Will voters wake up by Election Day?
One of the most memorable books I had to read in various political science courses in college was called “It Seems Nothing Happened” — a narrative-meets-curricular book that attempts to document the important events of the 1970s.
The title is exactly what made it so memorable for me. I remember thinking smugly when I was twenty years old, when I bought the book for a class, “If it looks like nothing happened, why write a whole book about it?”
Then, after realizing the gist of the book, there was another part of me that felt critical, because of course my first decade alive was the decade that the geniuses of history decided was least important! (There was actually a time in the 1990s, before 9/11, when I and other colleagues of my generation lamented how relatively quiet the world had been during our lifetimes, making what we were covering less relevant. With age comes wisdom, right? )
Obviously the title was meant to be a little tongue in cheek. Compared to the 1940s (World War), 1950s (exponential growth, Korea, McCarthyism) and especially the 1960s (assassinations, civil rights movement, Vietnam, moon landing), the 1970s have not had the same memory for historians. – Until now.
For whatever reason, the 1970s, even with some 50 years of reflection, still has a “it seemed like nothing happened” spirit when you look at the decade through the prism of the entire 20th century. To be sure, other decades, whether from the world’s point of view or just from America’s point of view, have been home to far more important events.
But the relative lack of events that shook the world during that decade does not mean that it lacked anything of significance. One of the most important aspects of the 1970s was the beginning of a marked trend of political disengagement. This was the decade of voter turnout I started on a new downward trajectory. This was the decade in which voters began to show their disgust with the system no sharing.
Whether it was the activism and war fatigue of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, whether it was the economic malaise and steady inflation that took hold in the 1970s, whether it was the perception that America was in decline and losing its superpower status (see Saigon 1975) or whether it was Because of the cynicism generated by the government cover-ups in Watergate and Vietnam, there is a clear line of disengagement from interest in politics beginning in the 1970s.
In hindsight, given everything that was happening in the world and in this country, it is a bit troubling that Americans looked at a long list of national and international problems and, instead of engaging more in democracy to change leaders or course, simply ignored and got less engaged.
I bring this up because of one of our most troubling findings in the latest NBC News poll. We’ve asked a question we ask every election year – on a scale of 1 to 10, how concerned are you about the upcoming election? According to the results, we recorded the lowest level of interest in the elections during this decade. Fewer people chose “10” in this poll than in any presidential election year we’ve tested since 2004, with one brief exception in early 2012 that quickly rose again.
naturally, As I documented over the last few columnsNot surprisingly, many voters indicate a lack of interest in this election. Voters desperately want a change of leaders, yet both political parties have offered more of the same, so there is logic that voters will show less interest in this election than they did in the first matchup between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in 2020 or Trump’s race against him. Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Ultimately, barring some event in the fall that resets voters’ mindsets, we appear to be headed toward a lower-turnout election. This has its own consequences up and down the ballot, and makes third-party candidates – and the different particularities of each battleground state – more important than usual. When variance increases, so do the potential Electoral College outcomes.
What if this was a pocket election?
Sticking with the 1970s theme here, another thing that stands out from the survey is how important it is how economic questions are asked.
We know the macro economy looks good, with unemployment rates falling and GDP expanding. But when voters were asked whether this economy was working for them, they had some issues. More than 60% of voters say they are struggling to keep up with inflation.
During the Barack Obama years, the health of the economy was judged by the unemployment rate — and when it topped 8% in parts of 2012, we were reminded that no president had ever won re-election with an unemployment rate of 8% or less. higher. By November 2012, the rate fell a few tenths of a percentage point below that level, and Obama won re-election.
But these days, with the unemployment rate below 4%, the public judges the health of the economy by the cost of goods and services. And when you look at it through a cost perspective, it’s actually very frustrating economics.
Try being a first-time homebuyer, with mortgage rates above 7% – the highest in a generation. Not only has your purchasing power been diminished thanks to higher interest rates (a direct result of inflation, as the Fed raises interest rates to combat inflation), but higher interest rates have prevented older homeowners from downsizing and selling their homes. Instead, seniors are keeping their low-interest mortgages and not selling their current homes, shrinking the supply of available housing. So not only is borrowing money to buy a home more expensive, buying any home is more expensive because of shrinking supply!
