Political handicapper Stuart Rothenberg has been predicting election outcomes since the 1980s. As with most political handicappers, he has his good days and bad days. In 2009, he predicted the GOP had “zero” chance of taking the House in 2010. But then came the Obama economy and the tea party protests, and the GOP ended up winning 63 House seats and six Senate seats in 2010.
But in the lead-up to the 2010 midterms, Rothenberg made an about-face and predicted a GOP gain of 55-65 House seats and 6-8 Senate seats. Like I said, good and bad days.
The 2022 midterms are shaping up to be a “wave” election favoring Republicans. Both sides acknowledge it. After all, the first midterm election following a change in the White House usually brings disaster for the president’s party, and with inflation raging and Biden faltering, Democrats don’t have a prayer, right?
The only recent midterm elections that didn’t follow that script came in 1998 and 2002. The Democrats actually gained five seats in 1998, while the GOP gained eight seats in 2002.
The reasons for those anomalies were the wild cards of the Clinton impeachment and the attacks of September 11, 2001. The impeachment of Bill Clinton was politically unpopular with the voters, while the patriotic outburst on 9/11 carried over into the midterm election of 2002.
So is 2022 going to follow the script and give GOP a massive victory? Or will the unsettled nature of the electorate give the Democrats a chance?
Rothenberg, who has seen it all, isn’t sure.
It has been relatively easy to handicap individual races and entire election cycles when nothing out of the ordinary happens. In those cases, the old rules still apply.
But it’s more difficult to sketch out the trajectory of an election when outlandish events occur — and outlandish events seem to have occurred each day since Donald Trump announced he was running for president in 2016.
Trump has become the most dominant figure in American politics over the last two decades. The Democrats have fixated on Trump like no one else. Their anti-Trump hysteria has dominated their politics to the exclusion of all else. It makes predicting election outcomes a perilous undertaking.
Inflation has made Biden the least popular president in the history of the planet, and a recession is on the horizon. Democrats complain that Biden has been either too pragmatic or not pragmatic enough, and many think their party must dump him to have any chance of winning in 2024.
The next week, I read that candidates still matter and Republicans are nominating enough crazy people to the Senate that Democrats now have a very good chance of keeping control of the chamber, or even adding to their numbers.
“Crazy” is not a professional description of a candidate, but some Republican Senate candidates are being portrayed as being on the “fringe.” How successful will that media campaign be? One of those perceived “crazies” — Doug Mastriano running for Pennsylvania governor — is in a race that’s “his to lose.”
But the real wild card and the single event that could upend expectations for the 2022 midterms is if Trump announces his 2024 candidacy prior to election day in November.
Not only that, but Trump is meeting with advisers, supporters, and deep-pocketed financial contributors. He’ll be announcing his candidacy soon, which will whip his supporters — and Democrats — into a frenzy, likely turning the 2022 midterms into something akin to the 2024 presidential contest, without the actual presidential race being on the ballot.
Those developments, combined with recent Supreme Court decisions on abortion and gun owner rights, will make the United States look like the Handmaid’s Tale. That will scare the dickens out of suburban women and progressives, producing a massive Democratic turnout more typical of a presidential year.
Rothenberg is explaining why the 2022 midterms are so confusing and hard to predict. He’s exaggerating the effect of Trump’s candidacy and the recent SCOTUS decisions to demonstrate why one or two events could throw all predictions of the midterm outcome into a cocked hat.
There’s no doubt that the biggest wild card in 2022 will be the effect on both parties of a Trump candidacy. It goes without saying that Trump will dominate media coverage and suck a lot of oxygen out of the race. Would this be helpful for Republicans, or will it damage their prospects?
As always, it will depend on the race, the candidate, and Trump’s standing with the local electorate. In places where Trump is hated, it won’t help GOP candidates. Wherever Trump is loved, it should give the Republicans a boost.
The real mystery is how it will affect turnout. Anything that gooses Democratic turnout is bad for Republicans, especially considering that their enthusiasm for the race is at such a low ebb. But it’s an open question whether the Democrats can go to the well again and play the hate-Trump card with any success. Besides, Trump is a question for 2024, and the fact that he won’t be on the ballot in 2022 should matter a lot.
Rothenberg is making excuses for being wrong in advance. He’s been playing the “political expert” for so long on the news nets that he knows when to hedge his bets.
