The 2022 Midterms do NOT foreshadow Biden's 2024 win

[Redban]

A common, oft-repeated take on this site is that the 2022 midterms forecast Biden's 2024 victory. The argument here is that Democrats won in 2022 despite Biden's low approvals and high inflation, so Biden will supposedly win again in 2024 despite his low approvals and high inflation. The underlying premise  is that the 2022 midterms were a direct referendum on Biden: votes for Democrats were votes for Biden; votes for Republicans were votes against Biden.

The fault here is that this site overlooks the real cause of the Republican' underperformance in the 2022 midterms -- poor candidate quality on the Republicans' side. Many of the GOP candidates who lost were inexperienced and poor communicators. They often failed to raise funds, draw people to rallies, and deliver a good message. Some of them also campaigned on unpopular Trumpisms, particularly the lie that the 2020 election was stolen by fraud; and they spoke too often about what's wrong with the country instead of what they'd do.  Thus, the 2022 midterm elections were a narrow reaction to the candidates on the 2022 ballot, not Biden generally.


As evidence, we can see that the good Republican candidates often did well whereas bad Republican candidates (often endorsed by Trump) did badly:

1).  In Ohio, Senator Vance was the Trump-endorsed candidate who didn't have much of a political background, and his campaign even needed $35 million help from Mitch McConnell's super-PAC. Although Vance won by 7%, he underperformed all the GOPs in OHIO: Governor DeWine got 380k more votes, the GOP attorney general got 248k more votes, the GOP auditor got 201k more votes etc. The conclusion is that Vance's performance was more about him specifically , not Biden or the Republicans generally

2). In AZ, Trump's guy Blake Masters lost to Mark Kelly by 126k votes, which was 4.9%; the GOP secretary of state (who claimed the 2020 election was stolen) lost by 120k votes; and Kari Lake lost her gubernatorial race. However, Kimberly Yee, who had no ties to Trump or the stolen election claim, won her election by 11.2%, getting 100k more votes than Kari Lake and about 200k more votes than Blake Masters. Thus, the reasonable conclusion is that Masters & Lake lost because they were bad Republican candidates who lacked political skills and political experience; their losses were narrow, specific reactions to them, not Biden. Yee's win shows that a good Republican candidate can win

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

I would agree with you thats its not a guarantee
but
1. You could easily point to 2002 as a counterexample
2. GOP has not learned a darn thing. They are doubling down on unpopular policies(such as abortion) and candidates. You expect Trump to win in 2024 when most his candidates that he backed lost competitive races? Get out of here!

[wbrocks67]

And Trump's favorability was 39/58 in the midterms, so he was also a bad candidate and dragged down the ticket.

How many times do we have to go through this?!

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

And Trump's favorability was 39/58 in the midterms, so he was also a bad candidate and dragged down the ticket.

How many times do we have to go through this?!

But but wbrocks, he's more moderate on abortion! Therefore, he's magically Electable now /s

[Landslide Lyndon]

COPE

[Not Me, Us]

So as the GOP's answer to poor candidate quality, they put up Donald Trump? Yeah that's a sure shot to success.

[Spectator]

So you bring up all these Trump-endorsed candidates that lost. Who do you think the GOP is going to nominate in 2024?

[TodayJunior]

It most certainly does!! Dems are going to be use Dobbs and Don for years to come. As long as Trump is alive, expect the Dems to keep using this playbook, and win.

Does that sound arrogant? Perhaps. But it’s true. The gop is stuck in perpetual L’s. But they brought this on themselves.

[Del Tachi]

Atlas and the mainstream punditry is very keen to operate under existing assumptions.  The polls slightly underestimated Democrats in 2022, so they certainly will again in 2024!

Even Trump-aligned candidates like Dr. Oz fell behind Trump's 2020 margins in MAGA base counties.  Will having Trump at the top of the ticket again in 2024 bring out the low-propensity MAGA voter?  this is what gave Trump his overperformances in 2016 and 2020

[Lincoln Project]

A common, oft-repeated take on this site is that the 2022 midterms forecast Biden's 2024 victory. The argument here is that Democrats won in 2022 despite Biden's low approvals and high inflation, so Biden will supposedly win again in 2024 despite his low approvals and high inflation. The underlying premise  is that the 2022 midterms were a direct referendum on Biden: votes for Democrats were votes for Biden; votes for Republicans were votes against Biden.

