President Joe Biden is boasting that he can defy polls, history, and redistricting and accomplish something almost unheard of in modern history: Retain control over Congress after his first midterm elections.
“I want to tell my Republican friends: Get ready, pal,” he said at the Democratic National Committee’s holiday party, according to Fox News. “You’re in for a problem.”
Then, he made a bold prediction: “Let me say this again, from the president: We’re going to win in 2022.”
Except by all indications, he’s the one in for a problem as Democrats attempt to defend a slim eight-seat majority in the House that most analysts say is almost certainly doomed as well as an even more tenuous control over an evenly split Senate.
Republicans have been leading what’s known as the “generic ballot” for more than a month now.
That’s when voters aren’t asked which specific candidate they’ll vote for in the coming election, but only if they plan to vote for a Democrat or a Republican.
Democrats held an advantage of as much as 5 points on the generic ballot for much of this year.
But that’s changed in a hurry.
The latest polling averages from FiveThirtyEight show the GOP has pulled ahead by nearly 2 points and still growing, while RealClearPolitics has the Republicans up by slightly more.
A poll in November from ABC News and The Washington Post had Republicans ahead by 8 points on the generic ballot.
Biden himself is doing his party no favors: His approval ratings sank over the summer and have shown no sign of recovery. The current RealClearPolitics average has him nearly 10 points underwater (and Vice President Kamala Harris down by 12).
But key Democrats don’t appear willing to acknowledge that.
At least not in public.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who is likely to lose her gavel after the midterms, crowed that Biden is perfect.
“Our country could not be better served than with this most experienced and capable hands than yours, President Biden,” she said at the same event, according to Fox News. “He’s just perfect. The timing couldn’t be better.”
It’s not just Biden’s unpopularity that could sink Democratic hopes of holding onto Congress and the president’s agenda along with it.
Both he and the other Democrats are painfully aware that a new president’s party almost always loses seats – and often loses a lot of seats – during the first midterm cycle.
Since 1948, the sitting president’s party has lost an average of 28 seats.
More recently, the number has often been higher. Republicans lost 40 during the 2018 midterms under then-President Donald Trump, while Democrats lost 63 during then-President Barack Obama’s first midterm in 2010.
The Democrats also have one other factor that’s not in their favor: Redistricting.
While the process is ongoing, the demographic changes over the past decade as well as GOP control over key statehouses means it’s likely that the new congressional maps will more heavily favor Republican candidates.
So far, they’ve shored up their own seats by redrawing boundaries to make key districts less competitive.
And the repercussions could last far beyond the 2022 elections.
“Republicans are betting that with a narrow Democratic majority in the House, if they can hang on to what they have and just rely on the dynamics of the year to pick up a few seats here and there … that’s enough to give them a decent shot at a majority — potentially a majority for the whole of the decade,” Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, told Roll Call.
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The Horn editorial team