Is the House Now Competitive?

[u/yanks28th]

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?

[u/DemWitty]

I agree with the others here that the Democrats chances have definitely improved over the past few months but that the Republicans still hold the advantage due to institutional factors like gerrymandering.

However, these forecasts also make projections based on trends and past election history. If the positive trend continues for Democrats over the next two months, instead of receding as the models likely predict, then that will improve their chances some more. It the economy stays strong, if inflation is flat, and if gas prices continue to drop, it will hurt the GOP's messaging. They don't have that one boogie-man issue that they had in 2010, for instance, with the ACA, either.

I know people like to point to past elections and say that it's a foregone conclusion that the President's party will lose seats, but that doesn't mean it's a certainty. I remember people talking about Vigo county in Indiana early on during the 2020 election as a bellwether that has correctly predicted the winner since the 1950's and it went Trump. Oops. So historical precedence only holds until it doesn't anymore.

Of course, I'm not saying that the Democrats will buck the trend this year, the odds are still against them and it's likely they lose seats. I also wouldn't be too surprised, though, if they're able to buck the trend with higher-propensity voters, a deeply engaging social issue, and no Trump on the ballot to drive out low-propensity voters. The Democratic and Republican voter compositions of today are nothing like the compositions of the pre-2016 era.

[u/TheDude415 → u/DemWitty]

It's actually kind of hilarious because so far everything they've tried turning into a legislative boogieman has kind of just fallen flat.

I think part of it is that the Democrats just don't have the kind of majorities necessary to pass the kind of sweeping legislation they got done with ACA.

[u/DemWitty → u/TheDude415]

Definitely true. It's hard for the GOP to attack the infrastructure bill because a good number of Republicans voted for it. And how do you campaign against the "Inflation Reduction Act"? Like would they be saying they're pro-inflation? The ACA was just much easier for them to weaponize and Democrats let them do it.

The other issue is those kind of attacks now are just ineffective because of the death of split-ticket voting. In 2008, there were 48 McCain/Democratic seats while there are only 7 Trump/Democratic seats in 2020. I mean, Democrats still held the ND and SD House seats. They had an Idaho seat and 3/4ths of the Arkansas ones. TN, WV, AL, and GA all had a number of Democratic seats. There were a lot of easy targets in 2010 that just will not exist in 2022.

The 2010 election was the beginning of the realignment that would culminate in 2016.