Republican Voter Turnout Was Great In Midterms, They Just Didn't Vote For Republicans

As the Republican Party tries to figure out where it all went wrong in the midterms, they continue to tell us that Republicans simply didn't show up to vote. But the numbers tell a completely different story - Republican turnout was actually great, the problem is that they just didn't vote for the extreme Republican candidates, and many either simply skipped that portion or voted for another Party. This is a reason for optimism, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

As Republicans continue to look inward at themselves and try to figure out what the hell happened to them in the midterms. We've heard a lot of them say that turnout was the big problem for Republicans. Oh, we trashed voting by mail. So they didn't vote by mail. We said, don't vote early, and they didn't vote early. So they just didn't show up and vote for us, is what we've heard. It's a compelling argument. It makes sense, right? You spent two years attacking the entire electoral pro, uh, process in the United States. It would stand to reason that that would come back and bite you in the. Well, it turns out that now that the dust is settling on the midterms, we're starting to look at the real numbers of what happened with Republican turnout. How bad was it? And the answer is, it was better than usual.

Republican turnout this year was not depressed. Republicans turned out in higher numbers than in previous midterm elections. Democrats actually saw a decrease in their voter turnout. So the big question then becomes, how in the hell do you have more Republicans showing up? Fewer Democrats showing up, but Democrats still holding every seed in the Senate and winning an additional one, and Republicans not getting their red wave. How does this make sense? Well, the answer is quite simple. According to those that have looked at the data, Republicans didn't vote for the extreme MAGA candidates, and they did in fact switch over to vote for the Democrat. Now, this is what the data tells us. They can go through and they can look at what happened. Because you have many areas where a, you know, MAGA freak Republican, whether it's Doug Mastri, whether it's Dr. Oz, Herschel Walker, Blake Masters, Carrie Lake in Arizona, where Republicans actually voted for the Democrat against those extreme MAGA freaks, but then voted Republican the rest of the ticket.

So when confronted with these extreme Trump loving candidates, Republican registered Republican voters looked at it and they said, no, I'd rather have a Democrat than this extreme Republican. So it wasn't the turnout, it was the candidate quality. Now, this analysis of this data is absolutely cause for optimism among the Democrats, but not for the reasons that you think, right? It doesn't mean that Democrats now have this advantage. As I said, their voters did not show up in the numbers that had been expected. Their turnout was lower. They were saved by Republican switching parties for one race on the ballot. The reason this should give Democrats hope is because it might mean that the country is not lost. And it definitely means that the MAGA movement is not as strong as we've been led to believe. That is the big takeaway from this, right? That was the big fear that the MAGA movement is going to take over American politics.

It's not. It is still very powerful. Don't get me wrong. And I know there's certain people out there, people that I love and admire, that tell you every day that, oh, the Maga, the Maga maga is bad. It's taken over. It's taken over the whole Republican party. It's clearly not the, the data shows that the voters are rejecting it. So we should be a little bit optimistic. We have to keep an eye on it. We have to talk about the MAGA movement. We have to point out its lies and talk about the extremism. We still have to do that because that is what made these Republicans flip. But we don't have to be so entirely afraid of it. Yes, in certain areas of the country, like where I am in Florida.