On the 2023 General Election
Election results across the country show a clear demand for broadly libertarian policies and candidates who can tap into that demand will do well in 2024.
Dear Friends,
I am traveling this week to Phoenix attend to business matters at Consolidated Auto Sales and the memorial service for my late Aunt Mary and able to see most of the election results from around the country.
The Libertarian Policy Institute did a massive candidate recruitment effort in Misssissippi this year, resulting in the most legislative candidates filed for office outside the two-party establishment in a century. Candidates were recruited to run on a trio of policy priorities: repealing the grocery tax, expanding educational options, and legalizing cannabis for adults.
Looking at how much the Republican candidate for Governor in Mississippi (receiving 52% of the vote) underperformed compared to other statewide Republicans (receiving ~60% of the vote), it is likely Democratic Governor candidate Brandon Presley’s embrace of the grocery tax that put him within 3% of a huge upset.
Looking to other states, Ohio and Kentucky voters very clearly rejected the Republican position on abortion rights. There is not a single election anywhere in the country since the Dobbs decision triggered extreme abortion bans to come into effect in longtime Republican states. Lawmakers passed complete bans that never went into effect while Roe v. Wade was still the law, but had provisions to spring into effect if the Supreme Court overturned Roe. The Republicans caught that car with the win in Dobbs and have been getting dragged mercilessly behind that car ever since.
Polls taken in the 2022 election showed that after Dobbs, there was a split among male voters on a generic ballot between men and dads. Men leaned slightly Republican on a generic Congressional ballot, with fathers swinging over 20% toward Democatic candidates.
Men have always been the strongest pillar of the Republican Party, and more than 60 percent of them have kids. Fox News polling showed that between May and August, months consumed by fallout over the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, there was a 28-point shift in the number of fathers with children under 18 who said they’d vote for a Democratic candidate
The other issue that is moving strongly in a libertarian policy direction is legalizing cannabis for adults. Voters in Ohio gave 58% to an initiative to legalize cannabis for adults. There is no statewide constituency for marijuana prohibition anymore. Even Mississippi has medical.
Candidates across the country who embrace individual self determination in issues of choosing medical care for yourself or your children, support repealing grocery taxes and other regressive taxes on necessities (did you know Indiana collects a sales tax on utility bills?), and expanding educational options for children will continue to succeed in elections in 2024.
Candidates who support government control of what medical care you can choose for yourself or your family, who would keep shifting the tax burden to poor people, and who restrict access to schools or books will continue to fail in elections in 2024.
There is a tremendous opportunity in 2024 to achieve big gains on these issues in states around the country. The results of recent elections are the most reliable polling of all and they show that voters want more individual freedom, more mutual human respect for peaceful differences, and fewer politicians restricting their personal choices.
Libertarian policy gets us back to that “more perfect union” that America was always meant to be. And the nice thing is that these policies can easily be embraced by most candidates in most of the political parties in our country. These are the issues that unite us, not the ones that divide.
Our neighbors are good people and most of them just want to live together in a pluralistic and prosperous society where they are free to make the choices they think are best for them and their families. Most of them don’t want to control the choices of their neighbors, even when they are choices they disagree with. That’s what makes this country great.
If we work together, we can make it greater.
Yours truly,
Nick
P.S. It’s been a tough few months leading up to tonights results. A lot of people have been worried about violence in the world. If you know someone having a tough time and you think this message would give them hope, please forward it.
P.P.S. If you, or someone you know, would really love to drive a 2005 Ford Thunderbird 50th Anniversary edition, show them this and have them call me.
A sensible analysis of our current politics, rooted in a humane, sane point of view, sans blather or dogma, but that's what I expect from Mr. Sarwark. It's good to hear from him again.