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It was about a week after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol when FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver looked ahead to the possible political implications of the violence. As regular readers may recall, the election forecaster suggested that the relevance of the riot was likely to linger.
After noting the historical model that suggests the opposition party nearly always makes gains in the president’s first midterm elections, Silver added: “But one of the exceptions to that was 9/11, when the president’s party gained ground in the midterms, and 1/6 resembles 9/11 in certain ways.”
George Will added soon after, “I would like to see January 6th burned into the American mind as firmly as 9/11, because it was that scale of a shock to the system.”
The assessments were compelling. In fact, in the immediate aftermath of the assault, it was tempting to think Republicans would wear a visible scar for a long while: The party not only embraced a bonkers conspiracy theory about legitimate election results, helping create the conditions that produced violence, they also took deliberate efforts to help overturn the results, even refusing to certify vote tallies they didn’t like.
Early last year, it seemed entirely plausible that the American mainstream would not soon forgive or forget such a betrayal of our democracy. And yet, as the first post-Jan. 6 election cycle approaches, not only are Republicans poised to face no consequences whatsoever, they’re hardly facing any pushback at all on the issue.
Politico noted last week, for example, “The GOP lawmakers who backed Donald Trump-driven election challenges that metastasized into violence on Jan. 6, 2021, aren’t taking much campaign-trail heat for it.” This is partly the result of voters’ interest lying elsewhere, and partly because so many of these Republicans have far-right constituents who wouldn’t be swayed by advertising related to Jan. 6 anyway.
There are some new indications, however, about the issue’s relevance in key Senate races.
In Wisconsin, VoteVets, a progressive veterans organization, launched a new ad tying Republican Sen. Ron Johnson to the rioters.
The spot features a pair of veterans saying that the GOP incumbent, whose Jan. 6 record is awfully messy for a variety of reasons, stood by “those who attacked our democracy, those who attacked our Constitution, those who attacked our police.”
“I could never vote for a traitor,” a veteran tells viewers. Another veteran adds: “I will not vote for Ron Johnson.”
Hours after the VoteVets ad was unveiled, the issue came up again during a Senate debate in Utah. HuffPost noted:
Evan McMullin, the independent candidate for Senate in Utah, confronted incumbent Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Monday over his role in the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the rivals’ Senate debate. Text messages from Lee to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows revealed how Lee helped push legally dubious schemes to keep then-President Donald Trump in power before shifting course and voting to certify the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021. Lee also encouraged top Trump advisers to embrace Sidney Powell, a Republican lawyer who spread baseless claims of a rigged election.
“That was the most egregious betrayal of our Constitution in our nation’s history, and it will be your legacy,” McMullin said during last night’s debate. The independent candidate added, “When the barbarians were at the gate, you were happy to let them in.”
For his part, Lee responded that he was merely looking into “rumors” of fake slates of electors. The actual record suggests the Utahan’s defense is simply untrue.
I won’t pretend to know whether, and to what degree, voters in these races will care. But for those who believe the Jan. 6 attack should be a major campaign issue, it’s notable to see the issue come to the fore in these contests.