The fault here is that this site overlooks the real cause of the Republican' underperformance in the 2022 midterms -- poor candidate quality on the Republicans' side. Many of the GOP candidates who lost were inexperienced and poor communicators. They often failed to raise funds, draw people to rallies, and deliver a good message. Some of them also campaigned on unpopular Trumpisms, particularly the lie that the 2020 election was stolen by fraud; and they spoke too often about what's wrong with the country instead of what they'd do.  Thus, the 2022 midterm elections were a narrow reaction to the candidates on the 2022 ballot, not Biden generally.


As evidence, we can see that the good Republican candidates often did well whereas bad Republican candidates (often endorsed by Trump) did badly:

1).  In Ohio, Senator Vance was the Trump-endorsed candidate who didn't have much of a political background, and his campaign even needed $35 million help from Mitch McConnell's super-PAC. Although Vance won by 7%, he underperformed all the GOPs in OHIO: Governor DeWine got 380k more votes, the GOP attorney general got 248k more votes, the GOP auditor got 201k more votes etc. The conclusion is that Vance's performance was more about him specifically , not Biden or the Republicans generally

2). In AZ, Trump's guy Blake Masters lost to Mark Kelly by 126k votes, which was 4.9%; the GOP secretary of state (who claimed the 2020 election was stolen) lost by 120k votes; and Kari Lake lost her gubernatorial race. However, Kimberly Yee, who had no ties to Trump or the stolen election claim, won her election by 11.2%, getting 100k more votes than Kari Lake and about 200k more votes than Blake Masters. Thus, the reasonable conclusion is that Masters & Lake lost because they were bad Republican candidates who lacked political skills and political experience; their losses were narrow, specific reactions to them, not Biden. Yee's win shows that a good Republican candidate can win

Can always appreciate fellas who actually use their brain. 👍

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Atlas and the mainstream punditry is very keen to operate under existing assumptions.  The polls slightly underestimated Democrats in 2022, so they certainly will again in 2024!

Even Trump-aligned candidates like Dr. Oz fell behind Trump's 2020 margins in MAGA base counties.  Will having Trump at the top of the ticket again in 2024 bring out the low-propensity MAGA voter?  this is what gave Trump his overperformances in 2016 and 2020

So what? He still lost in 2020, in states like MI/WI/PA, despite "higher turnout". Are you seriously going to be like red avatars on this forum and blame "turnout" for your problems instead of looking at your unpopulatr policies candidates that are toxic to swing voters?Whether you like it or not, Jan 6th/election denialism has tanked his approvals and he is more unelectable than he's ever been. Maybe if some really drastic recession/scandal regarding Biden comes out, he might win but frankly he's close to DOA in 2024

[Del Tachi]

Atlas and the mainstream punditry is very keen to operate under existing assumptions.  The polls slightly underestimated Democrats in 2022, so they certainly will again in 2024!

Even Trump-aligned candidates like Dr. Oz fell behind Trump's 2020 margins in MAGA base counties.  Will having Trump at the top of the ticket again in 2024 bring out the low-propensity MAGA voter?  this is what gave Trump his overperformances in 2016 and 2020

So what? He still lost in 2020, in states like MI/WI/PA, despite "higher turnout". Are you seriously going to be like red avatars on this forum and blame "turnout" for your problems instead of looking at your unpopulatr policies candidates that are toxic to swing voters?Whether you like it or not, Jan 6th/election denialism has tanked his approvals and he is more unelectable than he's ever been. Maybe if some really drastic recession/scandal regarding Biden comes out, he might win but frankly he's close to DOA in 2024

Wishful thinking.

All of the objective measures we have suggest 2024 is completely winnable for Trump.  Biden's approvals are -10.  GE polls between Biden and Trump are within the MoE.  American voters are not aligned with Biden or the Democrats on most issues.

The results in MI/WI/PA were much closer in 2020 than expected, exactly because there is a "Trump effect" that polls and pundits missed (just like they did in 2016.) 

[Skill and Chance]

This is true.  Midterm results fundamentally don't correlate with presidential results at all.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

A common, oft-repeated take on this site is that the 2022 midterms forecast Biden's 2024 victory. The argument here is that Democrats won in 2022 despite Biden's low approvals and high inflation, so Biden will supposedly win again in 2024 despite his low approvals and high inflation. The underlying premise  is that the 2022 midterms were a direct referendum on Biden: votes for Democrats were votes for Biden; votes for Republicans were votes against Biden.

