Republicans Are Allowing A Muddled Election To Be About Nothing

It’s late. The time for defining the choice is passing in a hurry. Election Day is coming, and some people have already voted. In several states, early voting began on September 18, and at least a few ballots are already in. But what are we voting for? This is where it gets awkward.

The Senate race in Delaware is probably pretty meaningless, and there’s not much reason to believe that Chris Coons is losing sleep over it. But go spend a few minutes at the campaign website of Dr. Mike Katz, the Republican who’s running against Coons. This is from the front page:

Katz believes in policies that produce results. In case you were wondering, he’s for affordability and economic growth. He doesn’t want to deliver talking points, he wants to deliver real solutions. He believes in having discipline. He is not for the special interests.

Several decades ago, the supermarket chain Ralph’s sold generic groceries that were just labeled with the name of the product: BEER, for example, or COFFEE, a word or two on a white package with a stripe.

That’s apparently what we’re doing this year, and we should probably be paying royalties to Ralph’s for the idea. The website of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee currently appears in black and white with a few little dashes of red at the top and bottom, like they were worried about paying a printshop for extra ink:

If you were an early adopter of dialup AOL, you remember when websites looked like this. It was about thirty years ago.

The Republican strategy for the midterms is that they’re framing this one as a contrast election: crazy people versus normals, recognizably human Americans versus weirdo socialists and the bizarre space alien creature from Texas who thinks Jesus wants you to trans your kids. In his midterm convention, Trump said that “we went through four years of embarrassment, hurt, harm, sickness, filth. It was bad.” So we’re voting in 2026 to still not go back to the Biden years.

All of that is just fine, as far as it goes. It’s true, and you should vote against socialism, open borders, and trans everything. But what are you voting for if you vote for Republicans? Trump has framed the midterms as a referendum on his presidency: “Pretend I’m on the ballot.”

What does that mean? Is the Iran War on the ballot? We should oppose Democrats, who are about as culturally sick as it’s possible to be, but what is your vote for? What affirmative set of principles and intentions lives inside a vote for a Republican congressional candidate?

As a sign of the empty core inside the oppositional framing, the Delaware senate candidate Mike Katz says on his campaign website that he’ll “support policies that preserve women’s sports as a competitive category for biological females,” which he describes as a necessary approach “because biological differences between males and females can affect athletic performance.” So sex is real, men and women are different, and policy should recognize biology.

Last week, Katz was on the stage with other candidates when another Republican referred to Rep. Tim “Sarah” McBride, a man who wears a dress to Congress, as a gentleman. The hosts of the forum cut his microphone, ending his participation in a public event.

Katz responded by condemning the other Republican for “misgendering” McBride:

You could be forgiven for wondering if Republicans know who they are and what they believe. They’re against Democrats, and they’ll let you know when they figure out the rest.

In 1979, Ted Kennedy was preparing to run for president, becoming the third brother to seek the same high office. But then the CBS News reporter Roger Mudd asked him a simple question: “Why do you want to be president?” Infamously, Kennedy couldn’t even begin to answer. He obviously hadn’t given it much thought.

He just thought he was entitled to it. He wasn’t sure why. That half-conscious grasping didn’t work for him, and that was effectively the end of his presidential ambitions. To run for office, you’re supposed to know why you’re doing it, what you intend to do, and what you believe.

In 2026, we’re not Democrats isn’t much of an offer.

Chris Bray is a senior correspondent at The Federalist and a former infantry sergeant in the U.S. Army. He has a history PhD from the University of California Los Angeles, not that it did him any good. He also posts on Substack, at “Tell Me How This Ends,” here.