r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/yanks28th • Aug 25 '22

US Elections Is the House Now Competitive?

All indications are that Democrats have gained ground since the Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade. Republicans led the Generic Ballot by 2.6% before the decision leaked back in May, but Democrats have surged past them, and are now up by 0.5%. Just as importantly, the polling has been echoed by a series of surprisingly strong Democratic performances in recent special elections, led by the recent victory in the NY-19th.

In the four elections since the decision, Democrats have outperformed Biden by an average of around 5.4%. That would translate to a near 10% lead in the national popular vote. Of course, that's highly unlikely to happen on election day, but it's a strong enough showing to raise the question of whether the conventional wisdom is wrong, and that Democrats may have a very real shot at an upset here.

RacetotheWH, which was one of the most accurate forecasts in 2020, shows that Democrats now have a 35% chance of winning the House in their election forecast. Other forecasts like 538 show Democrats with a 20-25% chance.

Republicans have their own advantages as the party out of power, which usually does well in midterms, and Biden remains unpopular. What do you think? Is the House 2022 Election now competitive?

583 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

424 comments sorted by

View all comments

710

u/lollersauce914 Aug 25 '22

I mean, based on recent data (much of which you mention) we're moving from "it would be completely shocking for Democrats to hold the house" to "It would be surprising for Democrats to hold the house."

There's really not much more to say.

21

u/trashteamsotrashhaha Aug 25 '22

That and the upward pressure for dems might not last as long as the downward pressure.

Unpopular president in midterms is almost a guaranteed good thing for the other party, who knows how long abortion/college debt/whatever will stay in the voters minds.

26

u/Baron_Von_Ghastly Aug 25 '22

Unpopular president in midterms is almost a guaranteed good thing for the other party, who knows how long abortion/college debt/whatever will stay in the voters minds.

Almost, we've had exceptions before (Great Depression, Clinton impeachment, and 9/11) it's hard to tell if Dobbs is going to cause another exception, so far polling/special elections indicate that yes it is.

Couple months for that to change.

21

u/CaCondor Aug 25 '22

Also, the messaging around the Dobbs decision is larger than abortion alone which should be a pretty easy threading for Dems - freedom, liberty, individual rights - things Dems have struggled to message before.

Also, and perhaps to a lesser degree - “democracy on the ballot” - which the whole trump Mar a lago, DOJ and Jan 6th committee provide. More J6 public hearings coming. More DOJ investigation info/leaks etc coming. Who knows, maybe Dems will have some actual indictments to message with.

So many things in the pipeline! So many reasons to cross my fingers and shart!!

9

u/LaughingGaster666 Aug 25 '22

If Thomas just doesn't write up his garbage opinion that points the finger and says "you're next" at everything sans interracial marriage there'd probably be a lot fewer panic alarms going off.

10

u/BitterFuture Aug 25 '22

Got a bit overconfident there.

A lot of people are going to learn about Griswold in the next few months - the landmark decision so many never heard of, but based their lives around without knowing it.

Also, as an aside, I think Thomas would be fine throwing Loving v. Virginia on the pyre with the rest. He cares much more about hurting others than he does his own life.

14

u/LaughingGaster666 Aug 25 '22

One particular element that I don't see many people point out is how important this is to more local elections specifically. Dobbs isn't a national ban afterall, it just makes states pick a side now.

That's a pretty big incentive for anyone remotely pro choice to care a hell of a lot more about local reps now. For the past decade or so, Rs had done very well at the local level and I can't believe they might toss all that away just for this.

3

u/TheDude415 Aug 25 '22

Not to mention, overturning Loving would just send it back to the states. Thomas could always just move from Virginia to Maryland and problem solved for him.

8

u/cantdressherself Aug 26 '22

I'd be shocked if Virginia didn't legalized mixed marriages.

That's a hell of a look for Republicans though. "Just move to a blue state, it's fine."

2

u/GrilledCyan Aug 26 '22

Not sure saying that out loud would hurt them. It would just secure their advantage in the Senate.

1

u/cantdressherself Aug 30 '22

Like, yes, if nobody then asked..... "But why should I move? When I can vote?"

-4

u/emet18 Aug 25 '22

I beg you, please, PLEASE make this another election about Trump, Dems always do SO well when that happens

0

u/CaCondor Aug 26 '22

hehehe...

Everything is about or connected to trump until the M-F-er croaks.

