Tuesday’s election results in New Jersey and Virginia — a big swing away from the party that controls the White House — were fairly normal. And that’s the scary thing.
The president’s party generally struggles in off-year elections for two reasons. First, there is often a turnout gap that favors the party that doesn’t control the White House. Off-year elections have much lower turnout than presidential ones, but typically more people from the party that doesn’t control the presidency are motivated to vote in opposition to whatever the incumbent president is doing. Second, some voters swing away from the president’s party, both because they don’t like his performance and because they want a balance of power in government.
But I hoped that the threat of Trumpism might reverse these patterns, for a simple reason: The post-2020-election Republican Party has gone crazy. CONTINUED
Perry Bacon Jr., Washington Post
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