The Median Voter Theorem tells us that if voters are spread out along a one-dimensional political spectrum, then the position held by the median voter will beat any other position in a head-to-head majority vote. It’s a theorem, so it must be true! In the real world there isn’t a one-dimensional political spectrum that voters fall along, and voters don’t vote rationally anyway. But we’ve just lived through an election that reminds us of the idea behind the Median Voter Theorem: if you want to win a fair election, you had better give the voters what they want.

I specify fair elections, because we’ve also lived through a partly failed attempt by the President of the United States and people eager to do his bidding to undermine the fairness of our elections. The idea was that something had to be done so that a really unpopular president and party could keep hold of power. Like Captain Kirk facing the Kobayashi Maru, but without Kirk’s effortless cool and panache, the Trump Administration decided to alter the conditions of the test, for example, by gerrymandering the bejezus out of congressional districts in between censuses, by seeking to exert control of elections at the federal level, and so forth. While many were eager to help the President’s malign efforts, the courts and many state officials, including Republicans and Democrats, did a decent job of resisting the worst of the legal and political pressure. But President Trump and the Republicans were so far from what the median voter wanted that no amount of monkey business was able to swing the election in their favor.

The obvious lesson of the midterm election is hubris and nemesis. Maybe the base of the MAGA movement really wanted the imposition of irrational tariffs that punish the American consumer. Maybe they really wanted mass deportations and armed and masked ICE agents terrorizing immigrant communities. Maybe they really wanted to destroy America’s leadership in higher education, basic science, and technology. Maybe they really wanted to alienate our allies and throw away American leadership of the Western world. Maybe they really wanted to start a war with Iran but not to commit the blood and treasure that it would have taken to win. I doubt it, but maybe. But that’s certainly not what the American people voted for or wanted. President Trump and his people couldn’t see that, and so he has been brought low.

Columnist Jamelle Bouie makes this point in a recent column, titled “Republicans Got Ruinously High on Their Own Supply.”

Trump and his allies looked at the 2024 election as an enabling act for all of their most radical aspirations. They saw the president’s popular vote victory and relative down-ballot success as a mandate that handed them the keys to American politics and culture. This was the “vibe shift”; the idea that Trump had not won an office but had built a new MAGA majority, a realignment that would shape American politics for the duration. It was a message that quite a few people wanted to hear, as it dovetailed with an elite “anti-woke” backlash and a revolt of capital against a strong, worker-friendly labor market.

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But this was delusional. It was delusional then, after the 2024 election, when Trump and his party were euphoric with anticipation, and it was especially delusional as this year progressed and November loomed larger on the calendar.

If the message of the election was obvious, the lesson for the emboldened Democrats is obvious, too. If you want to win power and keep power, say and do things that are closer to what the median voter wants you to say and do. Bouie knows this: “Democrats should also not get too high on their own supply. ” But then he writes:

For Democrats to get too high on their own supply, then, is for Democrats to retreat to the idea that the only thing that mattered were a set of narrow “kitchen table issues”—and to shy away from taking bold action to clean house in Washington.

Whether the Democrats succeed will depend on how they interpret their mandate for “bold action.” I hope they will interpret it to mean bold action to impose more legal limits on the power of the presidency, for example, by passing the bipartisan ARTICLE ONE Act, which would require Congressional approval for presidential emergency declarations after 30 days, or by using the power of the purse to enforce the requirements of the War Powers Resolution. I hope they will interpret it to mean recommitment to traditional US foreign policy, which has always recognized that strong American alliances are good for us militarily, diplomatically, economically, and culturally, and not just gifts that we give to our allies. I hope they will interpret it to mean restoring the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice. If they return American government to its traditional course, and if they take steps to reduce the danger that another authoritarian president could pose in the future, they’ll set the stage for a Democratic majority for a long time to come.¹Let me pause to criticize my own point. Yes, I am saying that Congress should work on an agenda that was not very high on voters’ lists of priorities, at least according to any poll I’ve read. And I’m saying it in a post framed by the idea of the median voter! But much of what I’m suggesting is about ensuring that future elections remain fair, which justifies the point.

I suppose I can leave the “but” unsaid this week. Time enough for the “but” in the weeks and months to come.

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  Let me pause to criticize my own point. Yes, I am saying that Congress should work on an agenda that was not very high on voters’ lists of priorities, at least according to any poll I’ve read. And I’m saying it in a post framed by the idea of the median voter! But much of what I’m suggesting is about ensuring that future elections remain fair, which justifies the point. ↩︎