STATE OF PLAY: Will Republicans win the Senate? Can Democrats keep the House? Are Democrats on track to break with historical precedent and expand their congressional majorities? Is a “red wave” that sweeps Republicans into office still materializing somewhere off on the horizon?
The answer to all the above questions is the same: Maybe. And this is a bit unusual compared to previous midterm cycles, where by mid-September you usually have a sense of where things are headed (big Republican gains in 2010, big Democratic gains in 2018, etc.).
Here’s what we know. President Biden is unpopular, and presidents — especially unpopular ones — usually watch their party get shellacked in their first midterm. Americans are also dealing with stubbornly high inflation, which continues to eat through their pocketbooks, despite the late-summer drop in gas prices.
Given these ingredients, most political observers spent the first half of the year waiting for a red wave. In April, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was telling audiences that Republicans were looking at the best political atmosphere since 1994, when a resurgent GOP took the House for the first time in decades and won the Senate as well.
McConnell, however, had a caveat: If Republican primary voters choose candidates that alienate the general electorate, they could lose many winnable races. And since then, Republican primary voters — often with the encouragement of former President Donald Trump — have chosen unproven, untested and, in some cases, quite radical candidates for the House and Senate.
But beyond what McConnell calls “candidate quality,” Republicans have another major problem: the Supreme Court’s decision in June to strike down Roe v. Wade, which instantly triggered strict abortion bans in a number of states. The GOP’s anti-abortion position proved wildly unpopular with voters over the summer, and Democrats are hoping that the fall of Roe and the return of Trump to the campaign trail will get their voters out to the polls this November.
As such, we’re looking at perhaps the most unpredictable midterm in modern history. And election prognosticators have recalibrated expectations accordingly. "We are reminded of the famous clip of Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi: 'What the hell’s going on out here?' " wrote Kyle Kondic and J. Miles Coleman at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
Like most political experts (such as, reportedly, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer), Kondik and Coleman still see “Republicans as considerable favorites to flip the House” if not the Senate. “It’s just that in this peculiar election year, the political signs are mixed.”
“This week, the ups and downs have continued,” writes Yahoo News Senior National Correspondent Jon Ward.
“On Tuesday, the latest inflation report was worse than expected and sparked a market selloff. But also on Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., refocused national attention on abortion by proposing a 15-week ban on the procedure nationwide.”
By mid-week, House Democratic leaders were predicting they could actually pick up seats in the House and retain the majority. It seems far-fetched, but most experts are quite uncertain about making predictions right now.
Brendan Buck, who advised former GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan, noted that in 2016, most experts thought Democrat Hillary Clinton would win the White House, only to see her lose. And in 2020, “everyone thought Democrats would strengthen control in the House, but lost a bunch of seats.”
“I don’t know that today is any less certain. Maybe we were just too certain before,” Buck said. "It does still generally feel like the story is the same: Republicans are likely to take the House, but we have a divided country and who knows. Also Donald Trump makes anything more unpredictable, and I guess he’s back to a certain degree.”
And Greg Speed, who runs the progressive group America Votes, told Ward that November will be “a choice — Democrats and Biden vs. MAGA — not a referendum on the president.”
“It’s the first ‘choice’ midterm since 2002, which is also the last time the White House incumbent party gained seats,” Speed said.
We’ll see. In the meantime, as Yahoo News Senior Writer Christopher Wilson notes, Americans of all political stripes should brace for some unexpected results in November.
“Could Republicans come within single digits of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, as one recent poll suggested? Is Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s Florida seat in actual jeopardy, as polls have indicated for the last month? Maybe!
“With inflation, gas prices, COVID-19, the backlash to millions losing abortion rights and whatever major news events occur between now and votes being cast, you should be ready for plenty of surprising results come election night that maybe shouldn’t be all that surprising,” Wilson writes.
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