Here we are again: another election. Like all other recent elections, this one, of course, is the most important in our lifetime.
I guess that with another one around the corner, it’s time for a new round of election predictions! And as much as we had to discuss Trump in 2020, he remains a big factor in this one, too. Since 2015, we haven’t been able to discuss U.S. electoral politics without placing Trump near the center.
Imagine traveling back in time to 2008 and telling someone that.
Political Conditions
2022 parallels 2020 in other ways. I said in my 2020 predictions that Democrats would win big. They had a strong lead in the presidential race. And they did win the presidential race by a comfortable margin. In most cases, that translates to big wins down the ballot. But Biden’s win didn’t help Democrats anywhere else.
Why? What gives? Biden won by isolating Trump as a far-right candidate. He won over some GOP voters – many of them suburbanites and moderates who voted GOP in the races for Congress or Governor. And so, we saw no ‘blue wave.’
However, the GOP might find itself with this kind of mismatch in 2022. The U.S. has an unpopular Democratic president and Democrats control Congress. This suggests the GOP will win big. But we also have good reason to believe they’ll fall short of expectations. For one, the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is unpopular and people rightly blame it on the GOP. And even as unpopular as Biden might be, he’s not as unpopular as Trump.
In short, this might be the most difficult U.S. election to predict in a long time.
National Election Predictions
I’ll give it a shot anyway. In doing so, I’ll start with the 538 forecasts. That is to say, I think the GOP will probably win the House. And the Senate will land very close to 50-50. However, I must also acknowledge that I overestimated the Democrats’ chances in 2020. Plus, in the last few cycles, political polling has sometimes done the same thing, especially at the state and local level.
Here goes, then. Republicans will win the House with 232 seats to 206 for Democrats. The Senate will be another 50-50 tie.
Am I sure about this? Not at all! I can imagine the GOP winning anywhere from 210 House seats to about 245. And I can imagine the Senate going anywhere from a 53-47 Democratic advantage to a 53-47 GOP advantage. In short, lots of things could happen.
Iowa Election Predictions
One piece of good news is that it’s much less difficult to predict how things will go in Iowa. The bad news? The GOP will win. Probably by a wide margin, and possibly even in every statewide and federal race. Sure, there’s a bit of uncertainty. The Democrat might hang on to state attorney general or state auditor. The House election in IA-03 looks competitive. And polls even show Chuck Grassley struggling. But, ultimately, I don’t see it happening for Democrats in even most of these races.
Here’s my prediction for Iowa: Republicans will sweep all 4 Congressional seats, as well as the gubernatorial and Senate races.
In short, I think the GOP will basically wipe out the Democrats from statewide and federal office in Iowa. I’m no less pessimistic on this than back in August.
The Electoral Left
Finally, as much as I’d like to write about the electoral left and its 2022 prospect, there’s not really much to write about. Insofar as the left ‘rose’ from 2016 to 2020, it stalled from 2020 to 2022.
Leftists may want to ask why this happened. Or, perhaps, it might want to move beyond the basic point that the left misunderstands the electorate. For one, the left always loses momentum after Democrats win the presidency. It happened – to a much greater extent, in fact – in the years after Obama won in 2008. Indeed, leftists thrive on playing defense. We do a much better job countering an immediate threat like the Trump presidency. By contrast, leftists struggle to build power ‘positively’ – by reaching out to people in the absence of an obvious existential threat looming in the background.
To my mind, that’s a key problem of the left.