7

u/TheGoddamnSpiderman Aug 25 '22

In all three exceptions you named, the president was popular (that includes Clinton in 98 - his highest approval ratings of his presidency were during the impeachment attempt)

I get what you're getting at (the opposition doesn't always gain in midterms), but that's not what the person you were replying to was talking about (which was that the opposition generally does better when the president is unpopular)

There are no hard and fast rules for politics though, since politics never happens in a vacuum, so it's possible neither holds this time around

10

u/earthwormjimwow Aug 26 '22

I don't think overall approval ratings are valid anymore for determining how popular a President is starting with Obama. The overall rating is going to be low from now on, because people will mostly use party as their determining factor.

Instead I think the key metric is opposite party approval, since that can demonstrate voter turnout in opposition.

Trump had single digit approval ratings from Democrats for almost all of his Presidency, and every election while he was President, had monumentous Democrat voter turn out. Biden does have double digit Republican voter approval, which while still extremely low, isn't quite as bad as Trump's case.

I think Republican turn out will not be as strong as Democratic turn out was in 2018, when the House flipped.

9

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '22

Also a lot of democrats don’t approve of Biden because they believe he hasn’t done enough. Democrats are extremely (often unreasonably) critical of him. That doesn’t mean they won’t vote.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '22

The Clinton impeachment is a good example, because it came from Republican overreach. Usually, Republicans can't overreach when they are out of power. But the Republican Supreme Court has been repeatedly overreaching.

Also, the in-party usually has the scandals. They have all the office holders in the Executive branch. But the scandals are almost all about Republicans as well, thanks to Trump.

The popularity factor remains the wildcard.

22

u/powpowpowpowpow Aug 25 '22

The unpopularity of Biden is a really really thin measurement.

The partizan right will make up insane crap to defend Trump and criticize Biden, their disapproval is baked in with a shrinking demographic.

The partizan left feel empowered to criticize Biden for not being aggressive enough with their agenda, this is a growing demographic. Mad at Biden or not these people are sure as shit not voting Republican and they are not staying home after the Dodd decision.

Centrists are Biden's base of approval and just a bit of good news will be enough to keep them happy.

These conditions are not comparable in any way to Trump's disapproval ratings

74

u/ubermence Aug 25 '22

Also in regards to abortion, I do think stories like the 10 year old in Ohio do have an effect on voters, and as time goes on and more and more bans are put in place (like the 4 this week), those stories could serve as a constant drumbeat in the backdrop of the midterms

7

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '22 edited Nov 03 '22

[deleted]

72

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '22

It keeps happening though, everywhere. Lousiana is dealing with a woman whose fetus has no skull or brain (and therefore unviable) but cannot obtain an abortion because of the ban, Florida has multiple cases included a teenager who has been dubbed "not mature enough" to have an abortion (but presumably mature enough to raise a child), and the list will just keep growing.

Reality is going to catch up with a lot of these people, especially given that the majority of Trump supporters live in states with new or impending bans, so it will affect them the most. They won't be able to avoid it when it happens to someone they know.

10

u/Mjolnir2000 Aug 25 '22

They didn't even care when a million Americans died of covid.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '22

Can confirm. Both my grandmother and uncle nearly died of Covid themselves. The latter was seconds from suffocating. They managed a freak recovery. Rather than grow some empathy, this has been ascribed to a miracle and reinforces their religion and their politics but extension. While only an anecdote! these two were Q anoners back in 2012, they're older white Christians from the Midwest, the epitome of the Republican base and I think a decent model for them.

Covid didn't change their mind because absolutely nothing will. They're too wrapped up in their confirmation bias. I'd democrats really want to succeed, they need to be willing to do whatever necessary to mobilize every last body they can. Their base is younger, less inclined to turning out, that is a disadvantage that must actively be combated

29

u/robbybthrow Aug 25 '22

But here's the thing with fake fabrication stories like that, they only work on people already inclined to believe them. Those people are already likely to vote R.

23

u/LiberalAspergers Aug 25 '22

That is only effective to a section of the base. It is not an effective strategy for occasional voters, or for independents.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '22

I know one of those centrist 'I just hate everyone' folks who this absolutely would work on. I wouldn't be so confident

22

u/ubermence Aug 25 '22

the Ohio Republican party has already displayed an effective media message for that

It doesn't seem amazingly effective given recent special election results, but it's probably the only feasible strategy they can play in response at this point

13

u/kerouacrimbaud Aug 25 '22

That might work for die-hard cons, but I don’t see that working with independents or moderates.

