|
Post by Admin on Nov 4, 2022 6:23:09 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 5, 2022 7:00:29 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 5, 2022 20:36:26 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 5, 2022 20:57:31 GMT
If you’re a Democrat worried about what will happen on Tuesday, the glimmers of hope are where you find them. Here’s a New York Times poll, for example, showing Democratic candidates with the edge in several key Senate races.
Otherwise just about everything seems to be breaking the Republicans’ way. GOP Senate candidates who looked like no-hopers just a few weeks ago, like Arizona’s Blake Masters and New Hampshire’s Don Bolduc, are suddenly surging. Americans consistently tell pollsters they’re far more concerned about inflation than abortion rights. And the Times is casting doubt on the accuracy of its own poll showing Democrats in decent shape.
America is not a normal country. This is not a normal time. But if Republicans do well on Tuesday — perhaps not crazy well but well enough to capture the House and maybe the Senate — that will be a pretty normal result, historically speaking. And it will likely have happened for some pretty normal reasons.
President Biden is unpopular, with Gallup clocking his approval rating at 40%. That’s slightly worse than where Donald Trump was at this point four years ago — right before the 2018 midterms, when voters kicked the GOP’s teeth in.
Unpopular presidents watch their party lose a lot of seats in their first midterm. We’ve known this since at least the advent of modern polling. Heck, even popular presidents usually take it on the chin in their first midterm after taking office.
Why is Biden so unpopular? There’s never just one answer to a question like that. But the biggest reason is almost certainly the economy. Unemployment is low, but high inflation means the vast majority of Americans have less money to spend on products that are getting more expensive. Back in September, the economist Mark Zandi calculated that Americans were spending about $460 more a month on the same goods and services than they were a year ago.
Know what happens when the economy is in rough shape during a midterm election? The party in power loses a bunch of seats.
Again, we’re a big, weird country in a very strange time. Thanks to Trump, a good deal of the Republican Party believes our elections are illegitimate. That belief inspired a riot at the U.S. Capitol just last year. A crazed man broke into Nancy Pelosi’s house and beat her husband with a hammer just last week. Roe v. Wade was struck down in June. There’s a major land war in Europe for the first time since 1945. America’s status as the world’s lone superpower is being threatened by a rising China. We’re still recovering from a horrific pandemic. Race relations are, to put it mildly, rather tense. And on and on.
Yet for all that, we’re looking at what will likely be a normal midterm decided for normal reasons. The rules of political gravity have been tested mightily in recent years. But the fundamentals of midterm politics, for now at least, appear to be holding: The president is unpopular for normal-ish reasons, and his party is going to lose some number of seats as a result.
If you’re a Democrat, that doesn’t mean your favorite candidate is going to lose on Tuesday. Even in 2018, when Democrats took back the House in a wave, a number of Republicans won close races — including a fellow named Ron DeSantis, who was elected governor of Florida that year.
Who knows. Maybe Democrats lose Congress but elect a fresh face somewhere who becomes president one day. Keep that in mind if you’re all doom-and-gloom Wednesday morning.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 6, 2022 0:37:55 GMT
|
|