Welcome to politically speaking.

I'm Elizabeth Bennion, professor of political science and founding director of IU South Bend's American Democracy Project.

Joining us to discuss the 2022 midterm elections are Dr. Mary Young Marks, professor of social sciences at Southwestern Michigan College, and Dr. Sean Savage, professor of political science at Saint Mary's College.

Thank you both for being here.

I want to start with you, Mary.

President Biden and others claimed that democracy itself was on the ballot.

So how did democracy do?

Well, I think democracy is always on the ballot.

That's part of our system.

But I think it did pretty well.

I think we did not have the highest turnout ever.

That was four years ago.

But where the highest turnout came were in states like Michigan, in Pennsylvania, where there was big items, for lack of a better way to say it.

And it's so hard to get connect all the numbers right now.

But they say almost 60% of Michigan voters, eligible voters, went out to vote.

When you say big items, you mean actual ballot initiatives, ballot initiative, donation to candidates.

Yes, because in Michigan, we know that Prop three dealing with reproductive freedom was a big issue in Pennsylvania, obviously, for anyone who was paying attention.

The Senate race was was huge.

So there were states where, you know, it kind of worked itself out.

I haven't seen the total numbers yet for voter turnout.

But I think one of the things that was really exciting to watch was the number of early voters.

When I checked on Tuesday morning going into it, there were over 43 million Americans who had voted early in Michigan.

It was about 30% of our total was from early voting.

So you think that shows a level of enthusiasm?

Absolutely.

Because you've got to want to do those kind of things.

Sean, a lot of people were concerned also about the number of candidates running who were what is being called by journalists, election deniers, or those who said, I might not accept the results if I don't win.

But we didn't really see that play out so far, did we?

No, no, we didn't.

I mean I mean, the record is sort of mixed in all of this.

For example, one of these so-called election deniers was Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor in Arizona and currently, you know, Katie Hobbs, the Democrat, is slightly ahead.

But of course, the votes are still being counted.

Likewise, Tudor Dixon in in Michigan, she was the Republican nominee for governor.

And the polls, it indicates supposedly this is going to be a very close election between her and Governor Whitmer.

It really wasn't.

You know, Governor Whitmer was reelected actually by a fairly comfortable margin.

And, you know, the race was declared fairly early.

So folks who were election deniers in terms of 2020 and who were Trump endorsed didn't do that well.

But also those who suggested they wouldn't they might not accept the results of their own election seem to have conceded Mary.

Yes, this again is Lake was one and she got very quiet, which is, you know, fine looking at because they haven't quite, you know, finished all those counting yet, but not seeing that strong.

No, it didn't happen at one point.

Means like said, well, there's no reason for me to concede because it can't happen, you know?

And so I think toning it down a little bit in the end, I think that that people started to see that and candidate said, wait a minute, maybe I better, you know, calm down a little bit because that wasn't helping their cause.

So is that a make you feel confident about the state of American democracy, that that basic level of peaceful transition of power accepting the results of the election seems to have.

Held you better?

I think one of the I think a sad headline was that Dr. Oz did something remarkable.

They said he called Mr. Fetterman and said, I concede and good luck.

And, you know, we'll work at things that other ways.

And to have that having to be said that that was an unusual thing, that someone simply called and said, you know, you won.

And so now we go on and we try to rebuild.

And I'd like to hopefully see that across the board.

But I'm not so sure that I think perhaps that's part of where the civility is going to end.

So maybe still some question marks regarding the future there.

Now, another thing that many political observers predicted was a red wave.

Historically, we know the president's party loses an average of 26 seats in the House, four seats in the Senate.

Some folks thought this would be a really big night for the Republicans, but it never really materialized.

No, it did.

I mean, some are even going beyond this thing.

A red tsunami does somewhere even predict, like Newt Gingrich was predicting a net gain of 50, even 60 seats in the House.

And Rick Scott, the Republican senator from Florida, who is the head of the Republican Senate campaign, was seems like a net gain of five seats for Republicans in the Senate.

