By Ezra Klein
The 2022 elections resulted in a better outcome for Democrats than they had anticipated. The party secured governors’ seats and state legislatures while bolstering their Senate majority. They managed to limit losses in the House. The anticipated “red wave” never materialized. Perhaps a true wave would have been more beneficial.
Reflecting on it now, the foundations for Democrats’ 2024 downfall were laid in the ambiguous success of 2022. Three major events transpired afterward. The pressure on President Joe Biden to forgo reelection, along with the threat of a serious primary challenge, dissipated. Democrats convinced themselves of an incorrect narrative regarding the electorate. Consequently, the Biden-Harris administration sidestepped the difficult, post-defeat adjustments that both the Clinton and Obama administrations had to undertake following their midterm setbacks in 1994 and 2010.
During 2020, Democrats expressed concerns about Biden’s age, but were somewhat reassured by his hints of planning to serve for only one term. “Look, I see myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” he stated in 2020. By mid-2022, as Biden signaled his desire to run again, concerns within the party grew. In June of that year, The New York Times spoke with almost 50 Democratic officials and discovered that for “almost all the Democrats interviewed, the president’s age — 79 now, 82 by the time the victor of the 2024 election is inaugurated — raises significant doubts about his political viability.”
The public was also not pleased with the outcomes produced by the Biden administration. In October 2022, amid significant frustrations over inflation, a Times-Siena College poll reported Biden holding a mere 38% job approval and trailing Trump in a hypothetical rematch.
Had Democrats faced significant losses in the midterms, the pressure on Biden to fulfill his promise of being a transitional figure would have been overwhelming. If he had pursued reelection despite that pressure, serious challengers might have emerged. However, Democrats performed significantly better than they had expected. The president’s declining approval rating and the widespread discontent regarding inflation were not reflected in the election results. In their first test under Biden, Democrats fared much better than they had under Clinton or Obama. Any pressure on Biden to step back — and any chance of a genuine primary challenge — vanished.
In its place, a new interpretation of the electorate arose, stemming from the way Democrats excelled in competitive states, like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and underperformed in safe states like New York and California. Two coalitions emerged: the Make America Great Again coalition and the anti-MAGA coalition. Though the anti-MAGA coalition was larger, it required activation via the threat of Donald Trump or the Dobbs abortion decision. A series of special election wins in 2023 seemed to validate this interpretation. Democrats were succeeding in races they had no business winning, given Biden’s low approval ratings and public discontent over inflation. The anti-MAGA coalition’s disdain for Trump had altered the electoral calculus.
There was a less reassuring hypothesis: Democrats were attracting more politically engaged voters by substantial margins, whereas Republicans were securing support from individuals less invested in politics. The newly formed Democratic coalition turned out reliably during midterms and special elections. If this theory held true, a high-turnout presidential contest could be perilous for Democrats, as it would likely attract voters who cared little about Trump or the events of January 6, 2021, but had strong feelings about rising costs.
Nevertheless, Democrats largely embraced the initial theory. When I spoke with some of Biden’s senior political aides after the midterms, they expressed that the president’s approval rating was no longer a crucial electoral indicator. In such a highly polarized nation, any president would encounter unpopularity. However, this did not signify impending electoral disaster as long as the alternative was even less favorable. Democrats believed they didn’t need to change voters’ perceptions of Biden as much as they needed to keep emphasizing the chaos and consequences stirred by Trump. They asserted that the 2024 election would revolve around Dobbs and democracy.
This perspective allowed the Biden administration — or what would come to be known as “the Biden-Harris administration” — to avoid the pivot that earlier Democratic administrations underwent following midterms. In 1994 and 2010, Democrats experienced a significant “shellacking,” to use Barack Obama’s notable phrase. In both instances, the administration interpreted the setback as a signal and redirected its focus toward the voters it had lost. This led to Bill Clinton’s “triangulation” and welfare reform, and in Obama’s case, a series of bipartisan budget discussions and a reelection effort that honed in heavily on economic issues.
However, the Biden administration did not find itself compelled to make a similar pivot. It acknowledged voter dissatisfaction regarding inflation and border issues, yet it was not impacted by the kind of electoral repudiation that forces administrations to distance themselves from their core supporters by shifting toward the center. There were no bipartisan deliberations on an anti-inflation or deficit reduction initiative, nor were there notable and painful attempts to alter course. Biden remained focused, understandably, on Ukraine and then on October 7, 2023, with the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The administration’s most visible attempt for moderation following the midterms was its endorsement of the Murphy-Lankford border proposal. However, the Biden administration did not engage in this process until the end of 2023, and Biden’s endorsement of the bill did not come until January 2024. Even after the bill failed, Biden didn’t initiate his executive measures to limit the asylum process until June of 2024.
In contrast, the Obama administration dedicated years to pursuing prominent bipartisan negotiations — through the Simpson-Bowles Committee, with House Speaker John Boehner, and later through the so-called “supercommittee.” Although these efforts largely fell short — ultimately, deficit reduction was mainly driven by the indiscriminate cuts of the “sequestration” process — the Obama administration repeatedly allowed itself to be ensnared in attempts at negotiations.
This dynamic likely contributes to a political blindness that Democrats developed towards Biden. There has always been a significant disparity between the almost reverent attitude towards Biden among Washington Democrats and his low approval ratings. One reason detractors were so fond of him among congressional liberals was that, unlike past Democratic administrations, his leadership did not shift its politics in a way that alienated its base to reclaim disenchanted voters. This explains why Biden’s staunchest supporters, even following a problematic presidential debate, included Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Instead of concentrating on the voters they were losing, Biden and the Democrats kept their focus on the voters they were attracting. Biden’s reelection campaign kicked off at Valley Forge with a speech concerning the threat Trump posed to democracy, while Harris’ campaign delivered its final argument at the Ellipse, in Washington, where Trump incited the crowd that stormed the Capitol.
Nonetheless, the electorate of 2024 does not mirror that of 2022. It wasn’t sufficiently galvanized by Dobbs and democracy. It has been a politically tragic year for incumbents globally, and the misconduct of Donald Trump did not make America an exception. Perhaps had the Democrats felt the full impact of voter outrage during the midterms, they would have taken the intervening two years to mitigate it, or to identify a candidate who could effectively respond. But they did not. By the time Harris assumed control of the campaign in July, with scarcely 100 days remaining before Election Day, it was too late.