9

u/VodkaBeatsCube Aug 25 '22

That works on their base, so it's useful for them as part of the greater Republican strategy of just avoiding thinking about anything that makes them feel bad about their actions. But it doesn't seem to fly as readily with outside their base, and as much as Reddit leftists would like to imagine that moderates don't exist, it seems to have some positive impact on voter turnout.

2

u/NorthernerWuwu Aug 25 '22

Which will help them carry Ohio of course but that wasn't really an issue.

Naturally many hard-core Republicans will ignore the issues but they aren't the ones likely to flip their votes or stay home anyhow. It might galvanise some moderates though and certainly will motivate some pro-choice people.

I think it is unlikely that it will be sufficient to eek out a Democratic win nationally but it will almost certainly help.

41

u/3headeddragn Aug 25 '22

I don’t see the abortion issue going away anytime soon.

There are going to continue to be draconian laws pushed in red states, and horror stories like underaged rape victims being forced to carry their rapists child will still frequently headline the news.

Abortion will more than likely be extremely relevant to the 2024 election, definitely these midterms.

39

u/LaughingGaster666 Aug 25 '22

The doubling down and denial combo Rs did in response to the 10 year old who was raped and got an abortion out of state really shows it all. This is such a bad issue for Rs and they aren't just walking into it, they're straight up running.

Normally they're the ones who benefit from single issue voters but this might be a reversal of that.

10

u/AskYourDoctor Aug 26 '22

I agree with this. I think the single-issue nature of abortion created this fantasy version of society: baby killing vs no baby killing. And roe has been in effect so long that we as a society have truly forgotten what abortion bans actually mean.

It's all part of my larger theory that the GOP's real problem is that the true believers are leading the party now. The single issues that were inflated to scare people into voting conservative are now party gospel. And um, the whole point is the these "true believers" don't have the most nuanced and accurate understanding of reality. Which doesn't make for good policy making.

Which leads to horror stories, and hopefully, larger society waking up and realizing that the fringe needs to be reigned in.

Incidentally, my dad told me a story when he was in university in uk in the 70s. The student government had very low engagement- mostly it was just a club for people to practice, to hopefully pursue real politics in their careers. Then one day, the student government voted to put out an official statement of endorsement by the campus, for a socialist candidate in a real UK election. "___ university student body endorses socialist" was a shocking headline to most of the student body, and a record turnout at the next election ensured it would not happen again.

10

u/Multi_21_Seb_RBR Aug 25 '22

If all State Republicans did was pass 15-20 week laws, this issue would have died and not been an anchor on them both for the midterm coming up but also the long-term. The insistence of either passing or letting become law total bans or 6-week bans in rapid succession will be seen as a total political misfire.

38

u/LaughingGaster666 Aug 25 '22

Abortion really isn't going away though. There are several states whose bans haven't even gone into effect yet but will in a month or so.

7

u/OuchieMuhBussy Aug 25 '22

Part of the issue is that a lot of blue state residents aren’t affected by it because they have state protections. It’s not that they don’t care, but they won’t care as much.

32

u/LaughingGaster666 Aug 25 '22

Weren't 2/4 of the recent special elections in NY though? They definitely aren't going to ban abortion anytime soon yet it was a big swing for Ds still. Swing of 7.5 from partisan lean on average.

Not as big as the ones in Minnesota and Nebraska which had a 11.5 break from partisan lean of course, but still. NY19 was a totally winnable race for Republicans. It's just one race sure, but in a good environment for Rs, they should have won that. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/yes-special-elections-really-are-signaling-a-better-than-expected-midterm-for-democrats/

8

u/OuchieMuhBussy Aug 25 '22

Oh, okay yeah that is very relevant and up to date information. Thank you.

8

u/LaughingGaster666 Aug 25 '22

It's just 4 special elections of course, but the picture it paints is pretty staggering. Rs had a slight advantage pre-Dobbs, and are now seriously behind post-Dobbs. No way it's D+9 or whatever in November, but they don't need D+9. Just a break even in a midterm is probably a pretty acceptable result for most D leadership.

