Non-Voters Win 2014 Midterm Elections

Back to Do-Nothing Politics

America has just spent at least $3.6 billion on elections across the country with Republican candidates winning big. Knowledgeable citizens - those who voted and those who didn't bother - reasonably expect to see little change in Washington.

"Federal elections are curiously boring this year. ... The 2014 midterms are the first national elections in more than 16 years in which no important legislative changes are at stake."

Our two-party system is a game-of-black-and-white. Despite the onslaught of partisan commercials insisting that "white (or black) must win," that is not in fact how the game works. For those who love the phantasmagoria that is American politics, change, and losses, are anticipated parts of the show. "To work for their exclusion is to work against life."

In the run up to the 2014 midterms, many odds makers observed that the Republican party had home-field advantage: "A favorable Senate map and political landscape." The same prognosticators are pointing out that the 2016 elections will take place on the Democratic party's home court: "They have had much more success turning out younger and minority voters in presidential election years."

But the rhetoric from this year's campaign ads will likely be replayed again in two years, as politicians and partisans often forget that, "Thoughts, ideas and words are "coins" for real things. They are not those things... Ideas and words are more or less fixed, whereas real things change."



Liberal and Obamacare are ideas, fixed in many minds; but, the number of Americans with access to health insurance changed for the better.

Conservative and Welfare Reform are words, fixed in many minds, but the number of children living above poverty, changed for the better.

In the span of 30 years, each of our two parties has alternately held the Presidency, the Senate and the House. And over that time, little has changed. Popular columnist George Will explained the game of American politics, "Gridlock is not an American problem. It’s an American achievement. The framers of our Constitution didn't want an efficient government; they wanted a safe government. …. What I’m saying…is that when we have gridlock, the system is working."

The elections, "silly season in Washington," are blowing over. Once again, the President will go back to dealing with foreign policy issues - where his true power lies. Our Congress, tasked with leading on domestic issues, will do very little in the absence of pressing crises with clear cut solutions. The American political system is working as designed.

Historical perspective is small solace to citizens struggling against systemic inequalities (racial, gender, income). But the game of American politics was never intended to resolve those pernicious problems. If there have been times when American democracy worked towards the greater good, it was only happenstance. To quote a 20th century politician, "You can depend on Americans to do the right thing when they have exhausted every other possibility."

Tic-Tac-Toe Government

Non-voters did so well in the 2014 midterm elections that they even got a shout out from the American President himself. "To everyone that voted, I want you to know that I heard you. To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you too.."

Alluded to, increasingly recognized by politicians and pundits, is the fact that many citizens don't bother voting for the same reason that you've never met up with friends at the local sports bar to watch a televised tic-tac-toe match. In American today, the game of politics usually ends in a draw.

This may be a historical reality, but now more than ever, our politcal black-and-white are basically equally matched opponents. Campaign professionals on each side have divvied up the crosstabs: women versus men, young versus old, rural versus urban. Election after election, it's basically a draw; with the Republican (or Democrat) who wins behaving pretty much like the Democrat (or Republican) who was thrown out of office.

Barack Obama is not the first U.S. President to recognize the number of citizens who don't show up and imply that they are on his side; Richard Nixon had his own "silent majority" (though he was likely thinking of a different demographic).

The current president sounded wistful from the podium, hoping his democratic coalition is just "taking a break" and not breaking up. Presidential election year successes in expanding the electorate, built on the implementation of data driven micro targeting, mean that going forward non-voters will likely be missed and not forgotten.

Research tells us that non-voters are "Younger, More Racially Diverse, More Financially Strapped," than their neighbors who vote. On the other hand, they are equally skeptical that our government does or could work well.

Political scientists have offered theories that would suggest 2014 midterm nonvoters likely lacked strong partisan motivation, or have grown tired of a sitting president who they may have even helped elect. Economists neatly explain the individual rationality of nonvoting, given that the personal costs, in time and trouble, to become politically informed well outweigh the unlikely benefit of seeing politicians deliver social improvements. So perhaps non-voters patriotically delegated their vote potential to those they thought might be better informed.

War Games (1983)
The computer - Joshua - figures out war and tic-tac-toe.

Or maybe, over the past ten years, over five Congressional elections, non-voters are vaguely aware that legislative productivity has been decreasing, to literally its lowest levels ever. In 2014, non-voters watched the game of congressional tic-tac-toe played out 435 times across the country (Senate + House - 33 uncontested elections); and were subjected to a a record breaking $2.4 billion in mid-term election advertising. The intensity of the game continued to increase, even as the expected outcome was the same old political draw.

Non-voters won the 2014 midterms. Like the series of simulations played by Joshua the super computer in the movie War Games, this years tic-tac-toe of congressional elections proved that the only winning move was not to play.