Midterm Madness
Democrats are likely to lose in 2022.
Democrats are probably in trouble in the coming 2022 midterms. Historically the president’s party loses seats in the midterm.
In both chambers of Congress, Democrats hold a majority by the thinnest of margins. While Biden is fairly popular, he has a far lower net approval than Obama did at this point in his first term.
Polarization is worse these days and there might be more stability simply because people don’t change their minds as much as they once did.
Something you can glean from looking at these three graphs is that presidential approval has become a lot less volatile. It’s hard to imagine Biden hitting a 60 point net approval like Obama did at the start of his term, just as its hard to imagine him dipping below Trump’s negative 15 point approval.
Democrats seem to be doing fairly well in the generic ballot at present. This could change, but Democrats actually seem to be expanding their margin in the generic ballot. A current average gives the Dems a five point advantage.
Again, it’s early. Typically the president’s party sees their polling decline as the election approaches. Given historic trends you would expect the Democratic margin to slip down as Election Day approaches and end up losing the House popular vote by several points.
The generic ballot polling will likely be off a few points in either direction. In 2020 the generic ballot was off by about four points, fairly large by the standards of recent years.
Of course, even if Dems were able to break trends and win the popular vote, winning a majority (or plurality) of the vote does not guarantee winning a majority of seats. There will be 435 entirely new congressional districts in 2022 and depending on how these maps shake out, winning by a few points may not be enough to secure a majority.
If you’re a Democrat, you have a few reasons to be hopeful. The Democratic coalition is now increasingly well-educated and suburban, a voting bloc likely to be more engaged in low-turnout elections. In special elections so far, performance suggests a national environment of somewhere between 2-5 points in favor of Democrats. This could be seen in the most recent New Mexico special election where Democrats outperformed expectations.
Voters may also reward Biden for his handling of the pandemic (an issue on which he has high approval) and the ensuing economic recovery. The most recent time a party in power bucked the midterm trend was in 2002, following Bush’s handling of 9/11, another national crisis.
That said, the electorate can often have an object permanence issue. The pandemic may not be top of mind for many voters come November 2022. It remains early, but expectations should be that things will get worse for Democrats as next year approaches.