A Midterms Disaster for Joe Biden? A Quinnipiac University poll from November 2021 showed how more U.S. voters want the Republican Party to take back control of the House and the Senate in the 2022 midterms. It found 46% of respondents wanted the GOP to take back control, amidst plummeting approval ratings for both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
In the three months since the poll was published, not much has improved for the Biden administration. Inflation surged 7.5% in January, effectively giving most working Americans a pay decrease, and combined with the fact that most new presidents lose ground in the midterm elections, the Republicans are well-positioned to take back control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Midterms: How Republicans Can Flip the House
Republicans must flip five seats to take back control of the House of Representatives, and according to an analysis from the Cook Political Report, the party is on track to do it. The Cook Political Report reveals which party has the competitive edge in each of the 435 congressional districts for the House of Representatives.
In December, three districts currently held by the Democrats leaned Republican, and a further two were considered “likely Republican.” Just one Republican seat, however, was leaning Democrat.
In February, however, New York became the 30th state to confirm their new congressional map – and while many states are still subject to court challenges over their new maps, the process is coming to an end. The Cook Political report revealed that the Democrats are now on track to net two or three seats from the new maps – but added that President Joe Biden’s 42 percent approval rating “could still equate to several dozen losses in November,” with Republicans still the favorites for winning a majority in the House.
The Senate, Too
The Republicans only need to take control of one Senate seat and maintain all seats they are defending to win back control of the Senate, breaking the current 50-50 deadlock. The party is on a good footing to achieve it, too, with every single Republican senator running this year coming from a state that has leaned more Republican than the rest of the country generally for both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.
However, all is not necessarily lost for the Democrats. Five Republican senators are retiring this year, meaning they won’t be running against known names. Three of the five retiring senators come from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina – states that have leaned Republican in the last few presidential races, but which have all elected at least one Democrat to a statewide office in the same period.
The Midterms Look Bad for Biden
Between the economic trouble and a brewing second major foreign policy test for President Joe Biden, the Republicans have everything they need to sweep up in November.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and report on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