The fault here is that this site overlooks the real cause of the Republican' underperformance in the 2022 midterms -- poor candidate quality on the Republicans' side. Many of the GOP candidates who lost were inexperienced and poor communicators. They often failed to raise funds, draw people to rallies, and deliver a good message. Some of them also campaigned on unpopular Trumpisms, particularly the lie that the 2020 election was stolen by fraud; and they spoke too often about what's wrong with the country instead of what they'd do.  Thus, the 2022 midterm elections were a narrow reaction to the candidates on the 2022 ballot, not Biden generally.


As evidence, we can see that the good Republican candidates often did well whereas bad Republican candidates (often endorsed by Trump) did badly:

1).  In Ohio, Senator Vance was the Trump-endorsed candidate who didn't have much of a political background, and his campaign even needed $35 million help from Mitch McConnell's super-PAC. Although Vance won by 7%, he underperformed all the GOPs in OHIO: Governor DeWine got 380k more votes, the GOP attorney general got 248k more votes, the GOP auditor got 201k more votes etc. The conclusion is that Vance's performance was more about him specifically , not Biden or the Republicans generally

2). In AZ, Trump's guy Blake Masters lost to Mark Kelly by 126k votes, which was 4.9%; the GOP secretary of state (who claimed the 2020 election was stolen) lost by 120k votes; and Kari Lake lost her gubernatorial race. However, Kimberly Yee, who had no ties to Trump or the stolen election claim, won her election by 11.2%, getting 100k more votes than Kari Lake and about 200k more votes than Blake Masters. Thus, the reasonable conclusion is that Masters & Lake lost because they were bad Republican candidates who lacked political skills and political experience; their losses were narrow, specific reactions to them, not Biden. Yee's win shows that a good Republican candidate can win

I agree that the midterms don't indicate strength for Biden but the I think the results had less to do with candidate quality and more to do with impressively bad targeting and fundraising by the national Republicans (and to a lesser extent Trump).

Case in point, Masters ended up getting about as much funding from McConnell as Joe O'Dea in Colorado. While Masters may not have been an incredible candidate, he certainly had a better shot at victory than Joe O'Dea, but geriatric brainrot had the RNC convinced that he was "electable" and Masters wasn't. Basically every key Senate race had the Democrat outspend the Republican by tens of millions of dollars, and the bizarre targeting of money by the RNC convinced Republicans to donate to Trump instead, creating a kind of fundraising deathspiral.

To make things even worse, the Republicans used their money less efficiently, wasting money on enriching grifting "analysts" when Democrats were greasing up powerful VBM GOTV campaigns. The few states where Republicans did use their money well saw outsized returns, most notably North Carolina where they realized that online advertising is a thing and as a result did orders of magnitude better with young voters than Republican campaigns basically everywhere else.

Most Republican strategists earned their stripes in a time when the Republican path to victory was to depress turnout as much as possible and be carried by their dominance with rich white retired suburbanites who always vote and fill their coffers with cash. But the post-Trump Republican party is increasingly dependent on convincing Obama-Trump voters to show up and the post-Biden Democratic party is stronger than ever with "supervoters". Arguably Lake's loss was in part the result of the Maricopa Republicans restricting the number of polling stations, costing her critical election day votes.

It's pretty obvious when you look at the House results compared by the relative change from 2020. In states where there was no competitive Senate election ie. the bluest and reddest states the Republicans made huge gains, whereas the "swing states" that saw absurd spending were the ones that Democrats did best in. At the time there were some weird explanations involving voters deciding based on "abortion rights 4d chess" but the simplest explanation for why Florida, New York and California all trended the same way when Michigan and Pennsylvania went the other is superior funding and organization, not that George Santos was a stronger candidate than JD Vance.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Atlas and the mainstream punditry is very keen to operate under existing assumptions.  The polls slightly underestimated Democrats in 2022, so they certainly will again in 2024!

Even Trump-aligned candidates like Dr. Oz fell behind Trump's 2020 margins in MAGA base counties.  Will having Trump at the top of the ticket again in 2024 bring out the low-propensity MAGA voter?  this is what gave Trump his overperformances in 2016 and 2020

So what? He still lost in 2020, in states like MI/WI/PA, despite "higher turnout". Are you seriously going to be like red avatars on this forum and blame "turnout" for your problems instead of looking at your unpopulatr policies candidates that are toxic to swing voters?Whether you like it or not, Jan 6th/election denialism has tanked his approvals and he is more unelectable than he's ever been. Maybe if some really drastic recession/scandal regarding Biden comes out, he might win but frankly he's close to DOA in 2024

Wishful thinking.

