How Radical Republican Funding Helped US Democrats Win in the Midterms

The midterms in the USA, i.e. the midterm elections to Congress, were a real celebration for me. Not per se because the Democrats did much better than expected, but because this election could be a trend reversal, away from radicalization.

Among Republicans, pro-Trump MAGA candidates and electoral deniers have fared particularly poorly, and Democrats have plenty to think about their course, too. About half of the Democrats’ loss of seats in the House of Representatives happened in the most progressive—let’s call it the leftmost—states of New York and California.

Not only was the non-partisan centrist and transatlantic in me happy, it was also a triumph of game-theoretic strategy.

There is a branch of economics that probably only experts know about: the economic theory of politics. This has transformed the artificial figure of economics, the benefit and profit-maximizing homo oeconomicus, into a rational voice-maximizer.

One of the basic tenets of this theory is that political currents are moving towards the center in a two-party system. To illustrate this, scholars and game theorists often use the image of two ice cream vendors on the beach.

These two vendors, with identical flavors and prices, are the only vendors on, say, a kilometer long beach. Consequently, their only differentiator is the route that customers would have to travel to get to the ice cream stand. In a wise planned economy, the ranges would be set at the 250-meter and 750-meter marks. The beach visitors could be spread all over the beach and no one would have more than 250 meters to buy.

Marcus Schreiber is a founding partner and chief executive officer at TWS Partners. He has many years of experience in strategic purchasing and broad industry know-how. His focus is on strategic purchasing, applied industrial economics and market design. He also supports companies in applying game theory knowledge in complex procurement decisions.

Now theory and practice have taught us how important competition is. Therefore, the stall holders choose their own location. Each profit-maximizing seller will now move his stall towards the center and towards the competitor. On the fringes, the seller has a kind of monopoly. The way to the competitor is far too difficult. And the remaining customers who are between the two ice cream stands choose the shortest route to the ice cream.

So every seller gains customers if he moves towards the middle and thus towards the competitor. Depending on the difficulty of the path and the hunger for ice cream, it can even happen that the two stands practically meet in the middle.

Incidentally, this is also the reason why rental car companies or fast food chains with very interchangeable products are often right next to each other. It is precisely this prediction that the economic theory of politics now also makes for a two-party system. The parties are moving into the middle and are still much closer to their voters on the wings than the competing party.

Democrats funded extreme Trump supporters

The strategists of the US Democrats used the logic of this principle in the election campaign without having to change their own position. In at least 13 inter-party Republican primaries, Democrats have backed extreme Trump supporters and vote-denials against moderate Republican candidates and incumbents.

This was most evident in the case of the “primaries” around the US Senate in the state of New Hampshire, which was contested according to early polls, and in the gubernatorial elections in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Maryland. Sometimes the Democrats poured almost as much money into the radical Republican campaign as they did their own, sometimes six times what these Trumpists put into the primaries themselves.

What was the logic of this strategy? The ice cream vendors have the answer. Let’s say Republicans occupy the right 40% of the beach, Democrats the left 40%, and independents the middle 20%. The Democrats, with their fighting cash, have now allowed the craziest, most grotesque and most radical election campaign spots of the Trump-Republicans to be played on television again and again without comment.

>>Read also: Trump is the loser of the midterms – now his party could drop him

In the parties, the most radical are usually the most motivated. For the Republican radical base, these extreme positions meant an offer that candidates would set up their “ice cream stand” at their favorite spot on the beach, far to the right. That’s how it happened. In all 13 cases, the Trump loyalists prevailed within the party with their extreme positions.

The opponent’s position influences one’s own success

However, the permanent repetition of the crazy commercials had a completely different effect on the entire electorate. As with a recurring loudspeaker announcement on the beach, the Democrat strategists made it clear to non-partisan voters that the Republicans had abandoned the center of the beach and set up their ice cream parlor on the right edge according to the wishes of the radical base.

By helping the Republicans give up the center themselves, the Democrats won all of those 13 races by a staggering majority among independent voters without moving further into the center themselves.

By giving the most radical opponents a loud voice, it was made clear to the non-partisan voters, who were actually annoyed by Joe Biden and the Democrats because of the inflation and the indoctrinating school policy, that there is more at stake, namely the institutions and democracy itself.

>>Read also: Republicans win majority in House of Representatives – and could provoke debt crisis

As a game theorist and strategist, I can only take my hat off to the courage and acumen of the Democrats. Nonetheless, it strikes me as more cunning than clever. When it comes down to preventing another Trump victory and saving democracy, such tactics may be appropriate. In the long run, such rational, cynical behavior undermines democracy – even if you actually want to save it.

I would like the Democrats to win the center by moving back there themselves, and many beachgoers will then automatically seek their spot near the Democrat ice cream parlor.

More: Dancing with the Devil in Qatar – A Lesson from a Negotiation Theory Perspective

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