Democrats Shouldn’t Be Shocked by a Miserable Midterm
The president’s party usually does poorly in such contests. Being completely out of touch doesn’t help.
Could be a long two years.
Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg
By all indications, today will be a bad day for Democrats. Polls suggest they’re set to lose the House, perhaps the Senate, and likely a slew of competitive races they should’ve won. Such defeats aren’t unusual for a president’s party in midterm elections. But this one should induce some introspection.
Democrats can fairly wonder where they went wrong. With unified control of the government, they passed nearly $2 trillion for Covid relief, $1.2 trillion for infrastructure, $280 billion for research and chips manufacturing, $667 billion for a new veterans’ benefit, and more than $350 billion for green energy, among other things. There was a gun-control reform, a postal-service overhaul and a huge relief effort for Ukraine. In a grand finale, President Joe Biden unilaterally forgave some $400 billion in student-loan debt.