Midterm elections are traditionally seen as a referendum on the party in power, giving voters the chance to reflect on their president, and allowing election-watchers to gauge the country’s political leaning. Typically, the electorate wholeheartedly rejects the incumbent party: only twice since the midterm inception has the sitting party expanded their share of the vote in both chambers of Congress. A midterm election is essentially a guarantee that the President’s party will lose seats.
This summer, Democrats were expecting to gain ground regardless. Republican missteps coupled with a smattering of policy victories led to steady Democrat gains in the polls all summer. Democrats gained female voters from the backlash to Dobbs v. Jackson, the case which removed national protections on abortion. President Biden has also scored numerous legislative coups this year. Biden’s CHIPS & Science act, which supports U.S. production of high-tech semiconductors, and his Inflation Reduction Act, which funds energy security and healthcare, have proven that the White House has the ability to deliver on key campaign promises. On September 16, FiveThirtyEight put Democrats’ chances of victory in the Senate at 71 percent.
Still, Republicans need not despair. In the past week, the expected Republican proportion of the vote has shot up precipitously: new FiveThirtyEight forecasts are calling the Senate race neck-and-neck. A New York Times poll puts Republicans 3 percentage points ahead of Democrats: just one month ago, they were trailing. This sudden red surge has been driven by shifting priorities for the American electorate. Despite the importance of abortion to Americans and the unpopularity of Roe v. Wade’s repeal, the topic has been gradually fading all summer. As Dobbs has moved away from voters’ T.V. screens and news feeds, it has also receded from the national conversation. Many Democratic campaigns advertise around the issue, but the fallout for Republicans has largely passed. Now, only 8% of voters (and 1% of men) list abortion as their top-priority issue. Similarly, the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde brought gun control onto the national stage, but the concerns of voters have largely drifted away from the matter. In fact, an Economist/YouGov poll shows that Americans are less likely to consider gun control an important issue than they were at the start of Biden’s term.
At the same time, debates over immigration, crime and the economy are coming to the fore. In New York City, car theft has spiked by 60% since March 2021. Nationally, murders have risen ~30% since 2020. Voters consistently prefer Republican candidates’ policies on crime. Even large liberal cities demonstrate the trend: 55% of San Francisco voters recalled their ultra-progressive district attorney, who had run on a campaign of eliminating cash bail and refusing to assist I.C.E. arrests (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) earlier this year. The pattern is also evident in Oregon, where Democratic and Republican candidates for governor are joined by a moderate independent candidate whose politics are most similar to Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. The main issues are homelessness and violent crime, which have long blighted Portland, Oregon. Christine Drazan, the Republican candidate, has taken a narrow lead–unheard of in a state which Joe Biden won by over 15 points in 2020–by playing to her party’s strengths. Nationally, crime is over 40% more important to voters than it was at the start of Biden’s term.
Immigration is also stoking America’s shift to the right. Over two million illegal immigrants have been arrested at the border this year: this number significantly exceeds 2021 figures (as a response, President Biden has been quietly building small parts of Donald Trump’s promised wall). The locus for debates over immigration, however, is New York. Texas’ governor, Greg Abbott, has bussed as many as 20,000 migrants to the Big Apple. New York has a ‘sanctuary’ policy of accepting all such illegal migrants: it nevertheless has struggled to cope with the influx (a MetroCard initiative at Fieldston was begun October 7 in order to give aid to these immigrants). Mayor Eric Adams describes the influx as a “crisis.” Gov. Abbott lambasted the idea of a ‘sanctuary city’ as “cheap” talk. He pointed out that 20,000 pales in comparison to two million and offers some insight into the scale of the problems at the southern border. Abbott has a point. The governor’s spat with Mayor Adams has garnered national attention: security on the southern border is again on voters’ minds as the public rejects Democrats’ “soft” border politics.
The final, and most pressing, topic, is the economy. No issue this year has been as important as inflation; 36% of voters call it the country’s most significant challenge. This June, inflation (Consumer Price Index; CPI) sat at 9.1%. In a victory for Biden, the number dropped to 8.5% in July. Gas prices fell and job growth was high, improving views of the economy and boosting Democrats’ chances. Since then, inflation has remained stubborn, having dropped by fractional percentage points only. Even as new hiring cooled off, OPEC (a cartel of oil-producing economies which includes Nigeria, Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia) cut production by 2 million barrels daily, threatening to drive fuel prices back up. President Biden accused the group of ‘aligning’ with Russia, and growled at Saudi Arabia that there would be ‘consequences’ for the decision. Americans agree that a recession seems inevitable. Consumer confidence is lower than at any time during the Great Recession, and below the lowest point of the pandemic.
All this is discouraging for Democrats. On crime, they trail Republicans by some 8 points: for immigration and inflation, the figure is nine points. Republicans, as a result of these factors, appear set to win the House of Representatives by a wide margin: their odds of winning the Senate are more or less 50-50, with pollsters disagreeing on who will end up victorious. The president’s approval rating is dropping again, and the high-water-mark of the summer is but a distant memory. Democrats are attempting now to perform the tricks that the Republicans have lately executed so successfully: obsessive promotion of only those issues on which they have a clear lead. If a Democrat’s advertisement has popped up on your T.V. lately, it’s likely mentioned abortion. Nevertheless, Democratic messaging is often unclear. On Tuesday the 18th, President Biden urged voters to support Democrats, promising that with a few more votes, he would make Roe v. Wade national law. It was an argument that would have been more convincing if the President hadn’t promised mere moments later to veto any Republican anti-abortion bill that might reach his desk. Additionally, the idea of shifting abortion laws is far less present for voters than a spike in the price of milk, or news of a robbery. Many of Democrats’ core issues – abortion included – are abstract and far-off for most voters. The Democrats will find it hard to convince swing voters (who have been flocking to the Republican party en masse) of their merits for as long as gas prices bite and the CPI is high. Republican gains are slowing but persistent: Democrats should brace themselves for a shock defeat in both chambers.
