Vanessa Cárdenas: “Contrasting notions of our country and our democracy are on the ballot and the stakes could not be higher.”
Washington, DC – From the reversal of Roe to the January 6th commission revelations to their continued embrace of dangerous white nationalist conspiracies, Republicans’ extremism has been on vivid display in recent months. Now, there’s growing evidence that Americans are recoiling from what they are seeing from the GOP with big potential implications for November’s elections.
- Paul Waldman writes in the Washington Post: “Right now the GOP is gripped by two forces that are distinct but operate in concert: an ideological extremism born of backlash politics, and an opposition to democracy that increasingly manifests in outright lunacy. While that’s just what many Republicans want, it also could alienate voters in the middle and motivate Democrats to vote.”
- Midterm polling from Morning Consult/Politico: Congressional Democrats have their “biggest advantage over Republicans — 37% to 26% — on the congressional generic ballot” in their 41 weekly tracking polls conducted since September 2021. The poll also finds that Democrats have gained with independent voters, while President Biden’s approval among independents continues to decline, a “disconnect [that] suggests independent voters may view November’s contests as less of a referendum and more of a choice between two parties.”
- The Republican extremism on display threatens to get worse in coming weeks. President Trump is trying to muscle his way back to national center stage, to the displeasure of Republican midterm strategists.
- The GOP keeps seeking ways to impose their anti-democratic extremism on the rest of the country, including through unpopular immigration actions such as stripping DACA protections from Dreamers, while blocking a legislative solution, and continuing their dangerous embrace of white nationalist “replacement” and “invasion” conspiracies, even as those conspiracies and lies are tied to actual acts of violence by well-armed young men.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Deputy Director for America’s Voice:
“Most Americans don’t agree with or want to be governed by the Republican vision on women’s rights, voting rights, marriage rights, contraception, environmental protection, gun safety and, yes, immigration. And the more the Republican anti-democratic project and its extremist views are put on display – and the more the Republicans make explicit and implicit calls to violence – the more the midterms are poised to be a choice between the two visions for the country instead of a referendum on the current president’s popularity. Contrasting notions of our country and our democracy are on the ballot and the stakes could not be higher.”
