You know how you can tell that senior Democrats know they are licked in the midterms? They are starting to “pre-spin” the results to claim that they “overperformed” expectations, and therefore even if they lose both the House and Senate, because they lost it by much less than it might have been, it shouldn’t be seen as any kind of extraordinary public rebuke of Democratic Party rule. So Brandon can carry on with business as usual.
The leading political science mid-term election models, chiefly Gary Jacobson at UC San Diego and Charles Tien/Michael S. Lewis-Beck at the University of Virginia, both suggest that based on the historical numbers, Democrats should lose between 40 – 45 seats in the House, and 5 in the Senate. Holy moly!
But there are some reasons for thinking Republicans might not reach those blowout numbers, chiefly because they already have 212 House seats, having overperformed in 2020. And in the Senate races, as we are told, Republicans have “bad” candidates (funny how the media never mentions how bad the Democratic candidates are in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), so it is not impossible to imagine a result in which Republicans “only” gain 20 House seats, and maybe just one net Senate seat (which would still be enough for control).
The Tien/Lewis-Beck analysis concludes:
These point estimates for Democratic losses, while not small, are not a “wave” rejection of the Democrats in Congress. However, they do suggest the strong likelihood that they will lose control of both chambers.
Or take Vanderbilt’s John Sides, also a “mainstream” political scientist who is well regarded in the world of political science quantitative astrology:
Complete Sides thread on “why” here.
Actually I hope Democrats go with this line. It assures that the 2024 election will be an even bigger GOP landslide.
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