Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

Simon Rosenberg at liberal think tank NDN finds that even right-wing 2022 polls are showing a significant shift towards the Democrats over the last two months.

This data is from their polls - Dems with big generic leads and/or big movement towards Democrats. This is what they are seeing, and this is why McConnell and others are now admitting we are in an entirely new election. Because we are.

The 2.3 point Dem lead in our post-Roe average is significant for it's believed that Democrats will need at least a 2 point national win to keep the House. A new TargetSmart report finds big increases in women registering to vote since the end of Roe.

All this data suggests that the Democrats have a bit of wind at their back and a real shot at keeping both chambers this fall. Senate polling remains very strong for Democrats, as our candidates in AZ, GA, NH and NV continue to lead in every poll taken in these states. Republicans Oz in PA and Johnson in WI have-lose-their-election kind of numbers. Vance continues to trail in OH in most polls, and while Dems are not ahead in FL and NC neither Republican is at 50. A new WI poll has Barnes up 51-44 over Ron Johnson.

In retrospect, the big Dem overperformance in the NE House special on June 28th appears to have been a harbinger that a new, bluer election was at hand, and should not have been treated as some weird outlier. It was after all actual voters voting, not a poll. Same goes for the stunning results from Kansas and another big overperformance in the MN-1 House special this past week. Three key elections with actual voters, three big overperformances by anti-extremist electorates, two in very red states.

The new climate and health care reconciliation bill should be a big boost to Democrats. It will make our closing argument stronger; lift Joe Biden's approval rating; bring the party together for the home stretch; and give us a powerful tool to reach young voters who are overwhelming Democratic but also are the most likely not to vote this year. It would be as Joe Biden likes to say "a big fucking deal." Republicans, on the other hand, are closing this election out in ways which give new meaning to dumpster fire.

Our current 2022 election toplines: The race has moved 4-5 points towards Democrats in recent weeks. The anti-MAGA majority has been awakened

• Dems have significantly overperformed expectations in 3 post Roe elections – NE and MN House specials, Kansas ballot initiative
• The Senate is leaning Dem, chances of keeping the House rising
• Lots of signs of GOP underperformance now, and the landscape is likely to get worse for GOP in coming months
• Democratic candidates have a huge cash advantage heading into the final 4 months

In November of 2021, we published a memo, Memo: 3 Reasons Why 2022 Won’t Be 2010, that posited the GOP's embrace of MAGA would make it likely that 2022 would not be a traditional midterm and Democrats could end up overperforming expectations. In May we predicted that the combination of a return of mass shootings, the ending of Roe, and the fallout from the Jan 6th Committee would reawaken the anti-MAGA majority and make this election much closer than many thought possible. In mid-June, we released an election analysis which argued we were already looking at a competitive not a wave election - that there were signs of what we call the MAGA hangover (GOP underperformance) even before Roe ended. Then Roe ended, and NDN has been at the national forefront of charting what is now clearly a new, bluer election.

 

This may be a very rosy prediction for Team Blue, and I won't be convinced until Dems win enough House seats that the inevitable efforts by the GOP to try to annul elections in order to steal the House and maybe the Senate fail, but Dems are doing what they need to be doing in order to set up wins, and Republicans are not.

 

Vote like your country depends on it, because it does.