The Curious Case of the Accidental Senators: Don't Say They Can't Win

Kathy Barnette may have a tougher time winning than David McCormick, but both are better than the huckster fraud Mehmet Oz.

The last time the American economic situation was this bad, James Earl Carter, Jr. got attacked by a killer rabbit and nearly cried in front of a live television audience lamenting the great malaise. History’s greatest monster was, shortly thereafter, put out to pasture.

Voters swept Ronald Reagan into the presidency to restore American confidence and take us from mourning in America to morning in America. Reagan, however, did not get there alone. A group of mostly accidental senators went into office with him.

James Abnor of South Dakota, Jeremiah Denton of Alabama, John Porter East of North Carolina, Paula Hawkins of Florida, Mack Mattingly of Georgia, and Slade Gorton of Washington surprised America by becoming senators. All ran in extremely close races. All were underdogs. All were gone after one term — Senator East taking his own life in June of 1986, and the others rejected by voters that November. They became known as the accidental senators.

The elections were a harbinger of things to come, particularly the South turning right and heading to the GOP. Denton, for example, lost to Democratic Congressman Richard Shelby in 1986. Shelby is now the retiring Republican Senator from Alabama.

In addition to those accidental one-term senators from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Dakota, other states flipped to the GOP too. Alaska elected Frank Murkowski, father of Senator Lisa Murkowski. Idaho elected Steve Symms, who served till 1993 and was one of only six senators to oppose the Americans With Disabilities Act. Indiana elected future Vice President Dan Quayle. Iowa elected Chuck Grassley, the last of the Class of 1980 still in office. New Hampshire elected Warren Rudman who would serve until 1993. Rudman would actually live until 2012, dying one month after John Durkin, the man he beat in 1980. Wisconsin elected Bob Kasten who survived only two terms before Russ Feingold beat him in 1992.

In 1988, Slade Gorton ran again after his 1986 loss and won two more elections, losing to Maria Cantwell in 2000.

Surprising all the pundits, the Republicans took the United States Senate for the first time in 24 years. They had not controlled it since January of 1955. The GOP held the Senate for four straight years. It would be another 14 years in 1994 before they would take the House after forty years in the minority. The GOP also retook the Senate that year.

The Senate shift to the GOP in 1980 was so unexpected that no one had even contemplated a transition plan. Howard Baker who had, ironically, run in the Republican presidential primary to stop Ronald Reagan, became Senate Majority Leader because of Reagan’s coattails and Carter’s disastrous collapse. It was the largest swing in a Senate election since 1958 and the Senate GOP’s best showing since 1946 when voters turned against Truman. The Republicans held all ten of their existing seats up for re-election and flipped twelve of the twenty-four Democrat seats for a total gain of 22 seats.

The 1980 election moved men like Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, John Tower, and Barry Goldwater into Senate leadership positions.

"The swing in the Senate is probably even greater, in ideological terms, than the shift in the White House," a prominent labor leader said yesterday. "A bleeping disaster," said another.

Fast forward to now, the year 2022. The nation’s mood is as pessimistic or more pessimistic than in 1980. Inflation is at a forty-year high. American morale is in decline so much so that members of the Biden Administration have used the word malaise as Carter did. We have a labor shortage, a housing shortage, a baby formula shortage, and other shortages. “The 16 percent of voters who think the country is on the right track is easily a 13-year low in the NBC News survey.”

Corporate America seems very good at manufacturing profits, not products. Private equity groups are imposing the left’s ESG (environmental, social, governance) agenda on the Fortune 500, even if it is bad for business and helps China. The same groups are buying up American homes, forcing Americans into permanent tenant status and depriving them of home equity. They’ve taken a stand for leftwing social causes even as most Americans are not down with the agenda.

Schools are ruining the lives of students with lockdowns, excuses, and indoctrination. Parents are furious and the Department of Education is furious with the parents.

Congress won’t secure the border or take care of the basic functions of government, while also blowing up deficits and making inflation worse. The Biden Administration compounds the problems by driving up energy costs, harming American wage growth, and generally having the King Midas but turds approach. Everything Biden touches turns to poo. Oh, and COVID is starting to surge again.

I think David McCormick is a wiser choice in Pennsylvania than Kathy Barnette. Both are real Republicans and actual conservatives and not huckster frauds like Mehmet Oz. I think Herschel Walker has so much baggage that he is an enormous lift for voters to get into office, especially when any of the other Georgia Republican senate candidates would be easier to get across the finish line.

But don’t think any of them cannot win.

About the only Republican this year who probably cannot win is Eric Grietens and that's only because he is a sexual predator and awful human being. Nonetheless, this year is so bad for Democrats that he might pull it off too.

We have not seen a political environment for an incumbent this bad since 1980. Even 2010 was not as bad for Obama as 2022 is for Biden — but 2010 saw massive losses for Democrats. One must go back from 2010 to the 1890’s to find comparable damage done to an incumbent party from the federal level all the way to the local level and 2022 is shaping up to be worse for the incumbent party than 2010.

I think some of the candidates, like McCormick in Pennsylvania, Vicky Hartzler or Eric Schmitt in Missouri, any other Senate candidate in Georgia, and Mark Brnovich in Arizona would be more easily electable than the other candidates in those states. It will take less effort and cost less money, enabling Republicans to expand the playing field further.

But we should not count out Kathy Barnette or Herschel Walker. We are in a year of political realignment like in 1980 when southern states began shifting right. Now, instead of white voters, it is black and Hispanic voters. Barnette, Walker, and others could find themselves in the Senate just by running against the wokes, the economy, and Joe Biden.