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Newly updated on Monday, Aug 22nd - For this week's election update we've averaged the Congressional Generic results of 49 polls taken since Roe ended on June 24th and found Democrats leading 44.4% to 42.2%, +2.2 points. That’s a 4-5 point swing towards the Democrats since mid-June (see here for the polls themselves).  The 538 generic, which is slower moving and lags a bit, now has Dems up now by 0.5 - a 3.2 point shift since June.  In the 538 "lite" model Dems have a 69% chance of keeping the Senate and a 31% chance of keeping the House. President Biden has jumped 7 points in 538's approval tracker over the past few weeks.  That's a lot. 

In a Fox News interview on Wednesday, Aug 3rd Mitch McConnell acknowledged the new, bluer reality of the election, and even raised the possibility of Dems keeping the Senate this year: " I think it’s going to be very tight.....And I think when this Senate race smoke clears, we’re likely to have a very, very close Senate still, with us up slightly or the Democrats up slightly."  McConnell's repeated acknowledgements that the Senate may stay Democratic has led to Sean Hannity calling on him to step down as Senate GOP leader. 

Let's look at some recent GOP polls which might be leading him to believe this election is slipping away from the GOP.  These four newly released polls, all from influential and established GOP institutions, have Dems up an average of 4.5 points in the generic:

        Americans for Prosperity 42-39 (+3)

        Echelon Insights                48-44 (+4)

        Chamber of Commerce    46-41 (+5)

        Winning The Issues           47-41 (+6)

Additionally, there were four more GOP-aligned polls which recently had shown the GOP maintaining meaningful leads in the generic.  All four of these polls have found substantial movement to the Dems in recent weeks:

       American Greatness            42-50 to 44-45 - 7 pt shift

        Fox News                              39-46 to 41-41 - 7 pt shift

        Rasmussen                           39-49 to 41-46 - 7 pt shift to the Dems

        Senate Opportunity Fund  42-47 to 44-45 - 4 pt shift

A new poll for the John Locke Institute in North Carolina finds many of the same trends.  This data is from its pre-Roe June poll and one just released:

         State House Generic    39-51 (R+12) to 43-48 (R+5)

         Congressional Generic 41-52 (R+11) to 44-47 (R+3)

         Beasley-Budd Senate   40-45 (R+5) to 42-42 (Even)

         Biden Approval              33-60 (-27) to 39-56 (-17)

This data is from their polls - Dems with big generic leads and/or big movement towards Democrats. This is what they are seeing, and this is why McConnell and others are now admitting we are in an entirely new election much more favorable to Democrats. 

The 2.2 point Dem lead in our post-Roe average is significant for it's believed that Democrats will need at least a 2 point national win to keep the House.  Data suggests the electorate itself is becoming Democratic as we get closer to election day.  A new TargetSmart report finds big increases in women registering to vote since the end of Roe, and a new NBC News poll shows the GOP advantage on vote enthusiasm dropping from 17 pts in the spring to just 2 pts now.   It is our belief that these trends will continue to break in Democrats’ favor over the next few months.  

All this data suggests that the Democrats have a bit of wind at their back and a real shot at keeping both chambers this fall.  Senate polling remains very strong for Democrats, as our candidates in AZ, GA, NH and NV continue to lead in most polls taken.  Republicans Oz in PA and Johnson in WI have-lose-their-election kind of numbers. Vance continues to trail in OH in most polls, and a new batch of polls in FL and NC show Rubio and Budd way under 50 and struggling.  The first post-primary poll on WI has Lt. Gov Mandela Barnes beating Ron Johnson, 51-44. 

In retrospect, the big Dem overperformance in the NE House special on June 28th appears to have been a harbinger that a new, bluer election was at hand, and should not have been treated as some weird outlier.  It was after all actual voters voting, not a poll.  Same goes for the stunning results from Kansas and another big overperformance in the MN-1 House special this past week. Three key elections with actual voters, three big overperformances by anti-extremist electorates, two in very red states. 

The new climate and health care reconciliation bill should be a big boost to Democrats.  It will make our closing argument stronger; lift Joe Biden's approval rating; bring the party together for the home stretch; and give us a powerful tool to reach young voters who are overwhelming Democratic but also are the most likely not to vote this year.  It would be as Joe Biden likes to say "a big fucking deal."  Republicans, on the other hand, are closing this election out in ways which give new meaning to dumpster fire.

