Among the leading explanations for the failure of the Republican “red wave” in the midterm elections is “candidate quality.” 

The term is generally taken to refer to nominees who cling to extreme positions — such as the Trump election denial trope backed by Kari Lake in her bid to be Arizona governor — or those who have suspect life stories.

Think here of the domestic abuse allegations which dogged Georgia’s Republican senate candidate, Herschel Walker. The allegations, put forward by Mr. Walker’s ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, were raised in campaign ads.

Overlooked, however, is another aspect of candidate quality:  political experience. 

Victorious candidates in Pennsylvania (Josh Shapiro for Governor, John Fetterman for Senate), Arizona (Katie Hobbs for Governor), and New York (Mike Lawler, victorious over Congressman Sean Maloney) all had something in common: they previously held elective office.  

Mr. Shapiro had been his state’s Attorney General, Mr. Fetterman the Mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, and Mr. Lawler a New York State Assembly member.

Their victories can be seen as a rebuke of the idea that the best candidates are “outsiders.” Seeking high office as your first elected post just didn’t work out well for TV doctor Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, a retired Army general, Donald Bolduc, in New Hampshire, or newscaster Kari Lake in Arizona. 

They remind us, what’s more, that politics is learned as a contact sport — and that working one’s way up the ladder from local to national posts is good preparation both for winning office and succeeding as an office-holder.  

This was the lesson that LBJ failed to learn from his mentor, the legendary House speaker, Sam Rayburn. The Kennedy administration’s “best and brightest,” including Defense Secretary McNamara and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, seemed “highly intelligent” to Rayburn.

Yet as David Halberstam recounted in his book “The Best and the Brightest,” Rayburn added: “I just wish one of them had run for sheriff.” Per Halberstam, the Vietnam quagmire was closely related to their lack of political experience.

Anyone who has run for local office comes to learn that earning votes is tough.  That there are time-honored techniques such as “identifying your vote” and “pulling it” on Election Day. Having a list of my “good voters” allowed me to win local office in Massachusetts by a single vote — that of a friend who came to the polls at dusk in her nightgown. 

Anyone who has served in local office knows that the issues that arise may be different in scale than those in Washington but are not different in kind. Almost any proposal — whether for a new park or more police — sounds attractive by itself.  Yet politics is a “compared to what business” — and budgets require tradeoffs.  

Local or state office in America is the place where one learns not only the process but the details of policy, including the types of federal funding and the rules that are attached to them. 

Our federalist system — and its thousands of cities and towns, school boards and water districts — enables on-the-job training. The most effective elected leaders don’t generally start at the top.  

President Reagan’s first elected job may have been as California’s governor but his election as an anti-Communist candidate to head the Screen Actors Guild in 1947 was surely politics at its toughest. 

Theodore Roosevelt started in New York’s State Assembly, and both Presidents Lincoln and Obama began as Illinois legislators. President Clinton was the Arkansas Attorney General. 

At the least, lower office provides a playbook for political, if not, policy success. President Biden’s first elected office was as a member of the New Castle, Delaware, County Council.

Winning contested elections is good preparation for higher office, as well — as we learn from Vice-President Harris’ awkwardness on the national stage, following her easy paths to office (Attorney General and Senator) in deep blue California. 

It’s hardly surprising that President Trump would have backed candidates with no electoral experience. He is not shy about promoting himself as a role model.

But even those of his endorsees who won, such as Ohio’s senator-elect, J.D. Vance, included some who received fewer votes than other victorious Republicans, like Governor DeWine of Ohio. Mr. Walker faces a runoff election in Georgia because many of those who voted for Governor Kemp did not do so for Mr. Walker. 

Indeed, maybe if Secretary Clinton had once run for sheriff she’d have learned not to insult potential voters. For his part, Mr. Trump might have learned not to urge supporters to storm public buildings.  One or the other might be President today.