Philadelphia and Maricopa County, Arizona, were speedily rectified. There is still a good deal of ballot-counting to go, but all indications are that is going smoothly.

And as our colleague Miles Rapoport points out, “In addition to rejecting election denial victories in the most important states, voters in several states passed ballot initiatives to expand voting and voting choice.”

Rapoport notes that in Michigan, voters approved a measure requiring nine days of early voting, increased ballot drop boxes, and more time to count absentee ballots. Arizona enacted an initiative requiring more transparency for campaign contributions. And Connecticut voters passed a constitutional amendment allowing for early voting.

At the city level, Portland, Oregon, passed a new multimember proportional representation and ranked-choice voting plan. Oakland approved a program of public-financing vouchers and expanded transparency for local elections. And in Seattle, an initiative for ranked-choice voting is too close to call.

The failure of Republican candidates or activists to rally to Trump’s banner of claimed election fraud is another sign of Trump’s diminishing influence both in his party and with voters. Much of the claim of stolen elections began with Trump. And as a sign of sick democracy, it could well end with him.

The battle to save democracy is far from over, but these trends are a sign that at least the “ballot fraud” fever has peaked. Of course, some of the deeper problems with democracy are still baked in—the grotesque amounts of special-interest money being spent; the partisan gerrymandering; and the far-right capture of the Supreme Court.

At the local and state level, the struggle to prevent partisan legislation and official interference from deterring voting will still be trench warfare. Florida, for example, has successfully undermined a voter-approved ballot initiative to give former felons back the vote.

But we now have a decent shot at rebuilding our democracy. This was by no means assured and it is still far from a sure thing.

For democracy to broadly prevail, right-wing candidates need to be repudiated. Democrats will need to keep on rallying voters to the banner of economic justice, as they did in the 2022 midterms. They will need to keep peeling off Trump voters, as John Fetterman did so brilliantly. They will need to win in 2024 with a strong progressive program.

As a number of commentators have pointed out, Republicans are furious with Trump for helping Republicans lose one winnable seat after another, as well as scaring off voters with his own antics. It remains to be seen how many will publicly break with him. Even if Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, and others are more outspoken in their criticisms of Trump, he still could retain enough grassroots MAGA support to win the 2024 nomination.

Trumpers other than Trump, such as Ron DeSantis of Florida, could be more dangerous. Yet it’s not clear how well a DeSantis will travel. If Democrats can stick to the kind of progressive populist themes that led Fetterman to make big gains in Pennsylvania, they can beat either Trump or DeSantis in 2024, notably in the Midwestern swing states where the election will be decided.

Last April, when things were looking pretty bleak for Biden and the Democrats, I published a book titled Going Big. In it, I challenged the conventional premise that 2022 would be a Republican wave and suggested several reasons why Democrats could beat the midterm jinx.

I pointed out that Biden might not be popular personally but that he and the Democrats had delivered a lot; that Biden would not be on the ballot but that Trump in effect would, and that Trump would wreak havoc; and that Republican stances on unpopular issues like abortion rights would help Democrats. I also noted that individual Senate races looked pretty decent for Democrats. At the time, people appreciated my efforts at keeping hope alive, but thought I was a little wishful if not delusional. Well, maybe not.

Tuesday proved that America is still a democracy. We are going to have to keep fighting like hell to keep it that way.