The point is that there are plenty of sobering facts that support voters’ perception that they are struggling to stay afloat.
If this were a winning election, I wouldn’t want to be Biden right now. When voters are asked to judge Biden versus Trump on different issues and characteristics, one thing that stands out is that voters, in general, view Trump as better able to handle the mechanics of the job than Biden. Trump is seen as better on the border, better on the economy, and better at handling crises (yes, even post-Covid).
Biden outperforms Trump in various personal qualities, as well as the ability to unite the country. In some ways, if Trump wins, he will succeed in convincing swing voters that admiration and sympathy don’t matter. He’s Colonel Jessup’s candidate: “You don’t want the truth because deep down in the places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on this wall – you Need “I’m on this wall,” says the character in “A Few Good Men.”
We’ll see – Jessup ended up being arrested. After all, as the prosecutor says, witnesses have rights!
Bottom line, this poll only reinforces the trends I’ve been writing about over the past few weeks. This will be an electoral body that is late in making a decisionThank you to voters who decided to overturn an election they thought they already understood without needing any new information. I truly believe that most polls between now and October will tell us very little. We know what 90% of voters will do – it is the last 10% of “swing” voters who either swing between the two parties or vacillate between voting and not voting who will decide this election.
The unattractiveness of the top of the list, coupled with a feeling among a number of voters that neither party has the answers on the economy or foreign policy, means that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will lose the election. The “none of the above” factor can get pretty strong In determining who exhausts their path to victory.
Remember Bob Graham
Sorry for the nostalgia this week, but I also thought I’d take a minute to remember someone who became important in the 1970s: the late Senator and Florida Governor Bob Graham.
I know that the older we get, the more we glorify the past, usually by forgetting the bad and over-remembering the good. but Graham died last week It’s a reminder that we’re already used to sending fewer narcissists to Congress and fewer megalomaniacs into office.
Graham won because he did his best to represent as many Floridians as possible; He did not win the election by dividing Florida into red and blue camps, but rather by trying to win 60% or more of the vote. I think we’ve always had two types of politicians. There are those who want to do whatever it takes to win, regardless of whether they are popular or not, with power being more important than popularity – candidates who only win by 50% plus 1.
The other type of politician wants to be liked by as many people as possible, and this usually drives them to do more of what the majority wants, not less of it. These are the people who want a 60% approval rating all the time.
The sad thing about praising Graham now is that his style of politics will not be rewarded in today’s political climate. He wasn’t partisan at all — sure, he was a Democrat, but if you were part of his upbringing, you’d be forgiven for forgetting his party ID. Because Graham was primarily from Florida.
What made Graham an exceptional public servant was his focus on the ordinary. Born into a wealthy family, Graham never acted like someone who thought his lot was anything more than the luck of the genetic lottery. He learned that he had to earn his place in society, and politically, that meant trying to follow in the footsteps of his constituents – by which I mean… literally Walking in their shoes. He became famous for his “Workdays” shows in which he would spend a day working with various Floridians. Some were teachers, some were policemen, some were janitors, some were farmers, but all were important to Graham.
Graham’s success as a Southern politician in a swing state has many of us scratching our heads wondering how he never ended up on a national ticket. The most obvious “what if” question from the 2000 election: What if Al Gore had chosen Graham as his running mate? Was that enough to erase the margin of votes that George W. Bush obtained in Florida, which amounted to 537 votes, and thus hand the presidency to Al Gore? We will never know.
But let’s see why Graham never ended up getting a national ticket. The Democratic Party’s press and political intelligentsia thought Graham was too boring or quirky (He loved his notebooks) to be on a national ticket.
The superficiality of our politics cost us a potential president or vice president who took public service, national security, and American intelligence seriously, and who believed that the American government should be as exemplary in its actions as the public demanded.
I will simply conclude with Graham’s words during a 2003 presidential candidate interview with The New York Times“I have a reputation, and it’s not undeserved, of being an understated person, and I’m not easily aroused to zealous, some people might say, charismatic levels. But I think what the American people probably want now is someone who can give them a sense of steady leadership.” , instead of an emotional tremor.
Someday this will be true. Let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later.
