The Prospective 118th Congress

At Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball Kyle Kondik declares that the Repbulicans are presently favored to hold the majority in the House of Representatives in 2023. And at RealClearPolitics Sean Trend says the Republicans are favored to take control of the Senate as well:

In short, the battle for the Senate comes down to Democrats’ ability to win at least three of four seats that would likely be highly competitive if President Biden’s job approval were about ten points higher than it is today. But in a situation where Senate outcomes correlate heavily with presidential job approval in the state, that’s a tough row to hoe. While we should give more than a cursory nod to the possibility that Democrats will hold the Senate (unlike the possibility that Democrats will hold the House, which is barely worth that nod), we should also say with some confidence that Republicans are the favorites to win.

Probably the best counter-argument is that our high levels of polarization insulate Democrats from Biden’s job approval. In other words, there are voters who may disapprove of the job the president is doing, but will nevertheless vote Democratic. We saw this in 2008, where Republican candidates ran far ahead of President Bush’s job approval in many states. Republican voters may have recognized the poor job he was doing, but in the end, they were still Republicans.

There’s no doubt that we’ve reached that point, as most Democratic Senate candidates are running ahead of Biden’s job approval right now. We’ve become much more polarized since 2008, and Democratic candidates in these states probably have a higher floor than we might have seen 10 years ago. But this is a two-way street; Republican candidate quality won’t matter as much as it might have a decade ago either.

What we’re probably seeing in the favorable polling for Democratic Senate candidates right now is what we see in almost every wave and semi-wave election: The wave doesn’t form until fairly late in the season. In 2006, Democratic candidates in Washington, Maryland, and New Jersey hadn’t yet put away their Republican challengers. (In fact, Republican Tom Kean Jr. led in the polling in New Jersey until September.) In 2010, Republican leads in states like Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Florida all suggested competitive races; Republicans won these states by double digits. In 2014, there was genuine doubt about the fate of the Senate throughout the summer. Even in 2018, there was genuine uncertainty about the fate of Republican senators in vulnerable states like Nevada and Arizona until the end; in both those races, Republican candidates won almost exactly what the polling averages suggested they should win (which also happened to be President Trump’s job approval in the states according to exit polls). But the undecideds broke heavily in the Democrats’ favor.

In a much-linked piece at Axios Josh Kraushaar proposes an explanation for what’s going on:

What’s happening: Democratic strategists say the party’s biggest vulnerability is assuming that the priorities of progressive activists are the same as those of working-class voters.

• Progressive activists led the push to cut police budgets. Communities of color have borne the brunt of higher crime.
• Hispanics living on the U.S.-Mexico border are more likely to favor tougher border security measures that Republicans have championed.
  The recall of liberal school board members and a district attorney in San Francisco was fueled by disillusioned Asian-American Democrats.

Between the lines: Add the reality of growing inflation and worries of recession, and you see why Democrats are losing ground with a core part of their coalition.

• Wealthier Americans aren’t feeling the day-to-day hardship hitting the working class.
• This week’s Times/Siena poll found affluent voters care about gun control and abortion rights. Working-class voters are squarely focused on the economy.

The issues that seem to be all-consuming for Democrats these days, e.g. abortion, gun control, trans right, aren’t aligned so much with the priorities of black and Hispanic voters as they are with those of the faculty lounges. Indeed, the views of those constituencies seem to be more closely aligned with those of most Americans than they are with those of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. The more quotidian issues of public safety and inflation are more important to them. Contrary to what at least some progressives seem to think, most Hispanics think that we should be controlling access at our southern border more energetically. That stands to reason. The most recent immigrants are in competition for jobs with those who just preceded them and the increased flow makes it harder to secure better wages.

My own view is that if they expect the most crucial parts of their base to show up and vote Democratic they need to pay more attention to the needs of those voters rather than simply assuming that they will only vote for Democrats.