Professors React to Midterms: From Raging at ‘Bigots’ to ‘Beto 2020’

A growing line of voters, right, wait as others fill out their paper ballots in privacy vo
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
Tom Ciccotta

American college professors are having a hard time processing some of the results from Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Georgetown University Professor Christine Fair, who tweeted in October that white male GOP senators deserved slow “miserable deaths,” said that the midterm results revealed America’s bigotries.

“Results showed our country is divided into racist, xenophobic, misogynist, and xenophobic bigots on the one hand and those who embrace diversity as the source of our strength, who aspire to extend equal rights to all irrespective of race, creed, gender, who you love on the other,” Fair tweeted.

https://twitter.com/CChristineFair/status/1060173293976723456?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Mark Copelovitch, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, tweeted out the “Senate popular vote.” The tally shows the total votes Senate candidates received for each party. The Senate was established by the Founding Fathers to ensure that each state had equal representation.

University of New Hampshire Professor Seth Abramson chimed in as well. “What Beto O’Rourke did in Texas was absolutely amazing and—while I’m certainly not announcing support for any candidate—I do believe, fervently, Beto should run for President of the United States in 2020,” he tweeted. “100% serious. If he can get 48% in Texas, anything is possible nationally.”

Some professors offered more level-headed, analytical responses to the midterm elections.

Duke University Political Science Professor Ashley Jardina stated that the United States didn’t move as far to the left as she had expected. “So if you want to think of it as a blue wave in that respect then yes, every district [in North Carolina] moved more to the left,” Jardina said. “But, on the other hand, it’s not the case that the country has moved as far left as it has in the past.”

University of Southern Mississippi Economics Professor Edward Sayre said that President Trump energized both Democrats and Republicans to head to the polls. “The thing that the Democrats probably didn’t expect as far at the Trump effect if anything, was that it energized both the Democrats and the Republicans,” Sayre said. “And specifically, it energized the Republicans in those states where he really fought hard for those senators.”

 Before the election, SUNY New Platz Professor Laura Ebert was caught stealing GOP lawn signs from residents in Rosendale, New York.

“I have family I love that support Trump, so I was after the sign, not the person,” Ebert said in a statement. “I have apologized and feel bad, but clearly the GOP is putting a big deal [of] spin on this. Many signs have been taken and disfigured, which, while no excuse for my bad behavior, doesn’t warrant the death threats I have received…Nor the smear campaign after me…”

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