Our current 2022 election toplines: 


The race has moved 4-5 points towards Democrats in recent weeks. The anti-MAGA majority has been awakened

Dems have significantly overperformed expectations in 3 post Roe elections – NE and MN House specials, Kansas ballot initiative

The Senate is leaning Dem, chances of keeping the House rising

Lots of signs of GOP underperformance now, and the landscape is likely to get worse for GOP in coming months

Democratic candidates have a huge cash advantage heading into the final 4 months


In November of 2021, we published a memo, Memo: 3 Reasons Why 2022 Won’t Be 2010, that posited the GOP's embrace of MAGA would make it likely that 2022 would not be a traditional midterm and Democrats could end up overperforming expectations. In May we predicted that the combination of a return of mass shootings, the ending of Roe, and the fallout from the Jan 6th Committee would reawaken the anti-MAGA majority and make this election much closer than many thought possible.  In mid-June, we released an election analysis which argued we were already looking at a competitive not a wave election - that there were signs of what we call the MAGA hangover (GOP underperformance) even before Roe ended.  Then Roe ended, and NDN has been at the national forefront of charting what is now clearly a new, bluer election.    

We’ve put together our electoral work over the past few months into a 20 minute data-filled presentation, “A New, Bluer Election.”  You can watch it here.  We also rolled out an updated version of With Democrats Things Get Better, our in-depth look at how the two US parties have fared over the past 30 years.  You can learn more and watch here.   On Tuesday, Aug 9th we recorded an updated version of our core presentation for Swing Left.  You can watch here, beginning at minute 12 or so. 

In recent weeks our election analysis has been cited in articles by John Harwood on the CNN site, Greg Sargent in the Washington Post, Peter Nicholas on the NBC News site, Susan Milligan in US News, Nicholas Riccardi in the AP, Eleanor Clift in The Daily Beast, John Skolnick in Salon, AB Stoddard in The xxxxxx, Peter Weber in The Week, Dick Polman in his nationally syndicated column and Jim Puzzanghera in the Boston Globe.  I've also hit the pod and radio circuit, discussing of our electoral thesis with Matt Lewis on his podcast, Ian Masters for his radio show/podcast, a new episode of That Trippi Show our good friend Joe Trippi, David Catanese's Too Close to Call, HotMics with Maria Cardona and Alice Stewart and the Start Me Up pod with Kimberley Johnson.  On Thursday, August 4th I joined Mehdi Hasan's show on Peacock for a spirited discussion of the 2022 elections. 

A front page Washington Post story on the 2022 election by Michael Scherer, Coby Itkowitz and Josh Dawsey features this quote from Simon: “The question is, are there forces in the election more powerful than the disappointment in Biden?” asked Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist. “The answer is yes, and that is opposition and fear for MAGA, which is the thing that has driven the last two elections.” Ron Brownstein also gives our big argument serious consideration in a new and comprehensive CNN analysis.  Greg Sargent devotes a whole column to our analysis, "Meet the Lonely Democrat Who Thinks His Party Can Win."  This one is a particularly good read.  Kristian Ramos has a new take in Salon that includes our work, and comes down where we come down - time for Dems to go on offense now.  I did a long sit down with Jonathan Alter for his Old Goats substack - was a deep and rich conversation about this election and the state of our politics today.  Check it out.  Nicole Narea does a great treatment of our concept of "The MAGA hangover" in a new Voxpiece and the FT's Courtney Weaver cites us on the struggles of GOP candidates across the country.  Politico's Max Tani and Alex Thompson do a deep dive on our analysis in a fun new piece, "Meet The Most Optimistic Dem Online."  Susan Glasser gives our 2022 election take serious consideration in a newNew Yorker essay, "Is There A Serious Case for A Non-Awful Election for Democrats This Fall?"

And we appreciate this shoutout from DNC Chair Jaime Harrison!

