A status quo election and thin margins

From Ann Althouse, The NYT mishandles a metaphor: "Democrats’ ‘Blue Wave’ Crashed in Statehouses Across the Country."  

Her linguistic point is good, particularly linking it to George Orwell's perspective on the dying metaphor.  

But Althouse is highlighting something I have only glimpsed in other reporting.  She quotes one report.

On Wednesday, the results were not yet final, but the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks state-level races, said there were changes or potential shifts of control in just four chambers: the New Hampshire House and Senate, which Republicans took back from Democrats, and possibly the House and Senate in Arizona, though the contests for those chambers were still too close to call. He said it was the first time since 1946 that so few chambers were changing hands.

And from another source:

Before Tuesday’s election, Republicans controlled about three-fifths of all 98 partisan legislative chambers. If no other chambers flip as new results come in, that Republican dominance will not change. 

 In a census year, this is pretty critical in terms of who draws the new gerrymandered boundaries (as all of them will be).  60% control +/- is a reasonably powerful position to be in.

But there is another point raised by Althouse's commenters.  If Trump was so successful down ticket, why is he struggling at the top line?  Down ticket voting is always higher in presidential election years.  Many people only focus on the presidential race and only vote down ticket if they are already in the booth for the president.  

Additionally, how many Republican voters will vote down ticket Republicans but not the top of the ticket.  Goes against logic and past voting patterns.

The commenters make this point to highlight the probability of fraudulent voting or fraudulent counting at the top line that is not worth risking down ticket.

Yet another interesting observation from the commenters.  Republicans appear to have kept the Senate.  They gained seats in the House.  They kept their 60% control of state chambers.  None of the governor contests changed the party count, with Republicans still filling 26 state positions and the Democrats 24.

This appears to be an electorate voting for the status quo.  Sure, the president might change but it is so razor thin a count that it is mostly a status quo.

Which raises a different issue.  From Total 2020 election spending to hit nearly $14 billion, more than double 2016′s sum by Brian Schwartz.  

The 2020 election is set to finish with $14 billion in spending, smashing records as Trump and Biden battle for the White House.

The sum will be more than double of what was spent in the 2016 election.

By Election Day, the presidential campaign is expected to end up seeing $6.6 billion in total spending, while congressional races are anticipated to finish with just over $7 billion.

Democrats have nearly doubled the spending by Republican candidates up and down the ballot.

Woof!  There is a questionable value proposition.  Democrats spent $9.5 billion all up versus Republicans's $4.5 billion.  And what did they get for $10 billion?  A status quo and possibly, possibly the Presidency.  I am not discounting the value of a disputed win but that is not much return for outspending your opponent 2:1.  

Which raises yet another point.  I assume that this election continue recent elections trends in terms of who is contributing where.  The model has shifted in the past few cycles.  Usually Republicans raise most their money more individual contributors making small contributions and Democrats much more reliant on big institutions (such as Unions) and big private donors.  

So this election will be one in which the party of establishment interests and mega donors spent twice as much as the party of private citizens and yet made barely a dent in the electoral map.

I look at this in economic terms.  The Democratic party received a massive subsidy from establishment institutions and mega donors in a competition to change voter's minds.  And they got nothing, or almost nothing for that spending.

This is not dissimilar from 2016 when the same pattern of Democrat excess spending failed, at least at the presidential race level, to make a difference.  

If you remove the subsidy from establishments and mega-donors, which party will lose the most seats?  Almost certainly, if their establishment and mega-donors flag, Democrats will suffer electoral reverses of a very material magnitude.

Depending on establishment and mega-donors to buy elections is doubly precarious.  It is obviously repugnant and ethically perilous to be seen having establishment beneficiaries trying to buy elections instead of leaving it up to ordinary citizens.  But it is a political peril as well.

Should establishment and mega-donors get frustrated and constrain their financial report, Democrats will lose significantly.  When a subsidized product finally loses a subsidy, demand falls.  If Democrats can't afford to buy seats any longer, then demand for their political offering will fall.

Yet another point is raised by commenters.  Why is the Presidential race so razor thin when most the down ballots seem to have been pretty clearly and pretty quickly?  One possible reason is that most issues of voter fraud and fraudulent counting are centered in big population centers (either high population counties or high population cities) which are overwhelmingly controlled by democrats.  They are one-party locations with barely any local party choice.

In that environment, all the down ticket positions are inherently already decided.  There is no point in risking discovery of fraud on those down ballots since they are already captured owing to the party dominance.  But cities are where you can run up some high counts which is why it might be worth doing for the presidential count.

This goes to the study a few years ago which found that among contested recount elections at state and local levels, most of the recounts are in urban areas and some 70% of close election recounts get called for Democrats instead of 5050 which is what would be statistically expect.  

Her post and her commenters responses are close to an ideal of informed, knowledgeable, civil conversation generating more knowledge and insight than anger and division.

From this single post, I come away with a set of conclusion unless any facts materially change.

The Democratic National Committee is far left of its state constituents.

The Democratic National Committee is far more dependent on key establishment institutions and select billionaire donors than a health citizen based party should be.

The Democrats lost seats in the House, failed to gain the Senate, failed to gain Governorships, failed to change the mix of state chambers leaving Republicans in control of two thirds of them in a Census year.

Democrats spent nearly ten billion dollars versus the Republican $5 billion to no material effect.

Democrats are uncomfortably dependent on voting irregularities in cities for their margin of victory.

Democrats have no Woke mandate.

There is increasing evidence of voting and/or counting irregularities. 

The Democratic party is in much more fragile condition than one might assume (septuagenarian and octogenarian leadership, virtually no bench capacity, dependency on 1%er donors, weakening of core constituencies, increasing dependency on City vote counting to win statewide races, etc).  

The counting is not done yet but those are some interesting observations coming from intelligent citizens in a blog and not seen much discussed in the mainstream media.