That certainly didn't happen.

I mean, at the House level, at best, we've seen what I would say is a red trickle.

And that's pretty much isolated.

Ironically, one of the bluest states in the country, and that's New York.

But that appears to be mostly due to the effects of redistricting that had the effect of helping Republican House candidates more than the Democratic House candidates in New York.

And, you know, we have the old adage from Tip O'Neill, the former speaker of the House, who said that all politics is local.

To try to explain, okay, why would people reelect, let's say, their Democratic House members while voting overwhelmingly for Ronald Reagan in 1984 and then by the nineties, with Bill Clinton's presidency increasingly saying, well, you know, midterm elections are becoming nationalized, you know, they're not localized anymore.

But at least for this particular midterm election, again, it seems Tip O'Neill seems to be correct on this.

And I think the Republicans made a mistake by assuming it was going to, in effect, be sort of a highly national partizan election.

They emphasized nationally, regardless of the state, you know, the big issues are inflation, crime, border security.

And yet I saw a poll from Michigan that by far the number one issue for voters in Pennsylvania in the Senate race was abortion.

Three times as many cited abortion as those who cited crime.

Despite the fact, as we know, that, of course, Dr. Oz was emphasizing crime, you know, crime is out of control.

And, you know, as lieutenant governor and as mayor of his town, you know, Fetterman has a has a reputation and a record of being very soft on crime to get tough on crime.

You know, the murder rate is out of control in Pittsburgh.

And so it didn't seem to do him any good in that Senate race.

So one of the things we saw then is that the Republicans who thought they would do really well didn't do well despite the fact we had have high inflation.

Biden's approval ratings are not doing very well, and usually that does signal a very poor performance for the president's party.

Why do you think that didn't happen here other than people thinking about local issues?

Is there an issue, too, either with candidate quality or the type of candidates the GOP ran in this election cycle?

I think Sean is correct.

And looking at it being local and being caring about, I think the future was an issue because one of the largest voter turnout group was young people.

And looking at what does this mean for me now and what's it going to mean for me down the road?

So you can't get any more more local than personal.

And I think in a lot of cases, some of these races were we're elected on based on people's individual personal looks at the world, as opposed to trying to look at the whole picture.

And trying to.

It wasn't a very good night for Donald Trump in terms of his endorsements, though.

No, no, it was not.

You know, Trump previously had been bragging about, you know, I don't know where he got the numbers.

But say, you know, you know, you know, almost all the people I endorse have won and this and that.

And so I think it's to be rather, again, rather quiet about that.

And some Republicans are already criticizing the fact that it's some of Trump's rallies which were supposed to be to help get out the vote and elect, you know, Dr. Oz or JD Vance and other candidates.

Instead, he's mostly talking about himself and he was, you know, again, rehashing the fact that his belief that, you know, he was denied reelection in 2020 and therefore, you know, Joe Biden is not legitimately and constitutionally elected president and that, oh, wait, I may be doing this again.

I'm going to be announcing this and that.

So he was making it increasing about himself rather than about the candidates whom he was endorsing.

And again, about those supposedly those national issues that, you know, voters everywhere were were concerned about.

Mary Tyler Dixon, one of those Trump endorsed candidates running against Governor Whitmer.

Whitmer.

Of course, she didn't have the outcome that she would like.

Does this suggest that there is a problem with the primary process or not?

I don't know how to answer that in a good way.

I mean, we look at it, you know, here in Michigan.

Michigan has a tendency, I mean, in this case because a lot of a lot of things become historical.

Governor Whitmer had history on her side with Michigan, reelecting there.

It seemed that some of the issues that were originally campaigned against Governor Whitmer were things like how she handled the pandemic, of course, the economy.

But a lot of it came back to Prop three.

And looking at, you know, the abortion issue, I'd like to refer to it as reproductive rights because it's more than that.

And with that and Tudor Dixon was a relatively new to Michigan at all.

