Democrats worry they peaked too soon ahead of midterms
by Brett Samuels and Alex Gangitano - 10/17/22 8:15 PM ET
Democrats have cause for concern that they’re fading at a bad time ahead of the midterm elections after a summer surge fostered optimism that the party could buck historical trends and retain control of Congress.
A New York Times-Siena College poll released Monday found Republicans held a 49-45 lead over Democrats in the generic ballot roughly one month before November’s elections. That represents a shift from September, when the same poll found Democrats leading Republicans by 1 percentage point.
That poll followed a trend among other surveys that as recently as late September showed Democrats leading Republicans on the generic ballot, only for the lead to shrink or disappear altogether.
To some strategists, the shift in fortunes for Democrats is a matter of timing.
Ethan Winter, an analyst at the progressive group Data for Progress, said the Democrats’ outlook improved over the summer as the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade coincided with falling gas prices and economic reports that indicated inflation was cooling.
“The inflation outlook improved a little bit as gas prices fell but then got worse again, and momentum this cycle has tracked with these sort of baseline economic indicators,” Winter said.
Winter also noted that Democrats began spending on advertisements in key battleground states earlier than Republicans, leading some Senate candidates in particular to open up polling leads that have since dissipated in states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as Republicans went on the air with their own ads.
Democrats appeared to turn a midsummer hot streak into real momentum with voters, renewing hope for a strong showing in November. Gas prices in August came down dramatically from the roughly $5 per gallon they were averaging earlier in the summer. Congress passed bipartisan legislation to spur investment in semiconductor computer chips, and Democrats coalesced around a $740 billion bill to fight climate change and lower health care costs.
Multiple summer polls had shown Democrats either even with Republicans or leading. An Aug. 17 Politico-Morning Consult poll showed Democrats leading by 4 percentage points. A poll from the news outlets on Sept. 28 found Democrats still leading by 2 percentage points. And a Sept. 30 poll from Yahoo News and YouGov found Democrats ahead of the GOP by 4 percentage points.
Those polls spurred confidence among Democratic leaders that the party was in position to not just to stave off big Republican gains but perhaps even add to its majority in the House and Senate despite overwhelming historical trends that the president’s party tends to lose seats in midterm elections.
“I believe that we will hold the House,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Oct. 4 on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” crediting the party’s grassroots organizing, messaging and fundraising.
President Biden voiced optimism about both chambers of Congress two days later at a Democratic National Committee (DNC) event.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3693251-democrats-worry-they-peaked-too-soon-ahead-of-midterms/
