Election 2024 – Democracy Watch

If Democrats thought that 2022 was a difficult environment, they only have to look at the Senate map in 2024 to see that it can get even tougher.

During this year’s midterm elections, Democrats outperformed across the board with few exceptions. The president’s party typically loses across the board. Instead, the party gained governorships, state legislative chambers, and trifectas. In fact, for the first time since 1934, the president’s party did not lose a single state legislative chamber.

If that was not enough of an accomplishment, Democrats will hold the Senate and possibly even gain a seat. That is pending the outcome of Georgia’s Senate runoff between incumbent Raphael Warnock and the Trump-backed, scandal-plagued challenger, Herschel Walker.

Meanwhile, the red wave proved to be nothing more than a ripple in the House of Representatives. Republicans were crowing that they might win as many as 50 or 60 seats. With only five races left uncalled, the Republicans currently stand at a bare majority of 218 seats. At best, they can hope for 223 seats, although that appears unlikely.

Democrats are well-positioned to regain control of the lower chamber in 2024 with numerous obvious targets in Biden-won swing districts in California and New York, in particular. The Senate is an entirely different story.

The Senate map in 2024 looks brutal for Democrats

The Senate is looking far more precarious for the party. Democrats have few genuine targets and about a dozen incumbents who are at least marginally vulnerable. It’s arguable that Democrats will need to win the Georgia runoff next month to have a fighting chance at keeping the Senate in two years.

Worse yet, all of the Democratic targets in 2024 are basically a stretch. First, we’ll go over the numerous opportunities for Republicans, and then we’ll look at the possible targets for Democrats.

Republicans start with a considerable advantage

Although we do not know yet whether the incumbents will run for re-election, Republicans can target Democratic incumbents in Trump-won states. The two most vulnerable incumbents are Jon Tester in Montana and Joe Manchin in West Virginia.

West Virginia is one of the Trumpiest states in the country, second to only Wyoming (sorry, Liz Cheney). Joe Biden failed to even clear 30 percent of the vote in the Mountain State. Joe Manchin is a popular former governor and won a close Senate race in 2018 against the state attorney general, Patrick Morrisey. Despite his record as a conservative Democrat, that might not be enough to save him in 2024.

Jon Tester has won close races many times before. The senator was first elected in 2006 as Democrats won both the House of Representatives and the Senate amid a backlash against former president George W. Bush over his handling of the disastrous Iraq War, a botched federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and corruption scandals within the Republican-controlled Congress.

The good news for Senator Tester is that Biden won over 40 percent of the vote in Montana in 2020, so he would only need to run roughly ten points ahead of the top of the ticket. Needless to say, that is a considerably better starting position than the Democrats face in West Virginia.

Beyond Montana and West Virginia, Sherrod Brown is defending a seat in Republican-trending Ohio. Like Tester, Brown rode into the upper chamber amid backlash to former president George W. Bush. While Tester is known for his folksy personality, Brown embraces a pro-union, blue-collar working-class agenda. Will it be enough to buck the Buckeye State’s rightward drift?

Democrats must also defend seats in numerous swing states that will likely determine the 2024 presidential election. They include seats in:

Arizona
Michigan
Nevada
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin

Given the fact that partisanship is resulting in fewer crossover voters, these states are likely to vote for the same party in both the presidential and Senate races. In 2020, Susan Collins was the only senator from either party that won despite their party’s presidential nominee losing statewide. This is a continuation from 2016 when every Senate race mirrored the presidential election.

Lastly, they will have to defend seats in Democratic-leaning states like Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Virginia. If Republicans have a particularly good election in 2024, these states would be in play. It is at least conceivable that Republicans could manage a filibuster-proof majority.

Democrats have few legitimate targets

Democrats have only four Republican-held seats that are even remotely competitive: Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and Texas.

Indiana will have an open seat if incumbent Republican Mike Braun announces an expected run for governor, but the Democratic bench is thin. Former senator Joe Donnelly could potentially make it competitive against a weak opponent – as he did in 2012, winning against Richard Mourdock – but is he even willing to consider running another longshot campaign?

Meanwhile, as a member of Joe Biden’s cabinet, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg has his sights set on a much higher office: the Oval Office. Should Biden decline to run for re-election, Buttigieg is expected to make a second run for president.

Rick Scott wants to gut Social Security and Medicare and has always won his elections by a hair, but Florida has trended Republican. Ron DeSantis just won by almost 20 points against former Republican governor Charlie Crist. Democrats have a slightly stronger bench in Florida than Indiana, but it’s not stocked with charismatic potential candidates.

Ted Cruz barely won re-election in 2018 and is unpopular within both parties, but you cannot beat something with nothing. Beto O’Rourke just concluded a third consecutive losing campaign (counting his failed bid for president), but maybe one of the Castro brothers could make this competitive. Again, it’s a stretch.