She didn't have the history of the state behind her looking at those types of things.

And again, this comes back to that has been discussed in many forums the last 48 hours plus is, was Mr. Trump the best person to help endorse candidates that you know, and several of the candidates that he endorsed and was sure of in a variety of places did not win.

And in many cases, you know, was that the problem versus the candidate?

Now, you also mentioned Prop three and enshrining reproductive rights into Michigan's constitution.

To what extent do you think that helped Democrats?

It was a really good night for Democrats in Michigan.

It was.

And I went through and looked at the numbers as far as how Governor Whitmer did versus how all three proposals did.

And it was it's always interesting to me that there did not seem to be any solid.

Everybody's going to do it one way where Governor Whitmer won by about 54%.

The proposals, which is one, two and three, and we can talk a little bit more about what those are later.

But one, dealing with financial disclosure and term limits, which Prop one won by 66% while Prop three, which was dealing with reproductive freedom, was at 54, just about the same as the governor.

Interestingly, where abortion was on the ballot of five of those states, it did pass.

And we saw actually more support for that than we did for the Democrats.

So I wonder, you know, what do you make of that?

Well, you know, I think a good example of this is Kentucky.

Of course, you know, Kentucky is a state, you know, like Indiana, where, as expected, the Republicans did well in being elected or reelected.

And yet there was a measure on the ballot in Kentucky about, you know, that was sponsored by, you know, pro-life or anti-choice, whatever terms we want to use.

People want to specify that there is no right to abortion in the Kentucky Constitution.

And, you know, from the votes that have come in, it looks as if, you know, that proposal will will be rejected.

In Kansas earlier.

In Kansas earlier.

So in looking at that, those particular proposals in Kansas and Kentucky, we're trying to limit rights and they were rejected.

I think traditionally pro life voters, those who oppose abortion access, are the ones who are more likely to vote on those issues.

We don't know for sure, but it sounds like that might have changed after the Dobbs decision where pro-choice voters.

Yeah, I mean, I think... On that issue, although, again, exit polls are dodgy with so many people voting early.

Polling just.

So you know, as a matter of fact, just yesterday in my constitutional law class, we were, you know, based upon the syllabus, you know, covering the Dobbs decision.

And one of the things that Justice Alito said in the majority opinion is that, you know, he expected it would be controversial to overturn Roe and Casey, but that, you know, we understood you're not supposed to do our jobs and you usually do based upon public opinion and whether or not most Americans like a certain precedent and want to continue.

But it is clear from the polls, you know, before and after the job Dobbs decision, most Americans, perhaps the Americans you might even characterize as being, you know, sort of, you know, maybe moderately pro-life, you know, wanted to to keep the Roe precedent.

And that's why in general, even in states that we would consider to be fairly, you know, conservative, if not deeply conservative, there is, you know, controversy about making new abortion laws like the one here in Indiana or in West Virginia, which, you know, bans regardless of of the trimester, you know, you know, almost all pregnancies for all abortions or for for any reason at all.

And, of course, again, get back to all politics being local here in Indiana.

The Democrats were hoping that on that issue, they might slip perhaps five seats in the lower house of the state legislature, thereby ending the Republican supermajority in the lower house of the state legislature.

But from the election results, apparently that that didn't happen.

And in fact, it was a good night for Republicans in Indiana, pretty much across the board.

It was it was you know, my student worker, Libby Dacha, had filed this this poll from, I think, early October that said that, you know, in the Senate race, it was rather striking that Todd Young was ahead of Tom McDermott by only 3%.

But of course we know, you know, the result was that a young declared victory fairly early.

And I think the votes so far show he won like 57 or 58% of the votes.

That wasn't even close.

And the Republicans were even hoping to flip the first congressional district in in northwestern Indiana, which I don't think has had a Republican congressperson, you know, since the New Deal Realignment of the 1930s.

And Frank Mermin, the Democrat, was reelected, but it was unusually close.

