Tuesday’s primaries saw a series of impressive wins for progressive candidates in Colorado. The starkest example of this was Melat Kiros’ upset victory over U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette. The symbolism of a 30-year incumbent being unseated by a challenger who was not even born when the candidate she defeated was first sworn into office is too delicious to ignore.
In this column, I’ll argue that it is a mistake to read too much into election results. As V.O. Key (one of the founders of modern political science) once said, “It thus can be a mischievous error to assume, because a candidate wins, that a majority of the electorate shares (their) views on public questions, approves (their) past actions, or has specific expectations about (their) future conduct.”
Many in the political commentariat have been trying to draw broad conclusions about the success of these progressive candidates and what it may portend for the future of the Democratic Party and the country. Similarly broad conclusions were drawn from President Donald Trump’s victory in 2024. The conclusions drawn from Trump’s election did not age well, and I suspect those being spun from the success of a few candidates this cycle will age equally poorly.
In the wake of the 2024 election, there was a lot of talk about the political earthquake that had just hit the American political landscape. There was data showing that Trump had made significant improvements with his margins among younger voters and people of color — particularly young men. This was interpreted by many as a ringing endorsement of Trumpism; a fundamental remaking of political coalitions. Trump himself – despite continually undermining public trust in elections – has repeatedly referenced his popular vote victory in 2024, and although he is prone to exaggeration in his claims about the magnitude of that win, it is true that he won a majority of the votes in 2024.
Politicians obviously have an incentive to claim a “mandate” for governing. They get into the business of politics to enact their policy agenda, and it is helpful for them to present themselves as having the full-throated endorsement of the American people behind them. Combining this with the incentives of media figures to tell big stories about the importance of current events, and the appetite of news consumers to read stories that confirm their politics (or their worst fears about their political opponents’ politics), and we have the makings of an iron triangle.
The claims about how Trump remade the political landscape have not been borne out in the data. The groups that swung toward him in the 2024 election have swung back in a dramatic fashion. The anti-incumbent backlash that was partly responsible for bringing Trump into office was a global phenomenon in 2024, and one can argue that the ways the Trump administration has overplayed its hand since coming into office for the second time have hastened the downward trend in public esteem that almost all presidents experience over the course of their terms.
In an analogous way, the success of Kiros and others who have framed their candidacies as anti-establishment and against the institution of the Democratic Party is due – at least in part – to a broader discontent. None of this is to say that at least some of the voters for either Trump or these democratic socialist candidates do indeed wholeheartedly support their policies. Key’s insight is simply to note that it is a mistake to assume that all of the voters for these candidates are univocal in their reasons for support. To quote Key again:
“The voice of the people is but an echo. The output of an echo chamber bears an inevitable and invariable relation to the input. As candidates and parties clamor for attention and vie for popular support, the people’s verdict can be no more than a selective reflection from among the alternatives and outlooks presented to them.”
As we move forward into the inevitable post-election media cycles, we would do well to remember his words.
