Tipsheet

Is the Bottom Completely Falling Out for Democrats?

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  October 21, 2022 11:15 AM

I'm not prepared to make declarative statements about how November 8th is going to go, and you know what they say about counting chickens.  But it's increasingly looking like a red wave is cresting.  One of the questions I've been pondering for the last few months is whether 2022 will look more like 2018 (when the opposition party had a good night in the House, but underperformed in the Senate, due to various dynamics) or 2014 (when Republicans appeared to be underperforming through much of the cycle before a decisive break at the tail end made it political bloodbath).  Atmospheric clues and data breadcrumbs suggest that the latter historical analogue may end up looking more apt when the votes are counted in a few weeks.  Consider this:

Real Clear Politics' Sean Trende calls this "a nice distillation of the 'it is 2014 again' theory of 2022."  It's far from guaranteed, but it's compelling.  And if this is the Biden baseline, that's dire territory for his party: 

The hallmarks of a substantial wave are cropping up everywhere.  Plausibly competitive races are looking...well, not:

And races that looked cooked over recent weeks and months are looking...well, not:

I wouldn't bet any money on the GOP winning any of those three races, but if the Democrats are squirming at all in a statewide New York election, that's a very bad sign for them nationally (and in about half a dozen competitive Congressional races in the state).  And if they're sweating the New Hampshire Senate race or the Michigan gubernatorial contest, that might portend dark things for the ruling party in, say, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, respectively.  I'll reiterate the caveat that nothing is assured, and voters affect outcomes, not polls.  But if I were a Democratic operative, I'd have a sinking feeling these days, with two-and-a-half weeks to go until the election -- with early voting well underway in many places.  I've prattled on about the 'fundamentals' of the election cycle for months, but it really does appear as though those fundamentals are taking hold, with political gravity doing its thing:

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Conservative radio host Erick Erickson thinks he's seen this movie before:

Yesterday, I shared some early voting tea leaves out of Florida (early voting tea leaves are precarious business, it must be acknowledged), so I'll leave you with another little related nugget out of North Carolina:

Wave vibes.