What Do 2021 Elections Tell Us?

State and local election results in 2021 have provided pundits with a lot of fodder to make simplistic pronouncements on what voters were telling political leaders. See Ballotpedia for a good summary of 2021 results.

What message were voters sending? The key is to stop assuming there was one message, or even one dominant message. The messages, however muddled, include:

• Pandemic responses that included lockdowns, mask mandates, and school closures were unpopular with a lot of voters.
• Property taxes remain unpopular across the nation, pressuring state officials to offer “fixes” to those taxes.
• Parents don’t trust educators, from administrators to teachers, which reflects a long, slow trend.
• Crime (and punishment) will be in issue for local, state, and federal elections.

We are a year away from the 2022 midterm elections, and it would be wrong to assume anything is certain.

Of course, with the preceding caveats, I will generalize: elections tend to be about perceptions of the economy. That’s not a new message. That’s not the only message voters ever communicate to candidate. However, ignoring economic trends might sink the midterm hopes the Democratic Party.

The New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races suggest education, property taxes, inflation, and general dissatisfaction with Pres. Joe Biden all contributed to Republican candidates outperforming polling projections. That’s particularly true in New Jersey, were voters swung significantly away from Democrats in local and state races.

The GOP now controls 28 of the 50 governorships and came very close to victory in New Jersey. Yes, incumbent Phil Murphy (Dem.) defeated Jack Ciattarelli (Rep.), but the race should concern Democrats. The Virginia results, with former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe losing to Glenn Youngkin (Rep.) was foreshadowed by polling trends.

Ballotpedia covers school board elections, city council races, and state legislative races. Local and state ballot measures are also tracked by the website. The site offers data on 463 school boards, for example. These results tell us a lot about local issues, including property taxes since local taxes fund schools. The 39 statewide ballot measures, appearing in nine states, also reveal trends among voters.

And what do we know from the data? Not enough to predict what’ll matter a year from now, but we can look back on what choices elected officials made. Basically, the Democrats were often on the wrong side of issues with suburban and rural voters. The suburbs are where election winners are likely to be chosen.

Can Democrats course correct and develop a set of centrist messages? Can they distance themselves from the school closures, the mask mandates, and lockdowns? How will Democrats overcome messaging challenges on crime? There are a lot if “can” and “how” questions that Democrats need to answer.

Right now, it looks like 2022 is going to be rough for the Democratic Party nationally. Voters are unhappy about too many things for a single message to work well.

Republicans have an easier pitch: Democrats are wrong on everything, especially the economy… and their responses to COVID-19 proves it. That GOP message might work.