He only defeated his Republican opponent, Jennifer Ruth GREENE, a black American woman who's an Air Force veteran, I think by a margin of only four or 5%.

Of course, one of the things that happened in there that district is the cities that are heavily Democratic are shrinking.

Is Chicago, Gary.

The other areas growing?

Yeah.

Griffith does seem to matter.

And redistricting you mentioned, right.

To what extent was the Democrats good performance in Michigan, a result of redistricting turn out seem to be about the same as it was four years ago.

And so far the indication is and yet a very different result.

How much of that is moving from party drawn districts to independent districts, or is it too early to know?

Well, I think it I think it has had a huge impact.

You know, Michigan has got two US Democratic senators.

We have right now a full slate of Democratic executive branch.

Yet since 1984, since you brought up there was the last time that Michigan had a Democratic House and Senate at the state level.

And so calling, you know, the trifecta that Michigan hasn't seen that since 1984.

So again, we go back to local that we find with the citizen redistricting that it even that out because looking at predictions that the independent went into it was very close to what happened so Michigan will regain a very kind of mirroring the US Senate our Senate will be Michigan Senate will be 1919.

But like with having the lieutenant governor to break it and it's still a slim majority in the House.

But so it seems to have had a big difference at the at the state level.

At the national level, we lost a congressperson here in Michigan.

And so but the Michigan delegation will now be seven Democratic to six Republican.

So it appears to have made a little bit of a difference.

Sean, As you mentioned, the Indiana delegation really won't change in terms of that seven to balance, the Democrats were hoping to gain a statewide seat with the secretary of state race, given the many sort of scandals plaguing the Morales campaign.

But even that didn't happen.

Is that a symbol of a lot of people doing what government Governor Holcomb recommended, which is vote your conscience, but for me, that's supporting the whole party or, you know, one, where were you were you surprised by that result or is it just status quo?

I was somewhat surprised because, again, as you know, as far as I can tell, the two emphases of the Democrats in their sort of statewide strategy was, number one, trying to flip at least five state House seats from Republican to Democrat.

The other one was to win a major statewide office.

And for the first time in ten years, for the first time since Joe Donnelly was elected to the U.S. Senate and Glenda Ritz was elected superintendent of education in 2012, plus you had, you know, four other noticeable Libertarian nominee from the secretary of state's office, all these various controversial allegations about Diego Morales.

And then, of course, it appears that Governor Holcomb, you know, wanted Holly Stevens, you know, you know, to to be the nominee.

But that didn't happen at the Republican Convention.

So I was surprised.

Not only that, you know, he was elected, but he again, he was elected by a fairly comfortable margin.

So he did underperformed compared to the other statewide candidate.

So it does seem like maybe a few defected, but I did.

But, you know, Indiana's ballot is designed so that if people want to vote a straight party ticket, it's easier, you know.

In Michigan to state.

That, yeah, it's easier than in other states to, you know, to simply go to straight ticket.

Now, thinking about nonpartisan races, school board elections received a lot of attention this year.

One of the perhaps most talked about races locally in the Michigan area and the Indiana side was a Penn Harris Madison district where a slate of candidates ran together under the moniker Bam.

And really there were differences in terms of how to talk about race and whether or not to talk about race in school.

Sex, sexuality, masks, decisions, all of these kinds of things, including money pouring into these races.

Do you think that that something that level of attention on those races that will continue in the future or is it an aberration?

Well, I think at least in the short term future.

Well, I don't know about the long term, but this is, I think, partially a result of Glenn Jenkins election as governor of Virginia last year, where they really emphasize the whole issues of masking and, you know, whether and how CRT is being taught in public schools.

And, you know, what is the content and the purpose of sex education, especially at the elementary school level?

And, you know, to what extent what are they teaching students about, you know, transgender issues and so forth and so on and then, you know, recently we've had reports come out about supposedly, you know, a sharp drop in test scores among students.

And again, as to whether or not, you know, policies about masking and, you know, teaching classes online and all that, you know, it's had anything to do with it.