All of the objective measures we have suggest 2024 is completely winnable for Trump.  Biden's approvals are -10.  GE polls between Biden and Trump are within the MoE.  American voters are not aligned with Biden or the Democrats on most issues.

The results in MI/WI/PA were much closer in 2020 than expected, exactly because there is a "Trump effect" that polls and pundits missed (just like they did in 2016.) 

Trump is in a similar position that we saw with Doug Mastriano, he is polling decently because Biden has not started campaigning. Once he does and reminds people how deranged Trump is, Trump's numbers will go down. And that goes back to your point. Bidens approval is trash, so why aren't Republicans leading every single poll these days? Because your leading candidate Sucks! Biden has trash approvals and the best you can muster is a tie? Mind you, this is before Trumps legal troubles get even worse and Biden starts attacking him/actually campaigning.
The candidates Trump nominated in swing states mostly lost despite high inflation, an unpopular president and expensive gas. You guys are the ones who are engaging in Wishful thinking, not us

[wbrocks67]

This is true.  Midterm results fundamentally don't correlate with presidential results at all.

Not true at all - the trends of 2018 basically told us what would eventually come in 2020. It wasn't completely 100% correlated but the trends were there, just as they were last year.

[WalterWhite]

A common, oft-repeated take on this site is that the 2022 midterms forecast Biden's 2024 victory. The argument here is that Democrats won in 2022 despite Biden's low approvals and high inflation, so Biden will supposedly win again in 2024 despite his low approvals and high inflation. The underlying premise  is that the 2022 midterms were a direct referendum on Biden: votes for Democrats were votes for Biden; votes for Republicans were votes against Biden.

The fault here is that this site overlooks the real cause of the Republican' underperformance in the 2022 midterms -- poor candidate quality on the Republicans' side. Many of the GOP candidates who lost were inexperienced and poor communicators. They often failed to raise funds, draw people to rallies, and deliver a good message. Some of them also campaigned on unpopular Trumpisms, particularly the lie that the 2020 election was stolen by fraud; and they spoke too often about what's wrong with the country instead of what they'd do.  Thus, the 2022 midterm elections were a narrow reaction to the candidates on the 2022 ballot, not Biden generally.


As evidence, we can see that the good Republican candidates often did well whereas bad Republican candidates (often endorsed by Trump) did badly:

1).  In Ohio, Senator Vance was the Trump-endorsed candidate who didn't have much of a political background, and his campaign even needed $35 million help from Mitch McConnell's super-PAC. Although Vance won by 7%, he underperformed all the GOPs in OHIO: Governor DeWine got 380k more votes, the GOP attorney general got 248k more votes, the GOP auditor got 201k more votes etc. The conclusion is that Vance's performance was more about him specifically , not Biden or the Republicans generally

2). In AZ, Trump's guy Blake Masters lost to Mark Kelly by 126k votes, which was 4.9%; the GOP secretary of state (who claimed the 2020 election was stolen) lost by 120k votes; and Kari Lake lost her gubernatorial race. However, Kimberly Yee, who had no ties to Trump or the stolen election claim, won her election by 11.2%, getting 100k more votes than Kari Lake and about 200k more votes than Blake Masters. Thus, the reasonable conclusion is that Masters & Lake lost because they were bad Republican candidates who lacked political skills and political experience; their losses were narrow, specific reactions to them, not Biden. Yee's win shows that a good Republican candidate can win

The REAL reason Republicans underperformed the 2022 midterms was because of unpopular social positions and because of their repeated efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

If Republicans keep nominating socially regressive candidates and/or candidates who repeatedly try to overturn Biden's win, they will continue underperforming nationally. This country is tired of politicians running on culture war issues; Democrats got the memo, but Republicans have not!

From an electoral angle, the Republicans practically need the Rust Belt to win because Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico are not voting Democratic any time soon. The results of the 2022 gubernatorial elections showed that the Rust Belt is a pro-choice region of the country. If the Republicans nominate vehemently pro-life candidates, the Rust Belt (and New Hampshire) would become virtually unwinnable for the Republican Party, barring a major economic recession (which would hurt Biden across the board), which would eliminate virtually all realistic pathways to 270 for the GOP.

