Obama Remains Relevant After Midterms

By Somnath Das

Last week, Republicans experienced a true "Republican wave" in the midterms, expanding their majority in the House and assuming control of the Senate. If anything, one could call last Tuesday's midterms a real "Super Tuesday" for Republicans. While some elections, such as the Senate election in Missouri, are yet to be called, data shows that the GOP now completely controls Congress, and have also significantly expanded their stronghold in state governments.

Many pundits in the media have interpreted these results as a referendum on President Barack Obama. The narrative portrayed in the media is simple: Obama is now unpopular, and voters are increasingly frustrated with him, so they took it out on his party in the midterms. However, as with any narrative, there are always parts to be taken with a grain of salt. While Obama's unpopularity played a role in last Tuesday's results, the midterms were about more than just a president and his policies. They were about the Democratic Party and its candidates.

In a speech highlighting his policies on immigration and minimum wage, Obama made the comment that he is not on the ballot, but rather his policies are. While this comment was earnest in nature, many pundits pointed to this comment in October as one of the bigger flops this election, as it created a huge opportunity for a slew of negative ads from the GOP. Democrats running in Republican-leaning states ran from this comment, and even Obama's former Executive Advisor David Axelrod, called the comment a mistake.

However, a closer look at the election results reveals that, in fact, some of Obama's policies do have popular support. Most notable that night was that voters in Arkansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Alaska all voted to increase their minimum wage. What's notable about these ballot initiatives is where they occurred. Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota are Republican-leaning states. This trend means that, despite their preference to vote for the GOP, these states are in favor of at least one policy advocated primarily by a Democratic president. While other policies advocated by Obama have less popular support in these states, this election produced one small bright spot for Democrats who wish to advance their agenda in the near future.

Another aspect of the midterms in need of examination is where the midterms occurred, as well as the reasons that they happened. Constitutionally speaking, 1/3 of the Senate (33 seats) goes for re-election during the midterms; however, retiring Senators are also taken into account during the midterms.

While senators tend to retire at the end of the term rather than in the middle; it's pretty notable just how greatly the retirement of senators coincided with the map that Democrats had during these midterm elections. Battleground states such as Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina and Alaska were on the ballot. Jim Newell of Salon noted this outcome in his op-ed "GOP's Forgotten Helpers: Blame these Retiring senators for this bad map," saying that the four Democrat incumbents who retired wouldn't have much trouble winning election if they had chosen to continue serving in Congress. This rather grave prediction wasn't so much because of party politics, but rather due to the nature of their incumbency.

The Democratic senators who retired were all power players both in the Senate and their home states; new candidates who ran to succeed them thus had to quickly reconcile the support base their predecessors built in order to have a shot at winning election. Unfortunately, this wasn't so. Representative Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) who ran to support Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) couldn't match the charisma of his opponent Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and certainly did not have his predecessor Harkin's resources and connections.

John Walsh (D-Montana), who was running in Montana to replace retiring Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana), was denied the seat rather quickly amid accusations of plagiarism with no sort of experience to defend his record. West Virginia saw the retirement of two powerful incumbents during the midterms, Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) in 2010 and Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) in 2014. While Byrd's seat remained in control by Democrats, the charismatic Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia) won Rockefeller's seat.

Finally, infighting between Rick Weiland and the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee allowed former South Dakota governor Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) to take Senator Tim Johnson's (D-South Dakota) seat. All four of these seats were in battleground states, including states that Obama lost in 2012. While the senators who retired had the absolute right to do so, one cannot help but shift some blame on the weaker candidates who wished to live up to their predecessors' names.

A final aspect I would like to point out is the performance of the so-called potential "rising-stars" of the Democratic party. In Kentucky and Georgia, there were a multitude of elections featuring the newest generation of older political dynasties. In Georgia, Senate candidate Michelle Nunn, daughter of Sam Nunn, and State Senator Jason Carter (D-Georgia), the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, hoping to succeed Nathan Deal (R-Georgia) as governor, largely depended on minority turnout in their electoral strategy. Secretary of State in Kentucky Alison Lundergan Grimes (D-Kentucky) ran a firestorm of negative ads against Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) hoping to tack him as the "guardian of gridlock" in order to attract voters towards her. Both elections also featured special guests in the form of Democratic power players Bill and Hillary Clinton as well as First Lady Michelle Obama. However, absent from all three campaigns was the head of the Democratic Party himself, Barack Obama.

Understandably, all three candidates were running in GOP-leaning states at the same time an unpopular president was in office; the candidates strained both themselves and the party by choosing to not even tout the key benefits of the actions by the Obama administration. Grimes' political downfall was largely a product of her often confusing and sometimes hostile positions towards Obama, often refusing to comment on her support of the President and even going directly against some of his policy initiatives during the election. Nunn ran an efficient, organized campaign, but failed to garner significant support by refusing to take substantive policy positions on crucial national policies, such as the Affordable Care Act, which often alienated potential minority voters.

Both of these campaigns had the potential to motivate a large Democratic base and attract independents to tilt the elections in their favor, however, a combination of the candidates' own unwillingness to take stronger positions as well as a strong strain between them and the national party led to their eventual defeat.

Don't get me wrong, Obama was still in the minds of many voters as they cast their ballots last Tuesday; however, we cannot attribute the loss of the Senate and the House elections simply on the embattled President. A strained Democratic Party struggling to define itself and produce strong candidates in addition to the losing of its power players largely played a role in their downfall. Additionally, a defiant and fresh Republican Party armed with cash and anti-Obama fervor proved stronger than expected.

Ultimately, while this year was a far cry from 2008, the results of this election were due to much more than a referendum on Obama and prove that the blue donkey isn't dead just yet.

Somnath Das is a College sophomore from Warner Robins, Georgia.

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