The Vibe Shift of the Vibe Shift

What to take from a set of terrible results for Republicans last week.

(Credit for the voiceover for this article goes to the great Samuel Lipson)

The 2024 election never got the kind of reaction one would have expected for a close-run race. Although a mixed verdict by any measure, it was received by all quarters like it was nothing less than a crushing landslide—the kind of watershed moment that only comes around once every few generations. It did not take long before this interpretation was given a name: the “Vibe Shift.” As this story went, the results in 2024 were reflective of nothing less than a revolution in American politics and culture. As a result of supposed liberal excesses, the average voter had become substantially more conservative and pro-Trump, and the right now held the center of cultural and political gravity.

This, the story went, made the Republican win something far more than a narrow victory against an unpopular incumbent. Rather, it was the beginning of an entirely new era where the left’s most prized causes were all but politically unviable.

From the beginning, it was always possible to build a case that this narrative was a dramatic overreaction. After all, Trump had fallen short of winning even a simple majority of the popular vote. Across the country, countless Republican candidates who didn’t have the fortune to run against a Biden administration member underran his numbers. Several of them outright lost in crucial states and districts that he won. When viewed from this perspective, Trump’s triumph appeared less like a wholesale rejection of the left and more like a narrow vote of no confidence against a uniquely unpopular White House. While this may have been cold comfort for a Democratic Party that had deeply committed itself to that said White House, it did promise those opposed to Trump that a fierce backlash to him was in the waiting if he governed as aggressively and ideologically as he said he would.

Even less than four months into this new administration, this counter-narrative already appears quite prescient. After months of quietly declining support, a perpetually smug White House was sharply humbled last week, first by a set of strikingly weak electoral performances and then by a disastrous response to the implementation of its signature economic policy. Then, during the weekend, liberals emerged from their hibernation to stage a series of nationwide protests that matched the Golden Age of the #Resistance in size and scale. Far from a vanguard ushering in a new stage of history, Trump 2.0 suddenly appears beset on all sides.

What’s going on?

What Happened Last Tuesday

Let’s start with the headline numbers. On the Tuesday of April 1st, Americans voted in three relatively high-profile races: two special elections in deep-red Florida House districts and one statewide judicial election in Wisconsin for the state’s Supreme Court. In each case, the stakes were high. Up in the Badger State, the survival of the 4-to-3 liberal supreme court majority was in the balance. Down in the Sunshine State, a Republican Party left reeling from a shock defeat in a deeply Republican state senate seat in Pennsylvania was putting together a belated effort to stave off another Democratic upset that could imperil their narrow majority in the House.

In the end, the party prevented such an upset, but not without receiving some major warning signs. While the flawed Republican candidate in the state’s 6th district won by 14 points, his margin of victory was substantially less than the 30-point win Trump achieved in the same district last November. Things were even more dramatic in the lower-profile and lower-turnout race in Florida’s 1st district, where the Republican underran Trump’s 2024 performance by a staggering 22 points.

Even by the standards of special elections, these results aren’t normal. To put in perspective just how dramatic these swings were, Twitter user Definitely Not Al Gore created a map showing what the House would look like if the 22 point swing seen in Florida’s 1st district occurred nationally.

It’s…quite striking. Does it mean that Drumpf is doomed? Have the walls finally closed in? Has the pendulum already swung so far back this quickly? When Democrats finally freed themselves from Joe Biden, was it the political equivalent of Goku taking off his weighted clothing?

This is the part where political commentators are supposed to say “no,” read off an explanation of the effects of different turnout environments, and explain that special elections have been unrepresentative of the national electorate roughly ever since Dobbs. All of these things are true, and it’s undeniably the case that one shouldn’t take the results from last week at face value. But, with that said, just focusing on downplaying what we saw last Tuesday can also harm our understanding of the immediate implications of the results. By looking at what happened last week from a slightly different perspective, things are a bit more complicated—and quite concerning for the GOP.