How bad will the midterms be for the Democrats?

Towards the end of the summer, almost in a spirit of contrarianism, well-informed Americans started talking about President Joe Biden and the Democrats winning again. It had been a bad year, these pundits conceded, but Biden was suddenly on a ‘hot streak’ and, as the November midterms approached, the Democratic party finally had some political momentum.

The President had passed the Inflation Reduction Act, they said, which addressed the most pressing issue facing voters. He’d also launched a bold initiative to forgive student debt for low- to middle-income earners. The Republicans, meanwhile, had frightened moderates with their pro-life extremism following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs Wade. And Donald Trump had reared his off-putting head by reminding the world that he almost certainly will be running for the White House in 2024. The long-anticipated ‘red wave’ of 2022 against Biden would now be countered by a blue wave of energised Democrats.

That wasn’t all wishful thinking. Biden’s approval polls have, on average, recovered from a low of 37 per cent to around 43 per cent today, which is about the same level of support that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton enjoyed at similar stages in their presidencies. And after Roe, Democrats did indeed benefit from a surge in fund-raising and activist enthusiasm.

Yet Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker, probably went a bit far when two weeks ago she went on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and promised: ‘We will hold the House.’ Unless the polls are wildly off, the Republicans will take back the House of Representatives. The debate is whether or not the midterms on 8 November will go down as a humiliating ‘shellacking’ of the incumbent party.

Senior Democrats tend to forget that most Americans don’t hate Trump or love abortion as much as they do.