(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal.

I'm Steve Kendall.

It's just a year past the presidential election of 2020.

We're a year away from the congressional elections in 2022.

But we're gonna talk about those as well, but we're also gonna talk about the recent 2021 election.

And joining us is Dr. Melissa K. Miller, professor of Political Science at Bowling Green State University.

Welcome again to "The Journal", Melissa, thank you for being here.

- Thanks for having me, Steve.

- And as I said, obviously with the 2020 presidential election seems a long ways ago.

The 2022 elections just over the horizon, but 2021, gave us some things to think about, look at and possibly, and for some candidates, a tool box or a plan to move forward to 2022.

So let's talk a little bit about what happened last Tuesday, 2021 election.

There were things going on around the country, enough of them to maybe draw some inferences from what's going on out there for Republicans and for Democrats.

- I think there are really four key races that unfolded on Tuesday night and in the hours that followed that really gave Democrats across the country a wake up call.

The two that were the most high-profile were the governor's races in New Jersey, which is basically a blue state.

And in Virginia, where former Governor Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat was running again and some weeks ago was just expected to win without a problem.

Well, the Democrats ran into trouble in both states.

Incumbent Democratic governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy did prevail by about two points, but the fact that that race was so close was pretty alarming to Democrats in New Jersey and elsewhere.

Because as I said, New Jersey is considered a blue state.

In other words, it elects Democrats, it trends Democrat and it has historically so.

In Virginia, the Democrat Terry McAuliffe actually ended up losing, which was a surprise.

Steve, as you pointed out, just one year ago, Joe Biden won Virginia by 10 points and Republicans hadn't won a statewide race in Virginia since 2009.

So the fact that McAuliffe lost by about two points was a shocker.

Now we can point to in the Virginia race, a number of unforced errors that McAuliffe made.

Glenn Youngkin ran a really good strong campaign because he'd never held office before.

He didn't have a long record.

He didn't align himself with President Trump.

He threaded the needle and managed not to upset the Trump base, but threaded that needle and was able to be elected with a coalition of your basic Trump supporters as well as suburban white voters.

So that's what happened in those two governor's races.

The other two that I think are worth mentioning.

One is the Buffalo mayor's race.

Now, why are we here in Northwest Ohio talking about the Buffalo's mayor race?

I'll just mention it briefly.

It's so interesting because the Democratic Party there nominated a Democratic socialist for mayor who defeated the Democratic mayor in the primary.

What did the Democratic mayor do?

He ran a write-in campaign and he had a catchy slogan "Write Down Byron Brown".

That was his slogan.

The write-in candidate won by 59% of the vote.

So that's an interesting perhaps lens on this debate within the Democratic Party.

Is it better to trend further to the left or is it better to be more moderate?

Well, in Buffalo, New York, it appears that the moderate has won the incumbent write-in Democratic mayor, Byron Brown.

And finally-- - Well, I'm going just for a second.

Write-in candidates by definition, have a huge slope decline.

So the fact that he could actually win and with 59% as a write-in candidate, yeah, that's a whole nother discussion of how did that happen.

- I know.

- Just in general because right in candidates struggle to get even marginal percentages usually.

So that's another twist in that whole story.

- It's huge and with 59%, that's a sizable win.

- Yeah, exactly.

- The last race I'll just touch on briefly was in Minneapolis, where there was a ballot measure that would have replaced the police department or transformed it, putting it under the umbrella of a broader comprehensive department of public safety that was defeated.

And it was seen as a litmus test for the defund the police movement within the Democratic Party, that some think that's where the Democratic Party should be headed, being basically just taking more bold and ambitious plans.

And yet that failed in one of the twin cities, right?

The sort of the epicenter of all of the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd.

So that failed.

It was not a good night for Democrats and now Democrats are trying to figure out what it all means for the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential race.

- Yeah and 2022 midterm elections by definition are not favorable to the party in power.

So you layer that on with what just happened last Tuesday and you're right.

If you're sitting on the Democratic side, you're going, we have to recalibrate here and figure out what in the world is going on out there.

And what did we do right, what did we do wrong.

Did we do anything right?

And then I think the other part of that too, and again, but those four things, as you indicated, those are four separate spread out elements.

