2024 - A Blank Canvas

[GregTheGreat657]

Not going to jump the shark here and just let it play out as I go, but while the title may seem like a dead giveaway, let's start first with the 2022 midterms before I go any further...

November 8, 2022
REPUBLICANS WIN CONTROL OF CONGRESS, DEALING FATAL BLOW TO PRESIDENT BIDEN'S AGENDA
Faced with a prolonged failure to gain momentum on President Joe Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda, the recent declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic as an "endemic" by The WHO and its ensuing return to the "new (old) normal" with further breakthroughs in therapeutics and testing, increasing resistance to inflation, supply chain and debt issues by a general public now grappling with higher living costs, and an energized Republican voting base both sustained in the American heartland and reinvigorated in suburban areas, Democrats suffered their most staggering defeat in decades if not generations.

The momentum Democrats gained in the suburbs in the face of Trump? Gone.

Whatever goodwill Democrats had in them to reconnect with WWC voters? Gone.

The rising Hispanic tide that would have proven the "demographics is destiny" argument? Gone.

The end result is one of the largest - if not the largest - Republican majorities since the days of Calvin Coolidge. Republicans have largely taken back many of the suburban districts they lost in the 2018 midterms, while holding their own in virtually all of the working-class areas they gained in the Trump era. Democrats, on the other hand, have largely been limited to liberal urban enclaves with diverse populations and large college voter bases, "silk stocking" areas where white liberals dominate the political water cooler, and mostly gerrymandered seats in states where Republicans drew maps to their advantage (and which otherwise would be battlegrounds in more normal configurations).

In the Senate, Republicans gained a net of two seats - defeating incumbent Senators in Nevada, Georgia and New Hampshire, while losing an open seat in Pennsylvania where a famous Republican candidate became the subject of "carpetbagger" allegations while struggling to connect with Trump voters on the "red" - or rather, "black and yellow" - side of the state. Democrats did manage to hang on to competitive seats in Arizona and Colorado, while Republicans held on to seats once thought to be ripe for the other side's taking including Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, Iowa, Ohio and, most significant of all, Wisconsin. Despite gaining control, Mitch McConnell effectively steps aside as Senate Minority Leader "for the good of the country and our future", giving the reins to Senate Minority Whip John Thune, who becomes Senate Majority Leader despite crossing Trump over the 2020 result.



Meanwhile in the House, the aforementioned circumstances with regards to the general political mood, as well as a favorable redistricting edge for Republicans, ends up benefiting the GOP which experiences gains on the levels of past "red wave" elections - somewhere between the 1994 "Republican Revolution" and the 2010 "Tea Party" gains, with the somewhat muted gains in comparison to the previous waves largely the result of many of those gains being mostly rural and working-class seats - which are essentially a Republican monopoly at this point. Instead, this "red wave" is the end result of those aforementioned suburban and swing seats largely breaking for the GOP in improvements of 6 to as many as 18 points compared to 2020, not unlike the wave that elected Gov. Glenn Youngkin in Virginia and almost elected Jack Ciattarelli in New Jersey. A sizable number of seats that voted for Biden in 2020, for instance, are now held by Republicans, while the number of Democrats in Trump districts has been reduced to a number so negligible one could count within the fingers of just one hand.

Between the near-universal opposition to Biden on the Republican side, sizable but lukewarm support for Biden on the Democratic side, and an independent electorate that largely fled Biden after fleeing Trump in past elections, Biden finds himself staring at history as one of America's most unremarkable presidents. Already well advanced in age, often the subject of many a 25th amendment discussion by conservative thought leaders and activists, and viewed pejoratively as a "third term of Barack Obama", despite the White House's insistence that Biden would be seeking reelection in 2024, the first President from the First State is now looking at this possibility from a more sobering perspective.

Likewise, Donald Trump is the subject of speculation just as intense - the possibility of "will he or won't he?" when it comes to 2024. Trump has hinted that he will be running to "run for reelection" in 2024 - acting as if he was never defeated. Despite mounting tax controversies (largely political moves on the part of outspoken New York Attorney General Tish James and ambitious liberal prosecutors and AGs) and similar concerns about his age and 25th amendment-related issues, Trump himself has not hinted he won't run...and may choose to step aside so long as the Republican field more than satisfies his political palate. After all, if the field did satisfy him enough in 2016, that golden escalator ride may or may not have happened.

It's going to get very interesting here...stay tuned!

(details of congressional victories from 2022 forthcoming...)

Interesting. Welcome to Atlas!