Another free and fair election deserves acceptance as such

We have no sweeping revelations to impart about Tuesday’s local, state and national balloting, particularly with a fair number of races and measures yet to be decided, hither and yon. We do, however, have some observations and insights to share as we join our readers and leaders in attempting to pull the pieces together.

On a national level, the races deciding Senate, House and Oval Office control were nearly as close as pollsters and pundits were predicting. But as is often the case, they produced much more decisive collective outcomes.

Donald Trump not only won handily in the Electoral College tally — and nearly swept the seven so-called swing states, six of which he lost last time around — but also broke a 20-year GOP drought by also prevailing in the popular vote. The electorate seemed to shrug off his character flaws, legal troubles and authoritarian tendencies.

His party already controlled the House and Supreme Court, thanks to past successes at the polls, and had little trouble erasing a tenuous Democratic majority in the Senate as well. Trump has been promising to turn 250 years of tradition on its head if returned to the presidency, and seems well-poised to get his way.

Insufficiently checked inflation, taxation and immigration seemed to move the dial for Republicans. Pushing back on social, criminal and environmental issues also appeared to work in their favor.

Reproductive rights cut the opposite way, but its impact did not seem to spill over from ballot measures to candidates. Measures to protect or expand such rights racked up majority support in eight of 10 states — all but South Dakota and Nebraska — but failed to give Democratic advocates any discernible boost.

On a state level, voting generally held true to past form. Democrats easily swept the top state offices again, captured at least four of the six congressional seats, if not five, and seemed on the way to even greater legislative dominance.

Oregon is a red state geographically, but a blue state demographically. Democrats control only a relative handful of counties, but those counties account for a vastly disproportionate share of voters, particularly with Deschutes appearing to join their ranks.

Yamhill County follows national voting patterns much more closely than those of Oregon as a whole. It almost uniformly went for Republicans, or at least perceived Republicans, up and down the ballot.

Nationally, Republican candidates performed better with rural, male, blue collar and socially and religiously conservative voters. That has cost Democrats some of their previous dominance in Black, Hispanic and trade union circles, particularly among men.

For example, Hillary Clinton carried Florida’s heavily Hispanic Miami-Dade County by 29 points in 2016, but Trump carried it by 11 points this year. On the national level, Biden carried Hispanic men by 23 points in 2020, but Trump carried them by eight points this year.

Playing on Democratic support for trans rights helped Trump make inroads with Hispanic voters. Playing on Democratic opposition to mill, factory, port and pipeline projects helped him do the same with blue collar workers, particularly in the Rust Belt states of Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Locally, taxation, regulation and social issues produced fault lines that could be exploited to like effect, particularly in McMinnville’s hard-fought mayor’s race.

Three recent city actions helped fuel Kim Morris’ ouster of Mayor Remy Drabkin — enactment of a utility fee with no designated purpose beyond feeding the general fund; retention of city tax money freed up when the municipal firefighting function was assumed by an independent taxing district; and months-long resistance to banning homeless camping in school zones, despite near-universal support in school circles.

To opponents, that translated to ignoring taxpayers, giving short shrift to family economics, subjugating constituent needs to those of the homeless and failing to deter crime, litter and vandalism attributable to the homeless. They responded by rallying around Morris, a business and community leader with deep local roots.

Fortunately, the three Republican legislators chosen to represent our county — Bruce Starr, Lucetta Elmer and Anna Scharf — all have moderate, pragmatic and effective track records that should serve us well. We endorsed all three, believing they would give us one of the strongest, if not the strongest, delegations we’ve ever had.

It’s hard to know what to make of the non-partisan county commissioner’s race between incumbent Lindsay Berschauer and challenger David “Bubba” King, which remained too close to call at this writing.

King came within 131 votes of mustering an outright majority in the primary, falling short due to a third candidate who picked up 5 percent of the vote. It appears that share almost all went to Berschauer in the general, producing a near dead heat.

It’s worth noting, however, that the staunchly Republican Berschauer ran well behind other Republican candidates appearing on Yamhill County ballots. Even those losing state or district races mustered clear majorities locally, including Mike Erickson, who was defeated handily by U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas in a 6th District rematch.

County voters struck a rare note of agreement with their statewide counterparts on four of the five state measures on Tuesday’s ballot, parting ways only on a measure making it easier for pot shop workers to organize. County voters said no, state voters yes.

They also sided with voters in four other counties in rejecting a $140 million Chemeketa Community College bond to fund new vocational training facilities on the college’s main campus in Salem. The measure failed even in Chemeketa’s home county of Marion.

This year’s election was free and fair from one end of the country to the other, thus upholding a long and proud American tradition. Let’s hope it’s accepted by one and all this time around, avoiding the ugly, unfounded and un-American challenges of 2020, the most recent presidential year.