Local and regional politics have returned to the forefront in this year’s midterm elections. While the results are not final, the races of 2022 clearly show signs of local dynamics taking precedence over national ones.
In the last few decades, research shows that voters have increasingly given weight to national issues when deciding their vote. However, in 2022 this trend was overwhelmingly defeated. This can be explained by two primary factors: the “Roe v. Wade” ruling, which brought the abortion issue back to the states, and the Trump and Trump-wing Republican-endorsed message of election denialism.
In some states, like Florida and New York, the Red Wave did materialize, and local Republicans outperformed expectations. In Florida, incumbent senator Marco Rubio and governor Ron Desantis both won by close to 20 points, much higher than Trump’s 3-point victory in 2020. In New York, Lee Zeldin lost to incumbent Democratic governor Kathy Houcul by a measly 6 points. Here too, a massive improvement in comparison to the 2020 presidential election, in which Biden won New York by about 23 points. Zeldin’s performance helped Republicans win 5 additional House seats in the empire state, thereby crucially helping the party in the House of Representatives. In both these states, election subversion and abortion weren’t the main issues of the campaign, instead focusing on things like the economy, public records, and crime. This messaging seemed to work in Republicans’ favor.
On the other hand, states like Michigan and Pennsylvania moved in the opposite direction, voting for Democrats by a significantly wider margin than expected. State-wide officials’, focused on abortion and election issues helped congressional Democrats maintain positive margins in both states. Michigan even had a state constitutional abortion referendum, helping the Democrats win the state legislature for the first time in almost 40 years. In Pennsylvania, the Trump-backed Republican nominee for governor, Doug Mastriano, who participated in the events of January 6th, lost to the Democratic nominee, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, by more than 14 percent. Shapiro’s performance also helped Lieutenant Governor, John Fetterman, win the crucial Pennsylvania senate seat for the Democrats, affecting the balance of power in Washington.
The return to local and regional issues is especially shown by split ticketing, the act of voting for different parties on the same ballot. Split ticketing by voters increased dramatically in 2022. Republicans that rejected the attempt to overturn the 2020 results did much better than Republicans on the same ballot who supported these efforts.
The best example of election denialism affecting the election is in Georgia, where incumbent governor Brian Kemp beat Democratic challenger Stacy Abrams by a large margin, while incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock is leading the vote in the Senate race. The same thing happened in New Hampshire, where incumbent Republican governor Chris Sununu won by more than 15 points while incumbent Democratic senator Maggie Hassan won by 9 points against the Trump-backed Don Bolduc.
The 2022 midterm elections brought non-partisan local and regional issues in American politics back to life. The now state-topics of abortion and election denialism proved foundational for Democrats’ results. In most states, races for congress were shaped more by statewide races than the national environment for the first time in a while. However, the question of whether this trend will continue still lingers. Voters in midterm elections tend to be more engaged and educated than voters in a general election. As a result, issues like abortion and election denial may resonate less with voters in Presidential election years. But, it is undeniable that regional issues had a major impact on the most recent vote.
