Sizing up the red wave

It's still too early to predict how big the GOP's midterm wave will be. Still, it isn't too early to start analyzing the factors that likely will influence the election. Barry Casselman's op-ed is a good place to start.

Mr. Casselman opens his op-ed by saying "There have been some recent op-eds suggesting that the national midterm elections, now only 7 months away, will not be a red tsunami in U.S. House elections as some have predicted. The arguments fall into two general categories. First, there are those pundits who calculate that the GOP has already picked up several competitive seats in 2020, and thus is limited in the number of pick-ups it can hope for in 2022. They contend that predictors of GOP gains of more than 25-30 seats are way too optimistic. The second group are mostly Republican strategists who do not necessarily believe in a lesser number of gains, but who want to lower public expectations so that the actual results cannot be portrayed as a disappointment."

Let's start with the things that are currently influencing the Democrats dismal state of affairs. The biggest influencer (by a country mile) is inflation. People know that their paychecks don't stretch as far as they did under Trump (pre-COVID). While Biden does his best each month to tout the jobs report, that isn't cutting through. The jobs reports are important for policy makers but they don't tell families when inflation will abate. Until energy policies dramatically change over the long term, gas prices will remain high. Heating bills will remain high, too.

Many observers also believe that President Biden’s current very low poll numbers will soon rise, and that he and his party will likewise soon abandon their radical and unpopular agenda, thus making Democrats more competitive in November. But this same expectation also existed 3 months ago, and clearly did not happen. While it is true that most undecided voters usually make up their minds about candidates only a few weeks before voting, a nationalized election (as 2022 is turning out to be, especially after continual bad economic news, i.e. inflation, high energy prices, unsettled stocks, supply chain woes) motivates turnout against a party in power much earlier, which we already see in various state caucuses and party conventions, including, for example, usually "blue" Minnesota, where Republicans are turning out heavily, and Democrats (DFLers) are not.

Rather than changing directions, Democrats this year have doubled down. That's caused Biden's approval to sink. As usual, Sen. John Kennedy, (R-LA), sums things up perfectly:

Sen. Kennedy also said that the U.S. "was foundned by geniuses but run by idiots." I can't disagree with that.

Already, two usually "safe" Democratic U.S. Senate seats, in Vermont and Connecticut, are becoming competitive with potentially formidable GOP challengers. Another new factor is the growing number of GOP women, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians running for Congress this cycle. The intensity and range of current U.S. voter dissatisfaction are the political factors in 2022 that the skeptical number crunchers are underestimating.

If Vermont and Connecticut are in play, Democrats are in bigtime trouble.