The Republican Party can solve this by simply nominating pro-choice candidates (or at least one more pro-choice than the mainstream Republican Party) who will uphold the results of the 2020 election. They need candidates who will focus on economic issues rather than social issues, for voters respond significantly more favorably to candidates who focus on economic populism rather than the culture war (see the Pennsylvania 2006 Senate Race for example).

However, if the Republican Party nominates a culturally conservative fanatic, they would be virtually guaranteed to lose a general election because the country simply despises politicians who focus on culture war issues.

[Xing]

A Republican thinks Biden is in trouble? I'm sure he's quaking in his boots.

I would agree with the idea that Biden winning re-election is not at all inevitable, but I think that in order for Trump to win, something fairly major would have to break in his favor, such as a recession or some kind of bad news for Biden. The fact that many who aren't Republicans have a lukewarm opinion of Biden doesn't mean that they would consider voting for Trump over him or voting third party.

I would also say that while Republican candidate quality certainly hurt them, that's more of a global problem rather than an isolated one, and it doesn't seem like it will stop being an issue for them in 2024. And that's definitely not the only factor in the Republican underperformance in 2022. While many here insisted that the abortion issue wouldn't hurt Republicans at all (in hindsight, this was some pretty significant wishcasting), it quite demonstrably did, as has the focus on culture war issues, which is alienating people.

This isn't to say that Biden or the Democrats have done a great job. I think the Democrats have mostly gotten lucky since the Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot so badly. It's kind of like a reversal from 2014-2016, where Republicans didn't exactly run great campaigns or have a particularly shrewd strategy, they were simply lucky that the Democrats were doing way worse.

[DaleCooper]

I've never pretended that 2024 is not winnable for Trump, but if you don't think 2022 was a bad sign for the GOP then you're completely delusional. If Republicans want to ignore 2022 the same way Democrats ignored their own red flags from 2018 then be my guest.

[Pericles]

Republicans only gained 9 House seats when Biden's approval was around 40% and inflation at 8%, there is no way that was not an underperformance. Candidate quality was a factor but not the full story, Republicans just did not appeal to voters who somewhat disapproved of Biden and the Democrats.

[Mr. Smith]

It most certainly does!! Dems are going to be use Dobbs and Don for years to come. As long as Trump is alive, expect the Dems to keep using this playbook, and win.

Does that sound arrogant? Perhaps. But it’s true. The gop is stuck in perpetual L’s. But they brought this on themselves.

Hillary did an excellent job winning 2016, and we can't forget how 2010 and 2014 worked out with GW Bush and Iraq as such good motivators!

And of course, Iraq or no, it'd be silly to expect the party of Lewinsky to win in 2008!

Hey waita second...

[DaleCooper]

The other issue I have with the candidate quality argument is that all of these candidates were Trump surrogates. With the exception of some catastrophically bad candidates like that fat guy who lied about being a veteran in Ohio, most of the poor candidate quality examples were just handpicked Trump people. I understand that lower-propensity Republicans will be voting in large numbers in 2024 and that changes things (though it also completely ignores that turnout will be higher for Democrats too), but I don't understand where all these Trump supporters are who can't wait to vote for Trump but refuse to vote for any of his die-hard representatives.

[soundchaser]

I understand that lower-propensity Republicans will be voting in large numbers in 2024 and that changes things (though it also completely ignores that turnout will be higher for Democrats too)

To this point: Republicans had a turnout advantage in 2022. That's unlikely to be repeated in 2024.

[Mr. Smith]

I understand that lower-propensity Republicans will be voting in large numbers in 2024 and that changes things (though it also completely ignores that turnout will be higher for Democrats too)

To this point: Republicans had a turnout advantage in 2014 22. That's unlikely to be repeated in 2016 24.

We know what happened next.

[Pericles]

I understand that lower-propensity Republicans will be voting in large numbers in 2024 and that changes things (though it also completely ignores that turnout will be higher for Democrats too)

To this point: Republicans had a turnout advantage in 2014 22. That's unlikely to be repeated in 2016 24.

We know what happened next.

Republicans won by 6 points in 2014 while either winning by 1 point or losing by 2, depending on your choice of measurement. Republicans won much more narrowly and lost many competitive races in swing states in 2022, so they have much less room to fall.