The 2022 Red Wave, More Than Increasingly Optimistic

By Editorial Staff | Thursday, December 30, 2021

It seems as though Republicans are increasingly optimistic that the party will regain control of Congress in the 2022 midterms, The Hill reported.

In order to regain control over the House, the GOP needs a net gain of five seats to become the majority, and a Senate currently divided evenly appears to be up for grabs.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told The Hill. "I'm very confident that we're gonna take back the House,"

"I think that on the key issues right now, all the energy is on our side. And when I look at all the polling data, it matches what I see in the district — voters are concerned about inflation, crime, the border, Afghanistan, and all those issues are in our favor."

Noting also that President Joe Biden's Build Back Better roughly $2 trillion social spending and climate legislation has stalled.

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said many of his Democrat colleagues face two choices.

"I've been telling Democrats, especially Democrats in targeted seats, enjoy the holidays, and you got a decision to make: retire or lose next fall," Emmer told The Hill. Some might say sort of a cocky posture to be taking, but the stars seem to be lining up for the Red Wave in 2022 midterms.

In fact, roughly two dozen House Democrats will in fact be retiring either to leave politics or to run for another office it has been reported.

It is not uncommon that the party in the White House often loses seats in the midterms, especially when the sitting President is suffering as Biden is in the polls. Republicans however have also been emboldened by that recent polling.

A recent CNBC survey found that the GOP holds a 10-point lead over the Democratic Party in the latest generic congressional poll.

During the last two decades, no previous polls from CNBC or NBC have shown Republicans with a double-digit advantage over their rivals in a generic congressional ballot, with the previous record being a 4-point advantage.

Another recent survey, by Morning Consult and Politico, found that Democrats failed to meet the expectations they set during the 2020 elections, according to little more than 40% of respondents. Another sign of the fracturing of the base within the Democrat White House, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, and the evenly split Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris has the tie-breaking vote.

President Biden's free-falling poll numbers which have been dismal as of late regarding just about anything he touches also could help power a red wave.

A recent Marist poll showed that just 41% of Americans hold a positive view of Biden's performance as president, compared to 56% with a negative opinion. Just a side note of course isn't that about the same numbers that voted for him if we were to believe the election fraud claims?

Another factor that could help the GOP in the House is redistricting. Republicans already appear to have strengthened their advantages in states such as Texas and Georgia, The Hill said.

"Redistricting is going to be an obstacle," Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said, The Hill reported.

In the Senate, a more competitive map could assist Democrats, who will be defending seats in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and New Hampshire. Republicans, meanwhile, will be defending open seats in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — states Biden won in 2020 — as well as North Carolina and Ohio.

Many Democrats do understand that the current landscape affords them no help.

"The environment is particularly dour, both because of rising prices, economic anxiety, frustration about feeling stagnant when it comes to COVID, that it is not behind us despite the fact that we've been living with it for two years," Democratic pollster Molly Murphy said when speaking with The Hill. "If this environment holds, it's going to be pretty damning."

Even though the Republicans gaining control of the House and/or Senate is not guaranteed however likely it seems right now we need to remember that a lot happen in the next 10 months, Republicans after all have been known in the past to hurt themselves by fighting within the party.