Here are a few thoughts on an Election Day coinciding with a full moon and total lunar eclipse, which ought to give eeriness a chance.
First, I should mention pushback on my column of Sunday. That installment expressed distress over the tactical ineptitude of Joe Biden in giving a speech trying to make the midterms about the threat to democracy of Donald Trump and his followers.
My argument was that you must win democratically before the bad guys can meaningfully threaten democracy, and that obsessing on January 2021 amid inflation and voter fatigue in the midterms of November 2022 is not the way to go.
Politically savvy folks I respect responded that I spend too much time fretting over swing voters in a midterm election. They say to save my fret over swing voters until a presidential year.
They say midterms are about motivation and thus turnout in the party base, and that Joe was doing the best available thing by telling those disdainful of Trump that, though he's not on the ballot, a Republican takeback of the Congress today would embolden his disciples and enablers for 2024.
Keep all that in mind as you watch returns tonight in the four states that probably will matter: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona, where Senate races are close. That assumes the GOP is certain to win back the House but that Democrats could hold on to 50-50 or go to 51-49 in the Senate with favorable outcomes in three or all of those states.
Will Mehmet Oz win Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker win Georgia because of the economic drag on Democrats? Or will both get flooded by unexpected Democratic turnout apparently motivated in part by Biden's plea for democracy?
As with many things, it may be a combination--that I am a bit too hard on Biden and focused too much on swing voters in four states while partisan Democrats are a bit too hopeful of what disdain for Trump can do when he's not on the ballot himself.
More clear is that, in Arkansas, the dynamic is entirely different. Chris Jones' Democratic gubernatorial candidacy doesn't have enough of a partisan base for motivation to be a decisive factor. The arrogant menace of Sarah Huckabee Sanders provides all the motivating he needs for the mere 32 to 34 percent who will show up for sure to vote for him and Democrats.
He has fully solidified that base, but, at the end, his campaign came to be all about engaging a growing number of Arkansas voters who, according to the newly released Arkansas Poll from the University of Arkansas, describe themselves as independents who lean more right than left.
There is some legitimate basis for Democrats to hope Jones does surprisingly well, meaning, somewhat pitiably, 40 percent or more. The thinking is that he is such an engaging, impressive candidate that some of those independents, even right-leaning ones, will find him a comfortable-enough choice, especially since Sanders has taken victory for granted and relied more on burnishing a right-wing national image than reaching out to any right-leaning Arkansas independents.
Meantime, I'll share this curbside political conversation of Saturday morning: An active, politically savvy Democrat was blowing leaves, marveling at the acorn assault from storms the night before and telling me he thought Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott was "about to get away with it."
What he meant was that he was thinking Scott would win re-election despite vivid revelations of his lack of transparency, accountability and ethics resulting from shady attempted favoring of dubious friends and supporters.
One reason is that the NAACP has reared up against the fair and appropriate criticism of Scott to call it racist, which should boost the motivation of Scott's base.
A heavy turnout for Scott should boost turnout for Jones, the leaf-blowing politico thought, even to the point that Jones could get all the way to 43-44 percent.
I said 41 at the most, which would be a creditable accomplishment, considering.
The Arkansas Poll of voter moods seems to indicate we're both high.
This year's survey showed Arkansas people's distress over how things are going to be the strongest in the poll's history. That would indicate under normal conditions a bigger anti-Democratic vote than ever in a state that is already about as anti-Democratic as they come.
But maybe the Jones-Sanders dynamic is unique.
We might simply have to settle in tonight and let the politics come to us.
I hate that. I typically do an election-night column for Wednesday mornings. It helps to do a draft of the column on Tuesday afternoon and then make whatever few minor changes might be necessitated or suggested by returns.
Surprise or an utter lack of clarity at 10:30 p.m. would have me sweating over a blank keyboard--the savvy draft deleted--as editors grow impatient.
John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at [email protected]. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.