Nate Silver believes Democrats will not suffer from low turnout in the 2022 midterms

[pbrower2a]

Democrats have very few weak incumbents in the House. Republicans made gains in the House in a year in which their Presidential opponent won the Presidency. Ordinarily the Party in White Houses loses big in the Senate and the House in a midterm, but consider some differences from 2010.

Most obviously, 2022 is still a reflection of the 2010 wave, as Democrats got practically nothing in the Senate in 2016. The House reflects no particular year, the last wave in the House being 2018, and Republicans cut into that.

Can Republicans enjoy a wave election in 2022? As in 2010 the Hard Right is flush with cash and can find willing stooges. The Big Money usually goes for people who accept that the only people who have any value are those already filthy rich. (It is anti-abortion, probably because a high birth rate means cheap labor, high rents, and plenty of cannon fodder twenty-some years later... little is better for instilling cynicism in political debate than plutocratic politics. Even something superficially humane has cruelty and greed behind it).

Three things are going wrong for Republicans. Democrats seem to be doing everything right on COVID-19. If people think that it will go away -- even the funerals are deferred. Everybody will know someone who died of it. Unlike the Civil War which abolished slavery in the South or the Second World War that abolished the demonic rule of you-know-who, the mass death involved in COVID-19 offers no grand purpose.  Democrats can use COVID-19 against any Republican who handled the plague badly. That will be Governors, largely, but there will be feedback in the House and Senate.

Second, the insurrection of January 6 has sullied many of the symbols not only of Donald Trump but also the Tea Party. Some politicians bungled the response, and if they are not in super-safe bailiwicks they stand to lose.

Third, the stench of Trump corruption and cronyism remains. It was small stuff with Dubya; it was the cornerstone of Trump policy. Republican pols have yet to get that fully out of the way... but they can't.