It wasn't like, oh, something that was happening side by side, by side, in a geographical area.

That was a pretty good representation of a national trend.

If you even look at that in some ways.

That might be stretching it, but it wasn't like those were all in one neighborhood and they happen.

They happen in four separate distinct locations.

- Yes and four separate distinct constituencies, right?

And so I think those four races really do, they gave the Democrats a wake up call.

And one of the things that also didn't help Democrats in any of these races or on the ballot measure is just that the Democrats weren't looking too good in the US House of Representatives.

Week after week after week, unable to pass the popular bipartisan infrastructure bill and unable to pass the broader social spending, comprehensive package.

These, it had just been weeks of sort of negative headlines.

And one can say, and as a Political Science, I'm apt to say, you know what, that's how the sausage is made and voters got to see that process and it's always complex.

It wasn't a good look for Democrats.

And it didn't look like Democrats were capable of governing.

Were capable of enacting President Biden's some of his key campaign promises with that failure.

Now, why can we say definitively Democrats got a wake up call?

Because by Friday night around midnight, they did pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill in the US House of Representatives.

So I think that wake up call, the Democrats, got their act together, got that bipartisan infrastructure bill passed.

And one interesting point about that is that it was the Congressional Black Caucus.

That was the group within the House of Representatives that stepped in and got that deal done and got that bill passed.

And it was actually announced by the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio who represents a Columbus area district.

It wasn't Nancy Pelosi.

It was Congresswoman Joyce Beatty of Columbus, Ohio who announced the breakthrough compromise.

- Okay, well, when we come back, let's talk a little bit more about that and what that might mean.

'Cause there's obviously other legislation out there that the party in power would like to get done.

Back in just a moment with a Political Science professor, Dr. Melissa K. Miller from Bowling Green State University.

Thank you for staying with us here on "The Journal".

Our guest is Dr. Melissa K. Miller, a professor of Political Science at Bowling Green State University.

We were talking in the last segment, kind of ended up with the Democrats after the Tuesday election that sent them a message.

And in a lot of ways, pulling themselves together and by Friday, putting together that infrastructure bill and getting it passed.

And you made the comment, it was interesting that it was the chair of that committee and someone from the Black Congressional Caucus, who was the face of saying, look, we got this done.

So talk a little about the symbolism and the meaning, and the fact that that's become a pretty Keystone piece of getting things done.

The Democratic Party to make things happen, whether it's getting Joe Biden nominated or in this case, getting this infrastructure package done.

That seems to be sort of this, the connection between all of the various parts that are seemingly at war a lot in the Democratic Party.

- Yeah, I don't know how many viewers were up late enough to see that when that compromise was announced that there would be a vote on the infrastructure bill late on Friday night, as well as a procedural vote on the broader social spending bill.

And that was the compromise.

They weren't voted on together.

The social spending bill, there was a procedural vote.

And it wasn't Nancy Pelosi who came before the cameras.

It was Congresswoman Joyce Beatty.

She represents a Columbus, she's from Ohio and represents a Columbus congressional district.

And I think visually what struck me about it is that it's just again a reminder of how essential, how African-American voters within the Democratic Party, they are the most loyal Democratic voters of any subgroup in the population.

They vote for the Democratic Party in such overwhelming numbers.

And so in some ways, it's African-American voters.

And in this case, the Congressional Black Caucus that turned out to be the bridge between moderate Republicans, I'm sorry, moderate Democrats and progressive Democrats.

And as you just mentioned, what struck me was a turning point for the Democratic Party that the Congressional Black Caucus made happen.

When was the last time there was a turning point in the Democratic Party?

When there was this sort of battle between the progressive and the moderate ones at the party.

It was during the Democratic nomination race for president in 2020, when we had progressive candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

We had more moderate Democrats like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar.

And the vote was just getting split and there was no clear candidate emerging.

Who stepped forward?

African-American member of a US House or the Dean of the African-American delegation in the US House of Representatives.

It was James Clyburn of South Carolina, who stepped forward, he endorsed Joe Biden.

And then what happened?

The Democrats coalesced.

And to me, I saw a similar thing happen at the end of last week when it was the Congressional Black Caucus that finally broke that log jam in the US House of Representatives.