Insurrectionist Josh Hawley is up for re-election in 2024. However, it’s not at all clear that that is even considered a negative in a state as red as Missouri. Former senator Claire McCaskill is a potential Democratic nominee for Senate here, which would be a rematch of 2018.

The one potential silver lining for Democrats: an unexpected retirement or death could give them a chance to win a special election that we do not currently know about. Otherwise, the map is grim.

Free speech and free assembly are essential rights in any democracy.

Average citizens should always have the right to petition their government for redress, peacefully assemble (with reasonable limits during true emergencies, including pandemics), and protest. We hold these values deep in our hearts.

Speech, assembly, and protest are clearly protected under the First Amendment, but they only prevent the government from imposing undue restrictions on the population. It is a failsafe against an unchecked, Chinese-style authoritarian government where censorship is the rule.

That being said, corporations are not the government. They may restrict content on their platforms – and there are many legitimate reasons why they should. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and other social media companies all have sets of rules that define a code of conduct for users – and users agree to those terms in order to use their services.

So when we hear griping from some about how Facebook or Twitter ban high-profile politicians like Donald Trump from their platforms, it is not a genuine First Amendment argument so much as a political or ideological argument. Seeing that Trump routinely broke those platforms’ terms of use with little or no consequences for years, it’s more surprising that he was allowed to continue to use them despite breaking the rules than that he eventually faced a ban.

In fact, it took a coup attempt on January 6 for Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to finally crack down on the former president. Likewise, it took far-right extremists organizing a violent insurrection online for Apple and Google to pull the far-right social media app Parler from the App Store and Google Play. (Parler is already back on the App Store.)

Big Tech’s laissez-faire attitude toward violent extremist groups organizing, recruiting, and spreading dangerous conspiracy theories and propaganda on their platforms is disconcerting, to say the least. They have contributed to the erosion of American democracy, allowing anti-democratic forces to propagate and thrive online while restricting users for artistic expressions of nudity.

So what should Twitter, Facebook, and other social media giants do about Trump?

Until January 20, 2021 at noon, Donald Trump was president of the United States. In effect, as president, he was the most visible representation of the American government with a dedicated communications staff, a press pool, and access to the international press. He was a regular on cable’s highest-rated ‘news’ network, Fox.

Needless to say, Trump enjoyed (as do all presidents) a giant platform, a megaphone – or, as President Theodore Roosevelt would say, a bully pulpit – even without his Twitter account. The idea that Trump’s Twitter and Facebook bans amount to unconstitutional censorship is laughable on its face.

However, just as social media companies have the right to ban him from their platforms, they also have the right to unban him. But should they?

As the lead organizer of anti-democratic and white supremacist forces in the United States, Trump poses a particular threat to American democracy. He has already attempted a coup, inspiring supporters to gather in Washington DC on January 6 and then instructing the mob to go to the Capitol as Congress convened to certify the Electoral College results.

Trump’s actions that day – and in the months both prior and since – have endangered the lives of our nation’s leaders. Former vice president Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi were specific targets of insurrectionists, although all members of Congress can count their lucky stars that the plot was ultimately thwarted.

Indeed, law enforcement was less fortunate on that day. Outrageously, countless Republicans in Congress ignored the pleas of Gladys Sicknick, the mother of fallen Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick. Instead, the focus of the likes of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been to re-write history and cover up Trump’s unprecedented attacks on our democracy.

Facebook’s ban extended but not permanent

In response to news that Facebook would extend Trump’s ban on the platform until January 2023 – while leaving the door open for a return – the disgraced former president yet again repeated the Big Lie.

“Facebook’s ruling is an insult to the record-setting 75M people, plus many others, who voted for us in the 2020 Rigged Presidential Election,” Trump said in a statement.

Should the ban get lifted, Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he will immediately resume the same behavior that got him banned from social media platforms in the first place. He will use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms to lie, divide, incite violence, and spread conspiracies.

A second insurrection is certainly not farfetched. His supporters – including disgraced former National Security Advisor, retired general, and convicted felon Michael Flynn – are calling for a military coup. Flynn previously called on Trump to declare martial law and overturn the election results.

Should the government sanction Big Tech?

It should go without saying that what Trump and his acolytes are doing is not normal political discourse. It is sedition.

Social media companies who aid in undermining our democracy – either directly advocating the overthrow of a democratic government or simply failing to police their platforms – should find themselves in legal trouble for facilitating violence.

That being said, I do not support governments – federal or state – taking action to force social media companies to restrict or ban speech from any particular individual. Social media companies should, however, face civil penalties if they fail to act when there are credible threats of violence. They should also have clear terms of use that are applied consistently.

I also oppose laws in states like Florida that compel social media companies to host content that violates their terms. A new Florida law makes it illegal for companies to ban candidates. The Florida law directly challenges Facebook and Twitter’s ability to moderate content, including fake news and hate speech. It’s a dangerous law that should be immediately struck down.

We need to strike a balance – one that protects the rights of individuals to express themselves in actual public forums (i.e. on the street) and curtails the ability of violent extremists to organize.