So will the Democrats win the midterms?
For several months I’ve said that the 2022 midterms were likely to end up being a close contest, and that the outcome would come down to whether people like you decided to roll up your sleeves and put in the work. Now that we’re at the end of the cycle, I keep getting asked whether the Democrats are indeed going to win. My answer remains unchanged: it’s shaping up to be a close contest, so it’ll still come down to how much work you’ve put in up to this point, and whether you put in the work today and tomorrow.
I’m aware that some of you see my answer as a cop-out. I don’t see it that way. I’m just trying to give you the most honest answer possible. If enough of you put in the work these final two days, the Democrats will probably win the midterms. If most of you don’t bother to put in any work these final two days, the Democrats will probably lose the midterms.
Think of an election cycle as if it’s a football game. If it’s a blowout coming down to the end, there’s not a lot anyone on either team can do at the end to change who’s going to win the game. But if it’s a close game at the end, it’s going to come down to the field goal kicker. And in an election, that field goal kicker is you.
Your team, the Democratic Party, has fought hard all game and kept things very, very close. You’re the field goal kicker. You’re going to decide whether your team wins by two points or loses by a point. You can spend these final two days ambitiously phone banking and knocking on doors – or simply taking your like-minded family, friends, and neighbors with you to vote – and that’ll help drive the field goal through. Or you can spend these final two days staring at your screen in fear and yelling “I’m terrified” on social media, and you’ll have failed to deliver the field goal.
Again, your role in these final two days is only so crucial because it looks like the midterms are going to be so close. By the time you finish removing all the Republican-commissioned polls from the polling averages, the Senate and House look like they could go either way. When you look at early voting data, it heavily favors the Democrats on a level that could overcome the Republicans’ recent tendency to dominate in-person election day voting. So that’s even more evidence that we’re probably looking at a close midterms.
This isn’t surprising. On the one hand, the Republicans have several factors working in their favor. They have the historical trend in which the opposition party dominates the next midterms by default after a new President is elected. The Republicans also have gerrymandering, voter suppression, and other tactics – but as we’ve seen, those each have a finite impact on the results and are not magic wands.
On the other hand, the Democrats have post-Roe motivation. They also have things working in their favor: a strong legislative record, improving gas prices, Trump’s toxic unpopularity, terrible Republican candidates, and more.
When each side comes into an election with a slew of advantages, it’s not difficult to figure out how it can all add up to a close result. And with two days left, here we are accordingly. It would be too easy to simply peg the midterm odds as 50-50. That would imply that it’ll come down to random chance. In reality, this close of an election cycle comes down to who puts in the work in the final days and who doesn’t. The variable here is you. Now let’s spend these final 36 hours making every effort to get out the vote, and let’s go win this!