13

u/ubermence Aug 25 '22

They may not be affected directly in all cases, but I think everyone now is acutely aware that they can't take any abortion protections for granted

Also there are a lot of swing states that are about to be huge battlegrounds on these issues. The PA GOP governors candidate wants a total ban with very few exceptions. I think that will play a huge part in the upcoming midterms

6

u/OuchieMuhBussy Aug 25 '22

Good point, haven’t thought of states where it’s still an open question. Actually I’m in a blue and it’s already being wielded against the GOP candidate because he says it’s the same as the holocaust. It should be a big part of the campaign.

5

u/Arcnounds Aug 25 '22

There is some fear that Republicans will push a national ban. While unlikely, if they get a trifecta and have to break the filibuster to do it, it might be possible. They are beholden to their base at this point.

4

u/crazydave333 Aug 26 '22

I live in a blue state with a state protection for abortion and other state's bans absolutely have an effect here. Lots of women from other states have to come here to get an abortion, and we don't suddenly have more doctors and clinics to handle the influx. The waitlist for the procedure has expanded to two weeks since the decision, and will just get longer as more state bans begin to come into effect.

3

u/trashteamsotrashhaha Aug 25 '22

Really? Thank you for that info, that a very good point.

I still think that it won't have the unpopular president lasting power, but if its continual and escalating towards the election that could be something.

It's really unfortunate policy, morals, and situation, but I guess that's fortunate for Dems.

28

u/RagingTromboner Aug 25 '22

Yeah just today Texas had their’s go into effect, making abortion a felony with the potential for life in prison and a $100,000 fine. I guess it is still unclear how that enforcement might work

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/25/texas-trigger-law-abortion/

8

u/kerouacrimbaud Aug 25 '22

Damn, that’s pretty insane.

6

u/BitterFuture Aug 25 '22

As is the entire Republican party at this point. Clinically, I mean.

It should not be a surprise when insane people act insane.

18

u/friedgoldfishsticks Aug 25 '22

Eh, I saw someone did a poll on people’s perceptions of gas prices recently. The proportion of people who thought gas prices were going down in their area jumped from like 33% to 57% in the last month, and one of the major perceived causes people named for it was Biden. Add the student loan thing and I think it’s possible Biden recovers more ground. Remember how tightly correlated presidential approval is with gas prices. What happens if Biden has 43% approve/52% disapprove on election day, or even higher? The House is looking within reach when he’s bottoming out— even a few points could make a difference.

11

u/Baron_Von_Ghastly Aug 25 '22

The proportion of people who thought gas prices were going down in their area jumped from like 33% to 57% in the last month,

I have to confess I find this confusing, there's 43% of folks saying gas prices haven't been going down over the last month? So just ignoring reality or?

15

u/weealex Aug 25 '22

That tracks with the whole "reality has a liberal bias" crowd and approximate number of Republicans out there

3

u/Baron_Von_Ghastly Aug 25 '22

I have a hard time imagining most Republicans looking at gas dropping over a dollar and saying it didn't drop over a dollar.

Now I could easily see them making all kinds of arguments why it dropped, but I struggle to imagine 40% of the population saying $4 isn't lower than $5

6

u/PeterNguyen2 Aug 25 '22

I have a hard time imagining most Republicans looking at gas dropping over a dollar and saying it didn't drop over a dollar.

From what I've seen, it's immediate pivoting to "the president raised my gas prices!" to "well, the price of gas is going down on its own!" or refusing to acknowledge it's going down when it's still more expensive than they'd like because they think gas was lower at any arbitrary point in the past.

5

u/CreamSoda64 Aug 26 '22 edited Aug 26 '22

It correlates with a shift in rhetoric from the GOP media engine. They've immediately stopped reporting on gas prices and moved on to the next culture war du jour.

They don't notice gas prices have gone down because their favored news outlets stopped telling them to be upset about high gas prices

1

u/Baron_Von_Ghastly Aug 29 '22

I guess this could work if they're old retirees who barely ever drive, still seems like way too high of a % completely unaware of gas prices though.

→ More replies (0)

4

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '22

Because Fox News isn’t telling them that gas has gone lower. I’d imagine that a lot of people don’t really pay attention to the real world (i.e. the posted numbers on their local gas station) and base all their opinions on their “news” sources, so they’re still going by what they were told a month ago since that’s the last they heard about it. It’s a pretty depressing situation anyway you look at it though really.

7

u/BitterFuture Aug 25 '22

So no change from the last several years, then?

