As ever, we want to know the future, in this case the results of the 2024 election a year from now. In addition to the goat method of divination, which is messy and offends some people, there is analysis of lead-up elections, both special and scheduled, leading up to the elections in question. So what do we have and how do they look?
When it comes to special elections, so far the Democrats are looking good. Daniel Donner of Daily Kos Elections gives a summary:
In fact, there have been 27 typical special elections pitting a Democrat against a Republican in the 2023-24 election cycle so far, and Democrats have overperformed Biden in 20 and Clinton in 23. When numbers like that start to pile up, it’s time to sit up and take notice.
And what we notice is this: It’s beginning to look a lot like 2018 around here. That’s very good news. …
So far this year, Democrats in special elections have been doing an average of 7.6 points better than Biden’s margin in 2020 in the same districts and 12.0 points better than Clinton’s margin in 2016. Since Biden won the national popular vote by 4.5 points, and Clinton won it by 1.8 points, that translates to a political environment with Democrats running 12.1 points ahead based on comparisons to Biden and 13.7 points ahead based on comparisons to Clinton. Averaging the two values gives us a figure of D+12.9.
So how about scheduled elections? We’ve seen the 2021 elections in a few states, most surprisingly in Virginia where business exec Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) defeated former governor Terry McAuliffe (D-VA), and, say what you will about the latter’s popularity, it remains undeniable that the Democrats lost an eminently winnable State. Have the Democrats figured out what went wrong? At the time, I noted at least one post-poll interview indicating the problem was their management of the trans issue, and I haven’t really seen much evidence of their recognition of this mistake.
But the Republicans remain the owners of the abortion issue, along with a gerrymandering issue that makes a lot of voters, even conservatives, uncomfortable, no matter how zealous the officials might, and that can be mighty zealous as the State of Alabama tried to ignore a SCOTUS ruling on the issue. (They were promptly bopped on the nose and told they were a bad, bad dog. It was not an inaccurate statement.) For conservative readers hopping from one foot to another in an urgent need to say Democrats gerrymander, too, it’s true: Maryland is heavily gerrymandered. Maryland, Wisconsin, Alabama, and other states require adjustment.
But that’s the far past (2021, that is) and the far future. What about now?
The 2023 elections are next week, and on the list is the Mississippi governor’s race, with incumbent Tate Reeves (R-MS) facing challenger Brandon Presley (D-MS). Reeves has been in the midst of the Brett Favre scandal involving the spending of Federal dollars on University of Mississippi projects for which they were not authorized, Reeves tends to try to apply inappropriate religious solutions to problems he’s supposed to be solving with the help of the Legislature, and he’s simply not really a strong governor.
Reeves won in 2019 by 5 points. Can he do better this time? Or is it possible that he’ll lose? The vote totals will give a hint on how the 2024 elections may go. If Reeves, in a quintessential Republican state, underperforms, then we may be seeing a potential for a Democratic wave in 2024, with Democrats retaking the House, possibly by a large gap as swing districts fall to the Democrats, and retaining the Presidency and the Senate. While professional pundits keep claiming Biden looks weak, and polls don’t look so great for the current President, the former President continues to look weak himself, not to mention some observers claiming he’s showing signs of dementia.
So keep an eye on Mississippi, as well as Kentucky, where Democrat Andy Beshear is the incumbent governor running for re-election. His results will be relevant as well. The latest poll I saw gave Beshear a large lead, but with a large portion of the electorate undecided, but that was a few weeks ago. Will Beshear ride the family rep and the abortion issue to victory?
The goat entrails may depend on the governors’ races.