- And it's interesting because you said there has been, and because until then all of the headlines had not been positive, had not looked good.

It was almost, as you said, it's as if the Democrats couldn't govern and that ran right through the election (indistinct) on last Tuesday.

And then they said, oh, wait a minute.

We have to, at least, we have to do something.

We have to get our act together and get this done.

And it's interesting.

You said that that's the group that is able somehow to connect all those diverse pieces and get them to at least on that particular vote, get together on something.

- Yeah and so it kind of begs the question.

What if the House Democrats had gotten their act together?

I don't know, back in June or July, even early September, would it have really changed things?

Would Democrats have had a big successful night?

Not necessarily because there's some other pieces we haven't talked about yet.

One of them is the extent to which Republicans and Glenn Youngkin is a great example of this.

The Republican who won the Virginia governor's race of really tapping into cultural issues in order to keep their base energized.

To keep their base really motivated.

So they've really pushed hard on issues like vaccine mandates and mask mandates and critical race theory, which isn't taught in either New Jersey or Virginia public schools or Ohio public schools.

Critical race theory is really taught in US graduate schools.

It is really at that level.

It's something that isn't in the curriculum in K through 12 public schools in this country.

However Republicans figured out that it was a real motivator and so the schools became this sort of nexus where parents weren't liking what they were seeing.

Republicans tapped into that.

And so that seems to be a way forward for them in 2022 and I think the Democrats have not figured out how to counter that.

As I said, Democrats, even in local races, we saw it here in some local school board races and Northwest Ohio are saying critical race theory isn't taught in our schools, But that didn't satisfy the voters.

- Yeah, you would see superintendents on TV and in other places saying, we're not doing this yet at board meetings, you would have parents coming saying, we don't want you to do this.

It's like, we're not.

We don't want you to do this.

We're not.

And I guess if you look at it, maybe the Republicans have been better at packaging that cultural piece, whether it's all true to some degree or not.

They've been able to tap into something that hits right.

That is a gut reaction from parents and citizens.

And so that's been their advantage.

That's been the thing they've been able to do much better than the Democrats in taking that position or exposing a position on it.

- That's right and so I think that the way forward for Democrats, I think if the Democrats in Congress and down into these local races, if the Democrats can instead get some of this comprehensive legislation passed and allow it, pass it soon enough to have visible impacts before 2022 and again in 2024.

Then if the Republicans are focused on the cultural issues, the Democrats, what they need to have as a package of successes and they didn't have that on Tuesday night.

They just simply didn't the president.

Some of the most high profile things were really the evacuation from Afghanistan while incredibly impressive in terms of how many Afghans were airlifted out in such a short period of time, but it was chaotic.

- The optics weren't good.

- The optics were terrible.

It looked incompetent.

So they had that going against him.

They had the failure of the House to get the legislation passed, going against them.

And the continued pandemic with the Delta variant, the deaths keep climbing.

And so they didn't have any package of successes to run on.

So we'll see what happens next.

Here's the thing.

The Democrats got a wake up call last week, but that doesn't change the fundamentals.

Okay and the fundamentals are that you have members of Congress who represent urban districts, whose constituents are very progressive themselves.

So they take that progressive banner to Congress.

And meanwhile, you have folks that are much more moderate Democrats and the poster children, I guess you'd say of the moderate Democrats in the party, of course are US Senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten cinema of Arizona.

They have much more moderate constituencies.

And guess what?

Those fundamentals aren't going to change.

You'll still have a Congress where some members of Congress are super progressive because their constituents are, and others are much more moderate because their constituents are.

And so that battle within the party, isn't going to end.

- Well, when we come back, let's talk about it.

'Cause there's something interesting, you mentioned two senators and I want to get your take on their stance on this.

And part of it is their constituents, but there was something ironic about those two states opposing more spending.

I guess it's kind of interesting.

So when we come back, we can talk a little about that and some other things as well.

Back with Dr. Melissa K. Miller here on "The Journal".

Thanks for staying with us on "The journal".

Our guest is Dr. Melissa K. Miller, professor of Political Science at Bowling Green State University.

Real quickly, one of the things that was interesting and it speaks to something you've brought up before that the Democratic Party has a wide range of different constituencies.

