For Republicans, the midterms – like Seinfeld – turned out to be a show about nothing | Opinion
Looking back at the midterm elections, it’s remarkable how much the issues Republicans campaigned on now appear hollow.
GOP candidates focused on gas prices, inflation, rising crime, teachers indoctrinating students about race and sexuality, President Joe Biden’s supposed incompetence and the oft-declared “crisis” at the southern border.
Although the expected national “red wave” didn’t happen, Republicans did better in North Carolina, winning the U.S. Senate race and sweeping statewide judicial elections, but that may have been more about midterm voting patterns than the Republicans’ overwrought issues.
David McLennan, a Meredith College political science professor who oversees the Meredith Poll on North Carolina issues, said the Republican victories “can be attributed to the Republican voter turnout efforts, rather than issues like crime or immigration persuading voters to support Republican candidates.”
Nonetheless, Republican Ted Budd focused on those issues during his successful run for the U.S. Senate. On the eve of the election, he told Fox News, “I would say this is about inflation, about crime and about education. We’re talking about the things that the voters want to get better in their lives. And everything that Democrats are doing is making life worse.”
But before Budd and other Republican winners take their seats, the issues they ran on are already fading.
Consider the issues:
Gas prices: The increase to $5 a gallon had more to do with the war in Ukraine than anything Biden did or could do. Nonetheless, he was blamed. So where’s the credit for plunging prices? In December, the average price for a gallon of gas hit a 15-month national low of $3.18. In 19 states, the average gas price is less than $3 a gallon.
Inflation: As gas prices have dropped, supply lines have reopened and the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates, inflation has eased. The national inflation number has fallen for five consecutive months. Consumer prices increased just 0.1 percent in November.
Crime: There was a spike in homicides, but the overall crime rate remains well below the rates of the 1970s and 1980s. Meanwhile, a Pew Research Center analysis of the federal 2021 National Crime Victimization Survey found that the violent crime rate, excluding murder, “was statistically unchanged from the year before, below pre-pandemic levels and far below the rates recorded in the 1990s.”
Student indoctrination: This was a phony wedge issue from the start. K-12 public schools don’t teach Critical Race Theory and teachers who mention sexuality are teaching, not grooming. All the indoctrination talk has done is aggravate an already serious teacher shortage.
Biden’s alleged incompetence: The president supposedly triggered inflation by pushing through pandemic relief spending and Republicans generally described that and his other policies as “disastrous” for American families. Now it appears federal relief added about 3 percent to the inflation rate by the end of 2021, while also preventing a recession and bolstering the economy. Rising tax revenues spun off by a stronger economy have helped shrink the federal budget deficit by half. Biden also successfully pushed for the first major climate change bill, and he succeeded in funding infrastructure, which Donald Trump had promised but failed to do.
Meanwhile, the 3.7 percent unemployment rate remains close to a historic low, workers have made wage gains and corporate profits hit a record high in the third quarter of 2022.
The Southern border “crisis”: A solution will require that Republicans compromise on immigration law reforms and agree on border policies consistent with our national ideals. Busing migrants to blue states won’t fix it.
Biden has made mistakes and the nation still faces many problems. But if Republicans want to help solve them, they’ll need to focus on real issues.
Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-829-4512, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com