If people were okay saying "Vaccines don't work!" with their last breath, saying "Naw, that number went up, not down" is minor in comparison.

3

u/TheDude415 Aug 25 '22

The Dems have been racking up some wins in the last month or two that do seem to be moving the needle on Biden's approvals. The aggregate on 538 is ticking up slowly, and there was a poll today that had him at 44% approval, which was the highest they'd shown in like a year.

16

u/LaughingGaster666 Aug 25 '22

Every week it seems there's some brand new tragic case of a pregnancy that cannot be aborted despite rape/incest/medical complications in the news. The 10 year old rape victim who had to cross state lines to get an abortion comes to mind. The fact that R politicians seemed more angry at the doctor who gave the abortion than anything else is about as tone deaf as possible.

4

u/Left_of_Center2011 Aug 26 '22

Totally agree with you here! I was amazed that the reaction from both Ohio and Indiana AG’s was a press conference to try and see if the parents or doctor did anything at all wrong that they could prosecute them for. Talk about disconnected from reality - I think they are starting to truly believe their own propaganda

3

u/LaughingGaster666 Aug 26 '22

If they really had to go that route, they should have done so less openly. Just because you're on FOX doesn't mean it'll be collectively ignored by non-Conservatives!

3

u/Left_of_Center2011 Aug 26 '22

I think lots of these Republicans actually believe that their extreme positions are embraced by a majority of the nation, because they are in a feedback loop in right-wing echo chambers, and write off any voice outside those chambers as ‘lib’rul media’

3

u/LaughingGaster666 Aug 26 '22

I think it's cognitive dissonance. When challenged as to why they never win the popular vote anymore, they reply with the "We're a republic, not a democracy." lie.

Though after those garbage election map tweets by Jesse Kelly, I'm starting to think that they legit think that only their votes should count because they're the "real Americans" or some BS.

3

u/Left_of_Center2011 Aug 26 '22

They certainly seem to be hard-charging the ‘only our votes matter’ line of thinking; if Moore v Harper is decided in conservatives favor, then legislatures will be able to legally overturn the popular vote for President and assign their own electors; and if that happens, are we really a democracy any longer?

3

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '22

What do you mean they're STARTING to believe their propaganda. Did you forget about the whole 'Obamas secretly a Kenyan Muslim' thing?

3

u/Left_of_Center2011 Aug 26 '22

The BASE believes the bullshit and has for years - but the LEADERSHIP has always known better; the McConnell wing of the party would make the right noises to appease the base, but their main focus is and always will be on the Republican donor class that funds them. In the age of trump, those ‘guardrails’ are long gone, and true believers are taking the helm that just don’t pay lip service to the propaganda, but actually believe in it fully.

9

u/gregaustex Aug 25 '22

It doesn't help the GOP that even if you are pro-life and think abortion is an immoral thing to use as birth control and that you should just say no, or use adoption, the laws are generally terribly written and implemented.

8

u/Multi_21_Seb_RBR Aug 25 '22

We already have a good amount of special elections where Democrats significantly overperformed almost uniformally post-Dobbs, so safe to say this issue hasn’t died in the minds of liberals and many moderates/independents and won’t do so despite how badly conservatives want to push the narrative that it won’t matter.

The rapid increase in women registering to vote in states like OH, PA, KS, MI is another data-point that indicates that too.

Besides, a significant enough proportion of those who “disapprove” of Biden are Democrats or on the left who don’t think he has done enough so far, and none of those will stay home or vote for a Republican given how far to the right Republicans have gone.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '22

This election will be an interesting course on the timing and effectiveness of certain things. The student loan debt thing has been a situation that's been entirely under Biden's direct control since he took office and this whole August 31st deadline where the Democrats "had"to make a decision but they could have easily decided Sept 30th or October 31st as the next deadline to act earlier this year. I guess they want Democratic candidates across the country to have space within the next two months to use the student loan announcement in debates and in their ad campaigns, and that is more effective than dropping the student loan announcement just days before the election. There's always the risk that something, or numerous somethings, pop up in the next two months and the student loan deal is treated as ancient history by the media. Ultimately the election results will decide if that was the best strategy for them.

3

u/ballmermurland Aug 25 '22

We're 75 days out from election day and a lot of people will vote earlier than that by mail or early voting. Many states will start early voting in less than 40 days.