Given the number of Dem house retirements announced, the very low Biden approval ratings, the redistricting movements among many GOP controlled states, there is strong belief that the GOP will gain control of both houses.
If it does happen, by what seat margin will it happen?
I predict House will shift from a Democrat lead of 8 seats to a GOP lead of 5…a 13 seat swing.
I predict Senate will shift from a 50/50 tie to a GOP lead of 3 seats.
Setting aside the anomalous post-9/11 2002 election, Trump, Obama and Clinton lost 41, 63 and 54 House seats respectively in their first midterm election. Every indication is that Biden is on the same path, so I’ll say a 50 seat GOP pickup.
The correlation between a President’s first midterm and losing/gaining seats in the Senate is much less pronounced, so it’ll come down to individual races. I’ll predict Dem pickups in PA and WI and a narrow loss in GA for a 51/49 Democratic Senate.
Is it possible in principle for a bill to have been passed in the House pre-elections, then be passed in the Senate post-elections?
I don’t think that it’s going to be as bad as some folks think. A lot of folks who say they’re going to vote Republican probably won’t be voting…or breathing.
Certainly it’s possible for a bill to pass one chamber before election day (November 8) and the other chamber in a lame duck session after election day. But it would still be the “old” members in the lame duck. When the current session of Congress ends on January 3, 2023, any bill not finally passed by both chambers is dead.
With attitudes like the OP, it’s no wonder Democrats can’t win.
The maps might well be a benefit to Democrats on net. Depending on what the courts do in Ohio and North Carolina they could even have an outright advantage in the House. Not a big one, and certainly not enough to stave off the likely loss of the majority in 2022, but it’s probably not going to be anywhere near as bad as the 2012 map.
Typical D attitude.
And I’m a Democrat.
Killing off your own chances of winning, with defeatism.
Plenty of time until the Election.
It aint over until the Fat Lady sings.
One thing that has surprised me this election cycle is how little of an impact redistricting looks like it will have on the partisan composition of the House. There are several reasons for this: the reapportionment didn’t shift as many seats from Democratic-controlled to Republican-controlled states as feared; Republicans in TX and FL have generally not sought to maximize the number of Republican-leaning district, preferring to shore up incumbents whose districts have been drifting blue; and Democrats have engaged in a couple of gerrymanders of their own (IL, potentially NY). Of course this can still change due to many states not having yet passed final maps and some being subject to court challenge.
I agree that the net effect is likely to be pretty neutral in terms of partisan balance. But by more firmly entrenching incumbents, it’s also likely to create more seats where the only real race is in the primary, giving us more Boeberts, MTGs and Gosars.
Well, then explain the very low margin of victory in 2020. Some of us were predicting a massive Democratic victory based on 1. The poor economy. 2. The massive death toll and other negative consequences from Covid. 3. Repugnance toward Donald Trump from traditional conservatives. Of course we were likewise predicting a victory by Hilary in 2016–and didn’t realize she was going to lose until well into election night.
It’s not “defeatism” to recognize the reality that every political indicator and every historical precedent indicate that 2022 is going to be a Republican wave election. It may be on the bigger side or the smaller side but, given their razor-thin majority, Democrats are almost certainly losing the House. As I mentioned the Senate is less connected to the mid-term surge and there’s more room for hope there.
So “defeatism” isn’t called for, but neither is “If we believe in ourselves, we can do anything!” mindless optimism. What the Democrats need is a plan and a message to increase their prospects next year, and so far I haven’t seen one.
Between unvaccinated Republicans dying before the next election, and the almost certain wall-to-wall TV coverage of the Jan 6 Committee Hearings we’re going to be seeing in the next several months, I find it hard to believe the GOP is going to gain any ground in the House or the Senate.
Then again there’s a small part of me that keeps remembering how good the Democrats are at blowing a sure thing.
This is something that only people who would vote Democratic see as significant. The rest of the population considers it a political rally.
I predict the Republicans will do well, but it isn’t going to be a 1994 or 2010 level election. Republicans will control the House, probably by about 10 seats. I think Democrats will keep the Senate, probably even gaining a seat or two for a 51 or 52 seat majority (disregarding the potential for any change in party by Joe Manchin).
ETA: I think Stacey Abrams will run an excellent campaign, and that she will win a close election. She’ll pull Warnock to victory with her coattails.
While I’m predicting a big wave for the reasons I outline above, a smaller wave is not unprecedented. Bush Sr. only lost 7 seats in his first midterm, and Kennedy only lost 4. I do think Biden’s position is more analogous to Obama or Clinton, particularly in respect to presidential approval ratings and right direction/wrong track polling.
FYI the complete list of post-WWII midterm results is available at:
It most certainly is defeatism to go into a campaign with a “we’re going to lose so let’s figure out how much we want to lose by” mentality. If political indicators and historical precedent are against you, then your job is to make this year an exception.
My job specifically? Seems like a lot of responsibility, but I’ll do my best!
In what universe is 7 million votes, 70 electoral votew, and a three-seat gain in the Senate a “very low margin of victory”?
I don’t really share the relative optimism about the Senate shared above. The main silver lining for Democrats is that it comes down to such a small number of races that individual candidates and their foibles can really matter. But the basic partisan baseline is not very pretty. All of the main battlegrounds except New Hampshire voted to the right of the country in 2020, and (sorry in advance if I personally flip all of these elections by inducing defeatism on a random internet backwater) 2022 is going to be substantially worse than 2020 even if it’s a good midterm. If it’s a really bad midterm, yeah, Democrats are more likely to keep the Senate than the House, but that’s just more likely.
(And if you think this is defeatism, just ask me about the Senate elections in 2024.)
Republicans will win nothing; Democrats are going to dominate the 2022 midterms up and down the board.