“Murc’s Law” [was] named after a commenter at the blog Lawyers, Guns, and Money who noticed years ago the habitual assumption among the punditry that Republican misbehavior can only be caused by Democrats. Do Republicans reject climate science? Must be because Democrats failed to persuade them! Did Republicans pass unpopular tax cuts for the rich? Must be that Democrats didn’t do enough to guide them to better choices! Do Republicans keep voting for lunatics and fascists? It must be the fault of Democrats for being mean to them! Even Donald Trump’s election was widely blamed on Democrats — who voted against him, to be clear — on the bizarre grounds that Barack Obama should have rolled over and just let Mitt Romney win in 2012.
The mere fact of [Donald Trump's] election last year handed Democrats a powerful turnout lever in blue-leaning New Jersey and Virginia, but Trump has further undermined GOP hopes in the two states with his conduct....There's some truth in Martin's argument that Trump makes it difficult for Republican candidates to challenge him -- but it's fascinating that at a time when Democrats are being castigated yet again by the political culture, particularly their own consultants, for (barely) losing the 2024 presidential election because of what are being called bad policy choices, likely victories by Democrats aren't being credited to the party's candidates and their policy choices. The political culture thinks Democrats were too associated with left-wing ideas in 2024 -- yet now when left-centrists Spanberger and Sherrill seem likely to win, they might get no credit for earning their own victories.
There are his explicit actions: The DOGE layoffs and government shutdown reductions-in-force hit federal worker-heavy Virginia hard, and then he “terminated” funding for the Gateway Tunnel construction between New Jersey and New York. Both handed ad scripts that write themselves to the Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls.
Yet the more fundamental challenge Trump presents is ... his expectation of unwavering fealty.... Particularly in governor’s races, and particularly when your party is in the White House, Republicans running in blue states and Democrats competing in red states must take steps to appeal to independents and voters in the other party by separating themselves from the national brand, at least symbolically.
Nonetheless, Virginia’s Winsome Earle-Sears and New Jersey’s Jack Ciattarelli have embraced Trump in states he’s never won in three consecutive presidential elections.
I'm reminded of the response to 2020 and 2024 presidential elections. In 2020, Joe Biden won an unprecedented 81 million votes, still the highest vote total in U.S. presidential history, and won the popular vote by four and a half points. He won the Electoral College 306-232. Yet a Google search for appearances of the phrase "biden has a mandate" from Election Day to Inauguration Day yields only 552 results. In 2024, Trump won the popular vote by one and a half points, and won fewer votes than Biden in 2020. He won the Electoral College 312-226. Yet if you search "trump has a mandate" from Election Day to Inauguration Day, you get 11,300 hits -- far more than for Biden four years earlier.
Maybe this wasn't true in the days of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, but there's a sense that Biden somehow stumbled into the presidency, with a glide path given to him by Trump. Subsequently, everything that went wrong in his presidency was his fault, and Democrats were collectively responsible for Kamala Harris's loss.
It looks as if Sherrill and Spanberger might not get get credit for winning this election, and won't be seen as having a mandate, even though Spanberger, at least, might win by double digits. I think it's because our political culture can never really believe that Democrats could be the normal ones, the ones with popular ideas, the ones whose values align with voters' values.
Democrats can alienate, but they can't persuade. Maybe we should call that Steve M.'s law.
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