You Don't Know Which Elections are Going to Matter

Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV)

Rep. Shelley Berkley is not a name that you probably know unless you're from Nevada or something of an elections nerd.  She served for 14 years in the US House, and during that time her accomplishments were relatively middling.  If you look through her Wikipedia page, there's no major legislation that she authored-they don't even highlight a bill that she sponsored in her tenure in the House (just votes).  Congress is made up of such individuals, people that briefly wield a significant amount of power but that history will pretty quickly forget, nothing more than congressional footnotes for political nerds like me to occasionally trot out, and even then were it not for one crucial thing, Shelley Berkley I wouldn't know much about other than her state & party.

In 2012, Shelley Berkley ran for the US Senate against appointed-Sen. Dean Heller (R).  By all accounts, Berkley's campaign was not great-Heller was the "more likable" candidate by the press, and Berkley (at the time) felt slightly more liberal than you'd expect from a state like Nevada (in 2012).  But Berkley had one clear asset in her corner-President Obama.  Obama seemed likely to win Nevada, and if he was winning, if he could just get his supporters to back Berkley, that would get him an extra seat.  Obama, though, didn't really campaign with Berkley-his campaign wasn't super focused on down-ballot races, despite most state-to-state polls showing he was going to beat Mitt Romney (which he did).  On Election Day, President Obama won the election, both nationwide & in Nevada, getting 531,373 votes in the state.  Shelley Berkley lost the election to Heller, by a small amount-only 1.2 points, just under 12,000 votes away from Heller.  She exceeded expectations (she outran virtually every poll), but in the end 85,000 people voted for Obama but declined to vote for Berkley.

Why am I bringing this up?  Because four years after Berkley's narrow loss, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, and Mitch McConnell refused to allow a hearing on him, despite this being an unprecedented move.  One of the 54 people who gave McConnell that authority was Dean Heller.  Obama and the Nevada Democrats who voted for him couldn't have known that Berkley, who would have still been in office at the time, would be so consequential.  Berkley isn't alone, but there were four sitting Republican senators in 2016 (Heller, Mark Kirk, Thom Tillis, and Cory Gardner) who had won by less than 2-points.  Less than 2-points separated the Democrats from gaining a majority in the Supreme Court for the first time in decades.  Every decision that Neil Gorsuch will make for the remainder of his time on the Court-it's not just on the people who didn't vote for Hillary.  It's on the Democrats who voted for Obama in 2012, but couldn't be interested to learn what was happening down-ballot.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I say this because Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this weekend.  I haven't really come to terms with this, and don't feel I can write a proper obituary of a woman that I admired so much, and yet in her death, I have to hate just a little bit for not retiring in 2013, knowing what was at stake, and what her health was even then.  Ego can do terrible things even to the best of people, and I don't want to regret saying more than that about her legacy, which deserves praise even if she made one, unfathomably bad decision.  But Ginsburg isn't the only one at fault for how fate took a hand.  Currently, just like in 2016, the Democrats are short four Senate seats.  And just like in 2016, four of those seats are held by Republicans who won by less than 2-points (Gardner, Tillis, Pat Toomey, & Rick Scott).

I'd argue at the very least that three of their opponents ran lousy-by-comparison campaigns (Kay Hagen being the exception), but their elections mattered more than some of the sexier ones that you've seen in the past decade.  Mark Udall, Bill Nelson, & Katie McGinty were not Stacey Abrams or Beto O'Rourke or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-they were not leaders of a new generation.  But their losses ended up being more consequential, and the fact that people needed to be "passionate" about them, that people needed to be "inspired" rather than just knowing that voting for them could certainly matter...that should've been enough.

I have never, ever understood how people can sit out elections.  It's something hardwired in me-the idea of not voting in even a primary makes me ill, it's so important & I see that importance every single election.  These races were decided by less than 2-points...that's nothing in politics.  That's a close race-that's a race that was decided not just by the voters, but by people sitting on their couches or people who voted third party despite knowing that these races could matter (none of these were expected to be blowouts).  They were decided by people who seemingly had the luxury of "not caring."  And we will pay the consequences for that for decades.  It's entirely possible that Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and the newly-appointed Justice could sit on the bench for forty years.  Most of the eligible voters in these elections almost certainly will not live to see the end of their time-in-office.

There is a lesson here-you don't know which elections will matter and which ones won't.  Every single presidential election they spout "this is the most important election of your life," and while I truly believe that's the case this year for the presidential election, you don't know what down-ballot races are the Shelley Berkley's.  You don't know if in four or five or six years having a Joni Ernst in office instead of a Theresa Greenfield might make such a consequential difference.  You don't know who the next Shelley Berkley is-you don't know if your voice is the one that will matter this year.  So vote, always, do your research now, but vote in every contest, and ask every person you know what their voting plan is.  Help them vote absentee, help them research candidates, and make sure they (and you) vote no matter whether you are through-the-moon about your candidate or if you're somewhat apathetic.  History teaches us that it's not always the dynamic, the headline-names that matter the most.  Frequently in elections, the most consequential decisions are made when seemingly forgettable names are tossed aside...and when we need them, it's too late.

Don't let us look back on 2020 and wish that we'd done more.  Don't let this be an election we could've won, but it became "too late."