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Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Professors Discuss Midterms, Polarization, Trends at Mortara Center

The 2022 midterm elections serve as an important signal for the state of American politics in the midst of increased polarization and threats to democracy, two professors said at an event on the highly anticipated midterms.

The Oct. 3 event was the second of three discussions hosted by the Mortara Center for International Studies in an event series titled “In the News” and featured Vanderbilt University professor of political science John Sides, and Georgetown University government professor Michele Swers. The event was moderated by Mortara Center Director Elizabeth Saunders. At the event, the professors discussed the trends that may predict the outcome of the 2022 midterm elections that will determine control of the House of Representatives, Senate and governorships across the country. 

Sides discussed four patterns that will affect this year’s midterms: tectonic shifts, identity shocks, political calcification and political parity. Sides defined tectonic shifts as the trends of polarization contributing to the growing long-term disparity between the Republican and Democratic parties as each party moves towards the extremes, which is a trend particularly visible in the current Congress.

According to Sides, together with identity shocks, or short-term disparities between the two parties on identity-based issues such as race and gender, this tectonic shift has contributed to growing political polarization and increased voter loyalty to one party over another.

“We’ve been living in an era of historically small shifts, but 2020 really was a smaller shift,” Sides said at the event. “I would invite you to go back and to reread news coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, murder of George Floyd and racial justice protests, which framed them as potentially realigning events for American politics, where we would see big changes, big wholesale changes in the way that American politics works.” 

Only six Senators and 16 House members currently represent states and districts that voted for the opposite political party during the 2020 presidential election. Swers said rigid political partisanship has resulted in a nationalization of politics, or rather that national trends affect results more than local issues or candidates’ characters. 

@Georgetown | Professors discuss predictions of the 2022 midterm elections at the Mortara Center as a part of the event series “In the News.”

According to Swers, this nationalization has led to a decline in split-ticketing, or voters selecting opposite parties for different elected positions, which may see voters more hesitant to vote against the party they supported in the 2020 presidential election.

“It’s really hard for me, if I have a D or an R next to my name, to outrun the party based on you knowing me as an individual these days,” Swers said at the event. “We’re seeing more and more often that your House race decision, your Senate decision, is very tied to the presidential vote.” 

While statistical analyses have proven that the president’s party lose seats in the House during typical miderm election years, this year’s election may be an exception due to renewed focus on abortion rights in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision which overturned Roe v. Wade, according to Swers. 

“Generally, you’re more motivated to vote when you’re angry than when you’re happy,” Swers said. “And the Dobbs decision made a change for Democrats so that you saw more Democrats now saying that they’re enthusiastic about voting, and particularly Democratic women.”

Swers also noted that 2022 is the year in which new districts from the 2020 census go into effect, meaning that many members of the House have retired to avoid losing their seat or been defeated in primaries as district boundaries and demographics shift. Many potential members are more extreme than the candidates they could replace, which could make it difficult for Republicans to govern should they win a House majority. With a small majority, more extreme members could block vital bills from passing. 

Sides said politically extreme candidates, together with the consequences of increased political polarization, is cause for concern as increasing antidemocratic behavior from Republican legislators could potentially exacerbate polarization and delegitimize America’s democratic process.

“Some people who are in American comparative politics who have written about polarization and its implications for democracy have noted that one of the risks is that voters will countenance things that are borderline treason, blatantly anti-democratic,” Sides said.

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