(Presidentialwire.com)- While several states enjoyed massive red waves during this year’s Midterm election, nationwide, the electoral tsunami Republicans were hoping for failed to materialize.
As it stands, Republicans may gain the slimmest majority in the House, with most outlets projecting the GOP will hold 219 seats (218 is required for a majority). Over in the Senate, the current breakdown is 50 Democrats and 49 Republicans, with Georgia’s Senate seat pending until the December 6 runoff.
And while there are likely many factors that contributed to Tuesday’s lackluster results for Republicans, one reason the GOP may have failed to achieve the Red Wave they were hoping for might be its candidates’ focus on crime.
In the months leading up to last Tuesday’s election, voters consistently ranked the economy and inflation as their top concerns. Crime often polled closely behind economic issues as a primary voter concern, leading even abortion.
The same polls consistently showed that voters trusted Republicans over Democrats to deal with rising crime.
Republicans, including former President Trump, seized on the polling to use the rise in crime as a central campaign issue in the midterms.
And while Republicans focused on crime, Democrats focused on abortion, an issue on which polling showed Democrats were strongly favored.
But then the election happened and the expected Red Wave turned into a dribble as Democrats outperformed every expectation by pundits and polling outlets alike.
According to exit polling, while voters maintained that economic issues were their top priority, it was abortion, not crime, that came in second, with between 27 and 30 percent of voters saying abortion was their number one concern.
At the same time, exit polls are traditionally unreliable since the results of exit polling aren’t weighed against the final election results.
In the end, it is probably impossible to know which polling was more accurate, the polls ahead of Tuesday’s election or the exits polls.
