GOP stumbles with independents contributed to midterm woes

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… Republican House candidates nationwide won the support of 38% of independent voters in last month’s midterm elections, VoteCast showed. That’s far short of the 51% that Democrats scored with the same group in 2018 when they swept into power by picking up 41 seats. The GOP’s lackluster showing among independents helps explain why Republicans flipped just nine seats, securing a threadbare majority that has already raised questions about the party’s ability to govern.

Some Republican strategists say the finding is a sign that messages that resonate during party primaries, including searing critiques of Biden, were less effective in the general election campaign because independent voters were searching for more than just the opposition. CONTINUED

Thomas Beaumont & Hannah Fingerhut, Associated Press

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Republicans, Democrats Are Split Over Which Groups Face Discrimination, WSJ Poll Finds

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Voters are sharply divided by political party over which groups of Americans face discrimination, a Wall Street Journal poll finds, with more than 80% of Democrats saying that Black, Latino, gay and Jewish people face prejudice while a majority of Republicans say discrimination is more often aimed at white people and Christians.

The survey results show that Republicans and Democrats use different lenses to view the challenges and privileges of various groups in American society, which in turn explains some of the emotional heat fueling a series of recent political clashes over race, gay rights and religious liberty. CONTINUED

Aaron Zitner, Wall Street Journal

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How the Worst Fears for Democracy Were Averted in 2022

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… In Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, Republican primary voters nominated candidates campaigning on Mr. Trump’s election lies for secretary of state, the office that in 40 states oversees the election system. In all three, those candidates lost. The rout eased the immediate concern that strident partisans who embraced conspiracy theories about hacked voting machines, foreign meddling and smuggled ballots might soon be empowered to wreak havoc on election systems.

The election results suggest that a focus on Mr. Trump’s election lies did not merely galvanize Democrats but also alienated Republicans and independents. Final turnout figures show registered Republicans cast more ballots than registered Democrats in Arizona and Nevada, but election-denying candidates nevertheless lost important races in each of those states. …

Even so, a review of the election outcomes in several states, along with interviews with voters, political strategists, pollsters and political scientists, suggests that what happened in November was something less than a clear repudiation of an anti-democratic push in the Republican Party. CONTINUED

Charles Homans, Jazmine Ulloa & Blake Hounshell, New York Times

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The War on Christmas Is Winning

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“Do they know it’s Christmas?” the musician Bob Geldof once asked. Nearly three decades on, the answer in the United States is that they know perfectly well, but what that means, and how they express it, is in flux.

For years, conservatives have warned of a “war on Christmas.” Former President Donald Trump adopted it as a major cause, and nearly four in 10 Americans said in a poll last December that politicians are waging a campaign to take religion out of the holiday. Liberals have scoffed at the idea that anyone is trying to downplay Christmas, dismissing the whole thing as either earnest paranoia or cynical politics. They are right that there’s no coordinated push to downplay the holiday or its religious roots, but conservatives aren’t reacting to nothing: Christmas is becoming less of a religious holiday for millions of people. If a war on Christmas exists, it’s gaining ground in a long battle of attrition. …

In 2021, as he left office, Trump declared he had triumphed against the war on Christmas: “When I started campaigning, I said, ‘You’re going to say “Merry Christmas” again.’ And now people are saying it.” But this seems like yet another premature victory celebration and another unfulfilled promise. If anything, the religious element of Christmas slipped in importance during Trump’s presidency, and like many of the cultural trends against which he railed, this one appears likely to continue into the future. In short, it’s beginning to look a lot like happy holidays, everywhere you go. CONTINUED

David A. Graham, The Atlantic

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The Biggest Takeaway from the January 6 Report

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The congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection delivered a comprehensive and compelling case for the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump and his closest allies for their attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

But the committee zoomed in so tightly on the culpability of Trump and his inner circle that it largely cropped out the dozens of other state and federal Republican officials who supported or enabled the president’s multifaceted, months-long plot. The committee downplayed the involvement of the legion of local Republican officials who enlisted as fake electors and said almost nothing about the dozens of congressional Republicans who supported Trump’s efforts—even to the point, in one case, of urging him to declare “Marshall Law” to overturn the result.

With these choices, the committee likely increased the odds that Trump and his allies will face personal accountability—but diminished the prospect of a complete reckoning within the GOP.

That reality points to the larger question lingering over the committee’s final report: Would convicting Trump defang the threat to democracy that culminated on January 6, or does that require a much broader confrontation with all of the forces in extremist movements, and even the mainstream Republican coalition, that rallied behind Trump’s efforts? CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic

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Same-Sex Marriage Here to Stay

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Just as President Biden signed a law federally recognizing same-sex marriages, the Census released new numbers showing the most LGBTQ+ couples ever. Is this the end of a long struggle for equality or a midpoint? Then, we get in the holiday season to discuss our annual year-end poll which includes a brand new “most annoying word” and bring the entire Marist Poll team into the podcast for a bit of well wishing.

Poll Hub podcast, Marist Institute for Public Opinion

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