Conservative Analysis of the 2022 Federal and State General Elections Across America

Although the results have not been certified for last week’s 2022 General Election for federal and state offices across America, enough results have been reported to be able to offer a conservative analysis. Donald Trump was a major factor in the 2022 federal and state General Elections, in which the Republicans failed to make the large congressional gains they expected, despite economic challenges. As I have noted, Trumpism is a populist mix of protectionism, nativism, isolationism, dishonesty, disloyalty, corruption and authoritarianism. In addition to the GOP’s implied argument that Trump should have been reelected over Joseph Biden, Trump made the election a referendum on him through his endorsements in the Republican primaries and in the general election and by basing them on personal loyalty to him and the acceptance of his false claims about the 2020 presidential elections. He was also a factor because the election became a test of his domination of the party he leads. Trump further made himself an issue by teasing his potential 2024 presidential candidacy. Trump, who had cost the GOP its congressional majority in 2018 before losing the presidency two years later, backed unqualified, populist candidates for federal and state offices who believed in conspiracy theories and opposed reasonable public health protections against contagion. Many of them lost Tuesday, including some who were his most prominent supporters, with his endorsed candidates faring well only in races that had not expected to have been competitive. All the candidates who did not repent of participating in the January 6, 2021 Insurrection that Trump inspired lost. Candidates who were prominent deniers of the legitimacy of the 2020 election fared poorly, particularly those who were candidates for secretaries of state who threatened the integrity of elections. By contrast, Georgia’s Republican Governor and Secretary of State were both reelected after opposing Trump’s fraudulent efforts to overturn the election of presidential and vice-presidential Electors in 2020, while the Trump-backed Senate nominee in that State was headed for a runoff. The two Republican United States Representatives who voted to impeach him for encouraging the insurrection were reelected, while the Senate incumbent is headed for a runoff. By contrast, one of the seats of an anti-Trump Republican was lost to a Democrat after the incumbent was defeated by a pro-Trump Republican in the primary. The Democratic strategy of supporting Republicans in primaries who were the most unelectable in the general election, which underscores the need to eliminate primary elections or at least make them less vulnerable to popular manipulation, worked, as all of the extreme GOP candidates backed by Democrats lost. Republicans exaggerated the blame for inflation on Democratic President Biden while making unrealistic or even inflationary proposals, as I have noted. They misunderstood that some of the discontent in the polls with Biden came from the left. Democrats did not do well in this election, but beat expectations by doing better than the average for mid-term elections for the party of the incumbent president. As a result, there are finally growing calls for the GOP to move on from the loser Trump. An important note on the campaign issues is that the pro-life movement was tainted by association with Trump because of his misogyny and authoritarianism, as I have noted, and by the ends-justifies-the-means election fraud that won him the GOP nomination and election to the presidency in 2016. Like the Republican Party and the conservative movement, the pro-life movement was undermined morally by its “deal with the Devil” of backing a candidate with poor character who was hostile to protecting innocent life in several ways. A separation from Trump is critical for all three. Referendums: There were mostly negative results on issues of interest to conservatives, but there were some proposals from the left that were rejected. California rejected a measure to tax higher income earners; the measure would have funded corporate welfare for a particular industry (electric vehicles for ride-hailing companies). Louisiana rejected a measure to end forced labor as a punishment for crimes; the U.S. Constitution allows involuntary servitude as punishment for crimes as an exception to the prohibition against slavery. Although Maryland and Missouri legalized recreational marijuana, Arkansas and the Dakotas rejected it.