The specter of the midterms haunts us all

The most spine-tingling event of the year creeps ever closer, casting its long shadow over October’s brilliant blue days. 

The evidence is everywhere: Loud yard decor. Groups traipsing through neighborhoods, knocking door to door. Bloodcurdling stories about imaginary terrors, like furry airline pilots and hordes of invading communists. 

As the calendar ticks toward the month’s end, this most electrifying of days inches inexorably closer, cloaked in a shroud of fear and anticipation. Though we may shrink away from it, there’s nowhere to hide. 

Election Day is coming for us all. 

Some Alabamians, uninterested in the circus or unimpressed by their options, might be tempted to close their eyes and wish away the specter of the political season. There’s recent precedent: More than 40% of registered voters in Alabama did not cast a ballot in the 2024 general election.

But the results of this election will haunt every person who lives in the state, whether they brave the ballot box or not. The ghosts of elections past already lurk within Alabama’s most persistent challenges: crime, healthcare, education, prisons. Pick your poison; there’s plenty to choose from. 

This year’s election cycle has become especially unignorable, as formerly safe Republicans have faced new, serious challenges from reanimated Alabama Democrats. 

Leading the pack, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Doug Jones has returned from beyond the political grave to chase Republican contender Tommy Tuberville across the state, forcing Coach to fight for the job he’s gunning for. Of late, this year’s race for governor has more closely resembled a real contest than a lazy cruise to victory, a change of pace that I hope we repeat in future cycles. Politicians should, after all, earn every vote instead of becoming entitled to them.

Jones recently acknowledged that it’s been an ‘uphill chug,’ but his Sisyphean efforts appear to have cracked the armor of Alabama conservatism. With less than two weeks remaining before Election Day, election forecaster Sabato’s Crystal Ball shifted the Jones/Tuberville contest from “Safe Republican” to “Likely Republican.”

That is one heck of a plot twist.

The last time Jones and Tuberville faced off, during their 2020 battle for the U.S. Senate, Tuberville beat Jones by about 20 points. Now, two recent polls measured their gap at around 10 points. Jones has closed the distance by half. 

His inroads with voters match the national trend. 

One of the starkest examples: Kansas hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since the 1930s, but this year’s race between incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall and Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton has, against all odds, suddenly become a toss-up.

Even in Mississippi—a political kindred spirit to Alabama if ever there was one—a GOP-aligned super PAC this month abruptly decided to spend $160,000 to defend incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, with more cash to follow.

Republicans have become increasingly concerned about the potential depth and breadth of this year’s anticipated blue wave. In an Oct. 21 story, reporters at Axios quoted a national Republican political operative as saying: “The wall has broken. The enemy is inside the fort. We are now fighting hand to hand.” 

Some political insiders have decided to project that fear outward and dial up the fright factor all the way to 11 during this final stretch of the campaign, an attempt to drive disaffected voters to the polls.

Fox News host Jesse Watters earlier this month told his fellow hosts on “The Five” that touting accomplishments is all well and good, but the key to galvanizing voters is to ratchet up so-called “fear porn” (his words, not mine).

“You have to say, these people are going to take your healthcare, they’re going to let in the Third World, they’re going to jack up your taxes, and that’s what’s going to get people to come out to vote,” he said. “You have to say, these people are scary and dangerous.”

That strategy may raise blood pressures among the electorate, but the “fear porn” (it’s gross even to type it out) will have to be truly terrifying if it’s going to overpower the foundational truth that’s driving current voter sentiment: It’s the economy, stupid. 

People vote with their wallets. And right now, as price tags remain stubbornly high for everything from gas to housing to Halloween candy, people’s wallets are telling one of the scariest stories of all. 

Who knows how the push and pull of all these competing forces will shake out when voters head to the polls on Nov. 3? But regardless of who wins, one thing is certain: Within a matter of weeks, the smoke and mirrors of the campaign trail will dissipate. And in the cold light of day, our new crop of elected officials will be expected to trade fairy tales for real-life results.