So yeah, yeah.

Locally again here in Indiana, it seems as if people were sort of, I guess you could say on the conservative side of those issues, again, had some success in in the school board races.

And I think at least for the near future, it's it's going to continue.

As parents are thinking about those as more political races.

But stemming from the extra attention of the pandemic.

And, Mary, you mentioned other ballot initiatives in Michigan and Indiana.

We don't have that ballot initiative option for citizens that we have in Michigan.

What were a couple of the other things besides that?

Reproductive rights in terms of controlling your fertility and miscarriage treatment, prenatal treatment, etc.?

There were also some other things on the ballot.

You know, Prop one was dealing was kind of a double barreled one because when you look at those proposals, of course, they're you know, how they're worded often depends on how they want you to vote.

But Prop one was dealing with financial disclosure.

Michigan was one of only two states that did not require officials to put their their finances forward.

And then kind of sleeved in with that was lessening the amount of time.

So term limits Michigan has term limits for all of our offices at the state level.

So that the max anyone can serve now is 12 years versus what it was for 14.

And that's going from the state legislature into the Senate, the House, into the Senate as well.

So that was Prop one.

Prop two was looking to expand voting rights again that we know will be like Indiana and have early voting.

Nine days before.

Of course, the clerks I always would not want to be a clear kind of election night for so many reasons, like, okay, how are we going to do this?

Looking at, you know, ID?

And so a variety of issues dealing with voting rights and I think trying to protect voting rights as we've seen in so many other states that try to limit it more are trying to make sure that it's accessible and getting people out there to vote.

And then Prop three was indeed dealing with reproductive rights and making sure, because there was an old law on the books from Michigan from 1931 that has been held at the court level saying, no, you can't, because as soon as Dobbs came in saying, okay, we're going to put this in place, and they said, No, you're not.

And ultimately going to the vote.

And very clearly saying in Michigan, no, we're going to keep that as a basic right here in Michigan.

So it is they said it was kind of interesting how prop one I think it was the financial disclosure part on that that that passed by 66%.

Now Mary you mentioned three does speak broad broadly about reproductive decisions for pregnant people in terms of almost every aspect of that decision.

But it still allows a state to regulate abortion in some cases, doesn't it, if it doesn't affect the mental or physical health of the mother?

Yes.

And again, a lot of that will be, you know, playing out.

And I'm sure it'll be challenged looking at, you know, what that interpretation part of the court.

So come forth with it and looking at and saying, no, it's not carte blanche.

You can't have an abortion, you know, in the third trimester at 38 weeks.

No, it's not going to allow for that.

But looking at, you know, bye bye semesters and looking at those kind of things and.

Trimesters, right, semester schedule is not coming out yet.

And Sean, Mary mentioned that Michigan would be like Indiana in terms of having early in-person voting.

But of course, unlike Indiana, they also have things like automatic registration, same day registration without ballot initiative.

Do you see any of that happening in Indiana which would have to pass through the General Assembly?

I don't think so.

And, you know, Michigan, correct me on this, but I'm pretty sure that part of the proposal also said to expand voting opportunities and so forth in Michigan that it's instead of a photo ID, if you have a verified signature, that would be good enough.

You know, Indiana, of course, is one of the few states that has very strict photo ID law.

And so I think.

You know, first one in the nation and exactly that.

I think.

Exactly.

And that became a Supreme Court decision in Crawford in I think in 2008.

So yeah, became a role model basically for other states that wanted to have strict photo ID laws.

So I think having strict photo I.D.

laws is going to continue here in Indiana, but I think there's going to be resistance to have, let's say, you know, drop off boxes and so forth, because it was even a big change in Indiana to simply have early voting where people could vote, you know, about three weeks before an election or a primary.

Right.

Well, unfortunately, we've run out of time for this week, but our guests are going to stick around.

So make sure you catch the rest of our conversation at WNIT.org Thank you so much for being here reminding you that it takes all of us to make democracy work.

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