The Democrats’ election victory in the Georgia Senate runoff election was the final nail in the coffin of the Republicans’ Great Red Wave That Wasn’t. But at least the election results show the GOP one of the things it must do to increase its chances of victory in 2024.
In several previous columns I’ve argued that the Republicans must recruit better candidates and develop more effective means of dealing with abortion if they want to win more elections. The Georgia Senate runoff election results as reported by the Wall Street Journal further show that the Republicans must adapt the Democrats’ get-out-the-vote tactics to become more competitive. Specifically, the GOP must become better in promoting early voting and mail-in voting by Republicans.
The 12/8/22 edition of the Journal describes how groups affiliated with the Democratic Party operate to effectively recruit more voters: “ In states that send out applications for mail-in voting, liberal groups wait for these taxpayer-funded mailings and pounce. They target ‘their’ voters with texts, calls and ads, pushing them to get the applications in. They do the same in states where voters must actively request ballots. Then they do it all over again once the ballots arrive, in many states ‘harvesting’ by going door to door to encourage their voters to fill out ballots and returning them on their behalf.” In short, by putting in far more time, energy, and effort than Republicans do, the Democrats can produce more votes. See https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gops-lost-vote-harvest-georgia-midterms-election-voter-turnout-gop-trump-candidates-mail-in-absentee-early-11670536141.
The Democrats’ efforts can make a difference, especially in close races, such as the race for the Georgia senate seat. Republican get-out-the-vote tactics stressed voting on Election Day itself. Of the 1.6 million voters who came to the polls on 12/6, Heschel Walker won 57% of the vote. But 1.9 million voters had already cast their ballots before Election Day. Prodded by the Democrats, they had given 58% of their vote to Democratic incumbent Senator Rafael Warnock—more than enough to give him an insurmountable lead and a victory of 51.4% to Walker’s 48.6%
These results were no fluke. The Florida GOP, one of the few Republican state party organizations to launch an early voting campaign, thereby helped produce Governor Ron DeSantis’s impressive victory.
And the need for the GOP to learn how to win more votes should be clear, given not only its recent losses, but the approaching presidential election as well. Beginning in 1992, the Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. Only in 2004 did President Bush, running for re-election following 9/11, eke out a small popular-vote majority against Democrat John Kerrey. The circumstances under which the Republicans can win the electoral vote and the White House while losing the popular vote are limited. Sooner or later, if the Republicans are to win the White House, they must be able to win the popular vote as well as the electoral vote.
So the lesson for the GOP seems clear: Stop complaining about Democratic get-out-the-vote tactics and start using them to its own advantage. After all, they work.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville and taught politics and government at Tarleton since 1987. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990 to the present). He was Mayor Pro Tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He is a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and the Stephenville Rotary Club, and does volunteer work for the Boy Scouts of America. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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