Opinion | Democrats and Republicans Are Living in Different Worlds

I asked Webster whether schadenfreude was stronger in either party and he replied by email:

It is hard to say whether Democrats or Republicans are more prone to partisan schadenfreude. This is because we measured schadenfreude in slightly different ways according to one’s partisan identification. Democratic schadenfreude was measured after subjects saw a vignette of a Democrat losing government-provided health insurance following a vote for a Republican; Republican schadenfreude was measured after seeing a vignette about voting for a Democrat and losing take-home pay in the wake of tax increases.

There was, Webster continued, “a clear pattern: both Democrats and Republicans express partisan schadenfreude, and this attitude is most pronounced among those who are ideologically extreme (i.e., liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans).”

I also asked whether or not a candidate signaling willingness to punish opponents would see a net gain or loss of votes. Webster replied:

We find that most Americans do not register an intention to vote for candidates who promise legislative cruelty. It is only among those individuals who exhibit the greatest amount of schadenfreude that we see an acceptance of these candidates (as measured by a willingness to vote for them). So, there is certainly a trade-off here. If political consultants and candidates think that their constituency is prone to exhibiting high amounts of schadenfreude, then campaigning on promises of legislative cruelty could be a successful tactic. As in most cases, the composition of the electorate matters a great deal.

While partisan schadenfreude is present among voters on both sides of the aisle, among politicians the two most prominent champions of its usage are Republicans — Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis — and they share the honor of being most willing to adopt policies to hurt Democratic constituencies to win support.

On the assumption that turnout will be key in 2024, the 2022 elections sent some warning signals to Democrats. In an analysis published earlier this month, “Voting Patterns in the 2022 Elections,” Pew Research found that

The G.O.P. improved its performance in 2022 across most voting subgroups relative to 2018 — due almost entirely to differential partisan turnout. Voters who were more favorable to Republican candidates turned out at higher rates compared with those who typically support Democrats.

These trends were visible in Hispanic voting patterns:

A higher share of Hispanic voters supported GOP candidates in the 2022 election compared with in 2018. In November 2022, 60 percent of Hispanic voters cast ballots for Democrats compared with 39 percent who supported Republicans. This 21-point margin is smaller than in 2018, when 72 percent of Hispanic voters favored Democrats and 25 percent supported Republicans” — a 47-point margin.

Crucially, Hannah Hartig, Andrew Daniller, Scott Keeter and Ted Van Green, the authors of the report, write:

Among Hispanic voters who cast ballots in the 2018 election, 37 percent did not vote in the 2022 midterms. Those who did not vote had tilted heavily Democratic in 2018 — reflecting asymmetric changes in voter turnout among Hispanic adults.

If Biden and the Democratic Party allow the turnout patterns of 2022 to define turnout in 2024, Biden will lose, and Republicans will be odds-on favorites to control the House and Senate.

Trump is a master of turnout.

In large part because of Trump, voter turnout in 2020 — measured as a percentage of the voting-eligible population —- was the highest in 120 years, at 66.7 percent.

Trump is the Democrats’ best hope. In the past three elections — 2018, 2020 and 2022 — when he was on the ballot, either literally or through a candidate surrogate, he brought out Democratic voters by the millions, reminding a majority of Americans just what it is that they do not want.