Two of the senators that were really at the focus of the infrastructure bill and the social spending bill, which is still to be dealt with are states that typically have received much more federal government money coming back to them than they pay in.

And so it was kind of ironic the two senators from those states, which are big federal recipients were saying, well, that federal spending, I don't know, that's an awful lot of federal spending and not sure I like all that federal spending and yet their states get a lot more money back than they put in.

But talk about why that is because on the surface seemed like, well, that's really strange, but there's a reason for that.

- Yeah and the reason is that all US senators, all members of the US House of Representatives, they are elected as individuals.

The party does not run a slate of candidates and then voters vote up or down on that whole slate.

No, Joe Manchin runs his own race in West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema runs her own race in Arizona.

Sherrod Brown runs his own race in Ohio, So does Rob Portman, et cetera.

So their electoral faiths aren't linked.

They don't have to go along with the party once they're elected.

There's no penalty for not going along with the party once they take office.

I mean, there are some, if you really buck the party, you might not get good committee assignments, right?

But nobody can control, whether they win or not the next time around except their own constituencies.

And that's why basically you have some super progressive constituencies who elect super progressive representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, right?

In the state of New York.

Is very different than conservative Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

And I will also say that right now, we seem to be in this period of Democratic dysfunction.

Where they're struggling to get the wings of the party together.

We have seen this in the past from Republicans as well.

Think of how frustrating it was for the Republican Party when John McCain famously voted thumbs down on the floor of the Senate and in a late night vote.

And I believe it was a repeal of Obamacare, that fell.

I mean, that was a signature issue of the Republican Party.

And yet republicans settled on McCain.

- Yeah, he went the other way.

- He held, you know, we also saw Ohio Congressman John Boehner was speaker of the House for a number of years.

He had such trouble keeping the party together, he stepped down.

- Yeah, he said, "Life's too short for this".

Yeah, it was kind of his attitude toward it.

- And then Paul Ryan, as well decided after being speaker, he struggled so much to keep the Republican Party together.

So it's really a system of our system.

It's a function of our system, that it's difficult to control these broad parties.

- And we've got just a couple of moments here.

Ohio obviously will be running up their primaries for the governor's race on both the Democratic and Republican side.

And of course, Rob Portman is not gonna run for re-election.

So there's gonna be an open Senate seat.

So talk briefly about the way those races are shaping up, or maybe some of the dynamics we think might be a part of that.

- Well, I think what is so interesting to me, we talked at the beginning about the Virginia governor's race, where Glen Youngkin ran and won in somewhat of a shocker.

In Virginia, he ran and threaded that needle.

He was able to put together this coalition of Trump supporters as well as suburban swing voters.

And he kept them together in part, by keeping the former president at a distance.

He did not invite President Trump to campaign alongside him.

What we're seeing among the Republicans who are running for governor and US Senate is they seem to be doing the opposite.

They seem to be wanting to run as I'm the one who can carry the Trump torch here in Ohio.

So the Youngkin Victorious strategy from the state of Virginia last week, doesn't seem to be the blueprint that the Republicans are following.

They seem to be wanting to Trump each other.

Meanwhile, Ohio went for a former President Trump in back-to-back elections by eight points each time.

Many are saying, we are now really trending a Republican state.

We're no longer a swing state.

So that makes for a pretty tricky calculus for the Democrats trying to win in the governor's race and in the Senate race.

And lastly, I'll just say, Mike DeWine, keep your eyes on Mike DeWine because he's facing a challenger within his own party for not being sufficiently far to the right and not sufficiently Trumpist in his approach.

Despite the fact that he's a very conservative Republican and has been in a number of different offices for many years.

- Oh yeah, anybody who would say, oh, he's a moderate or leftist leaning Republican that would never have been the conversation even two or three years ago.

And now suddenly, yeah, he's not conservative enough for his own party.

We'll have to leave it there, but I'm sure you know, between now and November of 2022, there's gonna be a lot to talk about and appreciate you to coming by to talk with us about what just happened and what that may mean for the next year and into 2024.

So Dr. Melissa K. Miller, thank you so much for being here.

- Thanks for having me.

- Great, great and you can check us out at wbgu.org.

And of course you can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM, "The Journal" on WBGU PBS.

Good night and to good luck.

(upbeat music)