Joe Biden will enjoy enormous tailwinds going into the 2022 midterms, with a resurging economy, a subsiding pandemic, and citizens appreciating practical help. Normally, that might be enough to offset the mid-term jinx of the president’s party losing House seats. But these are not normal times.

First, the good news. Redistricting in the wake of the 2020 census was going to be a nightmare for Democrats, but it turns out to be almost a wash. Because of slower than anticipated population change in much of the country, there are fewer gains and losses than predicted.

Some states gaining or losing seats have shifted to nonpartisan commissions. Some others that still have partisan districting are controlled by Democrats. In still others, Republicans will lose seats. The consensus is that redistricting will probably cost Democrats around five seats net.
With a House majority of just ten, of course, every seat counts. But redistricting is not the cataclysm that had been predicted.

The far bigger problem is the new wave of voter suppression, compounded by vote-rigging efforts, as Republican-controlled states take the election administration process away from secretaries of state and traditional nonpartisan officials and put it in the hands of politicians. Republicans don’t want a repeat of Georgia 2020, where honest conservatives resisted crude attempts to alter the count, and gave Biden the state and Democrats control of the Senate.

Three things can spare us a stolen election in 2022, and none of them is a sure thing. Thing one: Even the Supreme Court might decide that enough is enough, as the Roberts Court did last fall when it swatted down one state Republican effort after another to steal votes after the fact.

Thing two: Congress might succeed in enacting some variant on either HR 1 or HR 4 to protect voting rights. But that will take a waiver of the filibuster. (Does Joe Manchin care if Democrats lose the House? Maybe that makes him even more powerful as bipartisan broker.)

If federal voting rights legislation or a repentant Supreme Court fails to protect voting rights, that leaves one remedy—the greatest voter mobilization ever. Against all odds, mobilization beat suppression in 2018 and 2020. The odds will likely be even longer in 2022, and the mobilization needs to be that much greater.