Is Lesser Of Two Evils Politics All We Can Hope For-- Or Will A Bernie v Trump 2020 Election Break The Cycle?

Both parties suck and one of the themes of DWT for the past decade has been that the Democrats are simply the lesser of two evils-- sometimes not even that. The 2018 elections were not a "blue wave." Few people were excited about what the Democrats were offering. 2018 was simply an anti-Trump wave or an anti-red wave. Self-identified Democratic voters tended to vote for Democratic candidates and self-indetified Republican voters tended to vote for Republican candidates. There were some Democrats who voted for the GOP-- fewer than usual-- and there were some Republicans that voted for Democratic voters-- more than usual-- but that did not equate to the Democrats flipping 43 Republican-held seats. What did was that independent voters went in far greater numbers to Democrats than they did to Republicans.

In deep red districts with few independents, Republican incumbents and candidates had no problem at all. Quite the contrary, in fact. Let's look at the incumbents in the reddest districts in the country, 18 of them with R+25 or above PVIs. We're comparing Trump's vote in 2016 with the 2018 GOP congressional vote:

Mac Thornberry- TX-13 (R+33): 79.9% vs 81.5%
Michael Conaway- TX-11 (R+32): 77.8% vs 80.1%
Doug Collins- GA-09 (R+31): 77.8% vs 79.5%
Hal Rogers- KY-05 (R+31): 79.6% vs 78.9%
Rob Aderholt- AL-04 (R+30): 80.4% vs 79.9%
Phil Roe- TN-01 (R+28): 76.7% vs 77.1%
John Ratcliffe- TX-04 (R+28): 75.4% vs 75.7%
Kevin Brady- TX-08 (R+28): 72.7% vs 73.4%
Tom Graves- GA-14 (R+27): 75.0% vs 76.5%
Adrian Smith- NE-03 (R+27): 74.9% vs 76.7%
Frank Lucas- OK-03 (R+27): 73.6% vs 73.9%
Jody Arrington- TX-19 (R+27): 72.5% vs 75.2%
Gary Palmer- AL-06 (R+26): 70.8% vs 69.2%
Brian Babin- TX-36 (R+26): 72.0% vs 72.6%
Rob Bishop- UT-01 (R+26): 49.7% vs 61.6%
Louie Gohmert- TX-01 (R+25): 72.2% vs 72.3%
John Curts- UT-03 (R+25): 47.2% vs 67.5%
Liz Cheney- WY-al (R+25): 70.1% vs 63.7%

No blue waves/anti-red waves in any of these mostly rural, backward places where religionist bigotry reigns supreme and where minds completeley taken over by Hate Talk Radio and white evangelicalism define the hive. In fact, in 14 of the 18 districts the 2018 wins for the congressional candidates were greater than the Trump margin in 2016 and only one district saw a significant decline in 2018-- Wyoming's at-large district where a controversial candidate ran, goosing Democratic and independent turnout.

Monday morning a new Gallup release indicated that more and more Americans are registering as independents rather than as Democrats or Republicans. Look at that chart just above. What is shows is that "significantly more U.S. adults continued to identify as political independents (42%) in 2018 than as either Democrats (30%) or Republicans (26%). At least four in 10 Americans have been political independents in seven of the past eight years... [S]ince 2011, the percentage of independents has exceeded the percentage identifying with the Democratic Party by 11 points on average, and the percentage identifying as Republicans by 14 points... The recent rise in independent identification has come at the expense of both parties about equally. Compared with 30 years ago, when 33% of Americans identified as independents, the percentage of Republicans has fallen five points and the percentage of Democrats has fallen six points."

Since 1991, Gallup has consistently asked independents whether they lean toward either of the two major political parties. Most independents do express a party leaning when probed, and when those leanings are taken into account, 47% of Americans on average in 2018 were Democratic identifiers or Democratic-leaning independents, and 41% were Republicans or Republican-leaning independents.

The Democrats' six-point edge on this measure of party affiliation is in line with their five-point advantages in both 2016 and 2017.

Democrats have led on this combined party ID measure in most years since 1991, with Republicans outnumbering Democrats only in that first year, when George H.W. Bush had especially high job approval ratings after the Gulf War.

The Democratic lead has been as large as 12 points. This occurred in 2008, the year Barack Obama was elected president to replace George W. Bush, who had approval ratings in the high 20s or low 30s. By 2010, Republicans had essentially drawn even with Democrats after the passage of the Obamacare health legislation, but the Democrats have regained and maintained a consistent edge since then.

...The contraction of the party bases has occurred about equally among both parties and has allowed the Democratic Party to maintain its usual advantage over the Republican Party in terms of its share of the adult population. As such, Republicans' ability to remain competitive in national elections continues to depend on having higher turnout among its supporters, something it was able to do in the 2010 and 2014 midterm election years but not in 2018.

A policy-heavy 2020 Bernie presidential campaign versus Trump's psychotic rambling and increasingly preposterous lying would frame a perfect break with the whole lesser-of-two evils direction of American politics. But so could the developing theme of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vs a hapless, Trump-owned Kevin McCarthy. That's already begun and AOC is just kicking McCarthy's ass from Washington all the way back to Bakersfield. Let's keep watching. It's a lot more thrilling-- not to mention stimulating-- than yawning through largely meaningless McCarthy and Steny Hoyer matches!