As Elections Near, Voters Make the Most Important Closing Arguments
They are for free enterprise, not socialism. They intuitively know you can’t abolish 80 percent of our power and electricity. They do not wish to transform our American values and traditional culture.

With 12 days left until the November 8 midterm elections, there’s a lot of talk about closing arguments.
While polls increasingly show a Democratic shellacking and the GOP broadening out its victories, the polls don’t matter. Votes matter. Message matters. Facts are supposed to matter. And credibility matters.
So, I’m not sure about closing arguments per say, but I do know that all campaign season long the Democrats have completely missed the boat and I don’t think that’s changing right now — it’s way too late in the game.
The Biden Democrats have pushed the abortion issue and the idea of making Roe v. Wade permanent (whatever that actually means). They’ve also continuously argued impending doom and gloom over climate change and for spending several fortunes to fight it. Also, that old standby, Donald Trump, MAGA, Mega MAGA, Mega MAGA trickle down … whatever any of that means.
I would also include, perhaps on a second level, “No bail, no jail.” Oh, and toss in the border’s really closed, not open.
In recent days, the Dems have turned to that old liberal malarkey, third rail of politics, that the Republicans are really and truly are out to destroy Social Security and Medicare. This one’s a reach that goes back for just about as long as I’ve been on planet earth, which is a really long time.
On the other side, Republicans — who are not always “message masters” — this time around kept their eye on inflation, 40-year-high inflation, which is in complete sync with voter anxieties. Every poll shows inflation/economy as the no. 1 issue. It’s been a winner, as it should be.
Even with gas prices easing down a bit, sky-high energy costs and food and grocery costs remain at the top of the voter lists, and the GOP has correctly stayed with it as the no. 1 midterm election issue.
Overall inflation is up nearly 13 percent since President Biden’s inauguration. Food is up 15 percent, groceries 17 percent, energy 39 percent, gasoline 48 percent, electricity 22 percent, new cars almost 20 percent, and so on….
Essentially, the Biden Democrats have never recovered from the unnecessary $2 trillion spending bill in March 2021 that launched the inflation heard around the country. Since then, for whatever reasons, the Democrats continue to scratch every liberal leftist, progressive itch. And raise taxes. And regulate the economy.
To a large extent, Mr. Biden succeeded in reversing President Trump’s policies, but it is costing the president and his Democrats dearly. Mr. Trump handed him a 6.5 percent growth economy, with inflation barely above 1 percent, and Mr. Biden turned it into a recession economy with double-digit inflation.
Even today’s economic report, when you look under the hood, shows a flat-line economy for the first nine months of the year, with an above 7 percent inflation rate.
This election has never been about abortion or the merits of destroying fossil fuels, or Donald Trump. It’s about the crash in working peoples’ pocketbooks. Along the way, Democrats have been defending “No bail, no jail,” open borders, teachers unions running the schools, and a variety of other unpopular issues.
Republicans have been smarter, and their values have been more traditional. Borders that were closed by Mr. Trump were opened by Mr. Biden and the scourge of fentanyl and other drugs came rolling through the country. Law and order has become nonexistent along the border, and in short supply across America’s big blue cities.
A year ago, Glenn Youngkin in Virginia made the monumental point that parents should be in charge of their children’s education, and that revolt continues to this day.
As far as destroying Social Security and Medicare, the Democrats are as usual just grasping for straws. There is no such GOP plank.
Here in the waning days of the election season, it is interesting to me how fossil fuels and fracking have again become very important. So has crime. The Pennsylvania Senate race is focused on those two issues, as is the New York governor’s race.
For two years, the Biden Democrats have obsessed over climate change, but soaring energy prices and shortages as we enter the colder season have become a fierce rebuttal. Democrats have amnesia over America’s oil and gas industry, which is the cleanest and most efficient in the world. As far as families are concerned, they’re interested in heating their homes this winter. Selling out the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is no answer.
In the New York debate, when one of the moderators asked Governor Hochul about the 57 percent increase in New York subway crime, she had no response. Nor about why it’s “so important” to put criminals in jail.
There’s nothing new about big city crime or soft-on-crime blue city prosecutors, but a fear and loathing of high crime has spread to the suburbs, and the exurbs, and independents, and soccer moms.
In a sense, it is not so much about closing arguments as it is about real world facts on the ground, around kitchen tables, and falling take-home paychecks.
Voters are making their own closing arguments. They are for free enterprise, not socialism. They intuitively know you can’t abolish 80 percent of our power and electricity. They do not wish to transform our American values and traditional culture.
In fact, really, it’s the voters who are making the most important closing arguments in this election. And it’s the voters who are insisting on cavalry checks, balances, and change.
From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.