The recall results were horrible for Republicans and there is no disputing that. Republicans have to play a lot of defense in the House and persuade Biden voters to support their candidates. The recall showed no surge in Republican enthusiasm. 8-10 years ago a recall would have overperformed presidential numbers by up to 10%
The California results makes it clear to me that so far 2021 is nothing like 2009
I am just not seeing the evidence of the same kind of massive tea party backlash against Biden that I saw for Obama. Even with Biden losing some support recently it is still nothing compared to the kind of pure hatred that it was seeing from Obama in 2009 or even Trump in 2017
During the 2009 election season by this point we were already starting to see that democrats had a huge turnout problem. The Younger voters and African-Americans who helped catapult Obama and the Democrats to power in 2008 were simply not coming out to vote in 2009 nor would they even show up in 2010
That is not the case at all in 2021 and if anything I would be kind of worried if were the GOP because the Dems actually came out to vote in a off year recall election. The California results suggest that the Dems are so far are not staying home like they did in 2009 and if that continues to be the case going into 2022 than the GOP can kiss their Red Wave fantasy goodbye
This is why it's good to elect boring, normie politicians like Joe Biden. You don't see such wild swings in enthusiasm as when you organize around "historical" candidates like Obama or "outsider" candidates like Trump.
