Polls have revealed that Democrats are in a good spot ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, when control of both houses of Congress will be at stake. Although the chamber has five vacancies including four in Democratic-leaning districts, there were 218 Democrats serving in the U.S. House alongside 212 Republicans as of this Monday, while over in the Senate, party breakdown stands at 50-50 with Democrats in control only because of Vice President Kamala Harris’s role as a tiebreaker. In other words, there’s not much room for electoral error.
Among other highlights, key Democratic policy initiatives including the already passed COVID-19 economic relief package and the currently under development infrastructure spending plan have garnered high levels of support from Americans. A Gallup survey released late last month revealed 63 percent of Americans in support of the economic relief legislation, while a more recent poll from The New York Times and SurveyMonkey revealed support for the infrastructure spending proposal from two out of three Americans overall. Even thirty percent of Republican respondents said that they supported the infrastructure plan.
These numbers suggest that Democrats will be able to present popular successes to voters and thereby end up victorious over Republicans, allowing the Biden team to continue to enjoy Democratic control of Congress while rolling out its agenda. In a recent Morning Consult poll, Democrats led Republicans by double digits when respondents were asked which political party that they trusted more to handle healthcare-related issues like COVID-19. On the virus, 51 percent of respondents opted for Democrats, while just 26 percent of respondents backed Republicans, working out to a 25 percent lead. Democrats’ leads in voter trust regarding general healthcare issues and protecting support programs like Social Security and Medicare were at 19 and 20 percent, respectively.
Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to say that they’re “enthusiastic” about voting in the midterm elections, according to recent Morning Consult polling. A full 81 percent of Democratic respondents said that they were at least somewhat enthusiastic about voting in the midterms, while just 72 percent of Republican respondents said the same. Widespread Republican lies about the integrity of the electoral process in the United States could be damaging Republican voters’ interest in participating in the electoral process at all.
Democrats have potential pick-up opportunities. The Cook Political Report currently rates two GOP-held Senate seats, including spots in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, as toss-ups ahead of the 2022 elections, and they rate two additional GOP-held seats, in Ohio and Wisconsin, as merely “leaning” Republican. Democrats have no seats that will be on the ballot in 2022 and are in the Cook team’s toss-up category, but they have two, in Arizona and Georgia, in the category of just “leaning” Democratic.
