Four Points to Give Democrats Hope
Political Wire‘s Taegan Goddard notes that though polling and historical midterm trends show Democrats potentially losing their majority in the House and with only a 50:50 chance of maintaining their slim margin in the Senate, there still are some reasons not to succumb to pessimism.
Four things Democrats can point to:
The economy isn’t as bad as some polling suggests. It’s true that inflation is at a 40-year high, but the economy is growing and there are still more job openings than people looking for work. Abortion rights will be a motivating factor for many voters — particularly young women. It’s not often that a fundamental right is taken away in this country and we saw Democratic candidates outperform in a series of special elections over the summer. We also saw voters in Kansas come out in extraordinary numbers to make sure abortion stayed legal in their state. The polls could be wrong — maybe even very wrong. In two of the last three election cycles polling proved wildly misleading. Though pollsters insist they have improved their “likely voter” screens, we have seen fewer polls this year from fewer pollsters. That could make even the polling averages unreliable. The number of Americans who vote early continues to rise. It’s extremely hard to gain insights from early voting trends, but overall it is generally viewed as an advantage for Democrats.
