The general consensus among pundits is that next November’s midterm elections will see Democratic losses, but with an expectation that they will be minimal. Republicans hold an advantage in the redistricting following last year’s census, but Democrats can perhaps hold the line and retain Congress.
![](https://eccie.net/{"default":{"load":"default","w":"80","h":"49","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AANN509.img?h=683&w=1119&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f"},"dpi":1.4,"size3column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"38","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AANN509.img?h=533&w=874&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f"},"size2column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"38","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AANN509.img?h=533&w=874&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f"}})
© Provided by Washington Examiner FEA.Midterm.jpg This is no doubt a possibility, but it is probably the best-case scenario for the Democrats. In fact, Republicans have tended to outperform pundit expectations over the past decade. And there are good reasons to think that the Republicans will do quite well in 2022. Though Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump last year, the Republican Party, on balance, did reasonably well and better than what most race forecasters predicted. While the GOP lost seats in the Senate, it picked up 14 seats in the House. It also picked up a few state legislative chambers and effectively controls 61 of 99 chambers. The Republicans likewise won the governorship in Montana, giving it 27 gubernatorial offices. All told on the state level, the Republicans hold the “trifecta,” or both chambers of the state legislature and the governorship, in 23 states, compared to just 15 for Democrats, with another 12 states split.
This is an incredibly strong position for a party that was just tossed from the presidency. Comparing the GOP position in 2021 to 2009 is like comparing night to day, when Democrats held strong majorities in both chambers of Congress and Republicans held trifectas in just 10 states. Back in 1993, Republicans held the trifecta in just three states, and Democrats likewise had large congressional majorities.
In some ways, the current level of Republican political power will probably limit their gains in 2022. After all, there are only so many state legislative districts willing to vote Republican. And while not all of them have done so, most of them have. Likewise, House Republicans control 199 House seats, compared to 247 at their post-Great Depression peak in 2014. It is unlikely that the GOP will vastly exceed this number, so the party probably won't match its triumphant 2010 midterm election (in which it picked up 63 seats), just because there are probably not that many seats that can be put in play.
On the other hand, the party’s strength will enable it to increase the likelihood of maximizing its gains. Republicans have total control over House redistricting in some 20 states, compared to just 11 for Democrats. And while Democrats, their past complaints about gerrymandering notwithstanding, will play hardball in states such as Illinois, Maryland, and New York, drawing district lines to punish Republicans, the fact is that the GOP just has so many more opportunities to draw the lines for the next Congress.
If history is any guide, the country’s attitude toward President Biden will determine the scope of Republican gains next year. It is possible, of course, that Democrats pick up some seats: This happened in the 2002, 1998, and 1962 midterm elections, when the party of the president actually won seats. But it is very rare. The president must be strongly popular, as George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and John F. Kennedy were during all three of those elections. Biden, on the other hand, has not been especially popular. That was true before the fall of Kabul, and it is more so today.
Biden’s job approval in his first year compares favorably to that of his immediate predecessor, but Trump’s numbers were uniquely bad. When Biden is examined against more normal presidents, especially Barack Obama, the weakness of his position is apparent. His high point in the RealClearPolitics average of polls was about 56% approval, much lower than Obama, who peaked at 65% in the average. But a closer look reveals greater problems for Biden. The president’s position has been buoyed by polls conducted over the internet, which are typically much more favorable to him than telephone polls. Perhaps the internet polls will prove to be more accurate, but they remain a relatively new mode of gauging public opinion — and if we want to compare Biden to past presidents, that limits their usefulness.
Looking only at the telephone polls, Biden comes across as a president with middling numbers. In January 2021, after the inauguration, the telephone polls found his job approval at just 52%, barely more than the share of his vote on Election Day. That number remained more or less steady until July, when the emergence of the delta variant pulled Biden down to 49% approval, compared to about 45% disapproval. In early August, before the fall of Kabul, Biden’s approval was just 49%, compared to 47% disapproval. By contrast, Obama did not hit such a low point until the winter of 2010.
Since the fall of Kabul, Biden’s approval has collapsed. Rasmussen Reports has had Biden’s approval in the mid-40s and disapproval in the mid-50s. Rasmussen is often criticized as a Republican-leaning polling agency, but a USA Today/Suffolk poll actually found a worse number for Biden: 41% approve to 55% disapprove. And considering that Biden’s vote share in the 2020 presidential election was disproportionately concentrated in the safely Democratic bastions of California and New York, where he won 63% and 61%, respectively, compared to 51% nationwide, one can only imagine how bad his standing is in the most competitive districts in the country.
If his numbers are anything like this in November 2022, the Democrats will be facing an electoral disaster.
Of course, Democratic partisans might respond, the fall of Kabul is a momentary crisis, a public relations nightmare no doubt, but it will pass. But that misses the point in two respects. First, the bloom is clearly off the rose of the Biden administration. The phase of his presidency in which the country was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt is now over. Problems and crises that emerge will be his responsibility to deal with, and there is no doubt that something will materialize between now and the midterm elections. If the last 20 years have taught us anything, it is that America cannot expect smooth sailing in domestic or international affairs for very long.
Second, consider the disastrous way in which the Biden administration has handled the Afghanistan situation. After implementing a half-baked plan to withdraw the last American forces from Afghanistan, the president and his handlers responded to this disaster by spinning the country in pathetically obvious ways. Likewise, the crisis on the border is entirely of the president’s own making, and the administration’s response has been to elide and obfuscate what is really going on. It’s fair to ask at this point whether the president and his team are really up to the task of governance. And if they’re not, then we should expect them to continue to mishandle the problems that inevitably come up, and the president’s numbers will be subjected to these kinds of slumps.
Of course, the midterm elections are more than a year away, which (as the saying goes) is a lifetime in politics. Electoral prognostication is a foolhardy endeavor at this point in time. Still, the expectations of Democratic partisans and many in the media that they will only lose a handful of seats seem like wish-casting. The reality is that the Republicans are in a strong position to capitalize on their opportunities, and the fumbling Biden administration might hand them a golden one come next November.
Still more than a year to go to hold off eh Commie DPST run the Tyranny of single party Rule in perpetuity,
From my cold dead hands
with piles and piles of dead DPSTs in front of me.