Importantly, the idea that we are in a new election now has begun to take hold in other influential national commentary.  Two of the country's most influential election analysts, Nate Cohn of the NYTimes and Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, have joined this may be a-competitive-election-after-all camp.  Nate Cohn's article was called "A Surprisingly Tight Race." In his column Nate Silver wrote “as voters have gathered more information about the race, they have drawn more of a distinction between how they feel about Biden and what they'd like to see happen in Congress. Maybe this trend will reverse itself. But the "fundamentalists" - the analysts who think the races for Congress are predictable based on presidential approval and other baseline conditions - have been wrong so far.” A recent headline on Fox News read: "Democrats closing the gap with GOP as midterms near. The Cook Political Report has revised its House forecast citing a more favorable environment for Democrats.  Nate Silver has now written a second column on the changes he is seeing in the election and the "modest, but consistent movement toward Democrats."

As I discuss in the Greg Sargent column, another big piece of the strategic context for the 2022 election – the economy and inflation – has started to go through a profound and potentially electorally significant change.  Gas prices have dropped over a dollar in the last two months.   This means that the huge psychological and economic effects of rising prices will certainly ease in the coming months.  It gives Democrats an opening to get louder and broaden out the economic conversation to include their achievements – very strong recovery, big job gains, record new businesses formed, historically low uninsured/unemployment rates, infrastructure investments, historic climate bill, more affordable and better health care, etc.  And it will create more room for Democratic candidates to make the indictment of their opponents as too extreme, too MAGA.  Having inflation drop all the way down to zero in July and real wages turning positive again certainly helps!  This new essay by noted economist Rob Shapiro in the Washington Monthly does a good job at crunching the numbers and showing that most Americans are indeed better off today. 

As we’ve been saying opposition to MAGA has been the driving force of the last two elections (6.5 pt Dem wins in 2018/2020, Dems win the House, Senate, Presidency) and with mass shootings, the end of Roe, fanatical abortion restrictions, a radicalized Supreme Court, extremist/terrible candidates, an unfolding criminal conspiracy involving dozens of top Republican officials to overturn an election it is now likely to be the most powerful force in this election as well.  When the Republicans chose to run towards a politics the country had just rejected in record numbers twice, the GOP made the political physics of this election different from a traditional midterm.  It’s our view that as of today the Senate is likely to stay in Democratic hands; a pickup of a 1-2-3 Senate seats by Dems not impossible; and Democrats are likely to outperform expectations in the House now.  Will it be enough for Democrats to keep the House? It's pretty clear that Dems have a shot now, particularly with the fundraising advantages our candidates hold in key incumbent Senate and House races. 

Some new data from Politico/Morning Consult helps shine a bit more light on this dynamic. For the GOP to have a good midterm either many Dems will have to stay home or switch to the GOP.  Staying home is far less likely now.  This means the GOP needs to give these voters a reason to come to them.  And what do voters see when they look at the two parties in Congress:

Favorability Rating:

Dems in Congress 41-52 (-11) 

Rs in Congress 35-58 (-23)

Schumer    28%  McConnell   20%

Pelosi         33%  McCarthy    21%

And in this Morning Consult analysis they find Dem approval on a wide set of issues improving, with Dems now leading the GOP by 6 points, 45-39.  In the report Morning Consult writes: "the improvements represent good news for those working to hold control of the House and Senate, showing that at least some voters may be able to shake off their dim views of President Joe Biden when thinking about their votes in November."  The ugliness of MAGA, and how hard it would be for voters to embrace a politics they rejected twice, has been overly discounted by analysts this cycle. The GOP is a big unpopular and extremist mess and folks just don't want to go there. And this was before the revelations about Trump's stealing of America's secrets.  

A few more 2022 notes:

Dem candidates with big cash advantage in the home stretch - 2nd quarter fundraising data finds Democratic candidates with huge cash advantages over Republicans in Congressional races. Notably Dem House incumbents in competitive races have an 8:1 advantage over their opponents.  GOP candidates continue to struggle to raise money , and in the last few days we’ve learned that the Senate GOP campaign arm has burned through most of its cash and heads into the home stretch short of money. 

Hard to find a Republican at or above 50 - As I wrote in an earlier version of this analysis, it's just hard to find a public poll with a Republican in a potentially competitive race in a strong position.  As we saw in our May Hispanic polling, what you see almost everywhere you look - GA, IA, MI, NE, OH, PA, TX, WI - is GOP underperformance.  I call this the MAGA hangover.  Since Trump won the nomination in 2016 Republicans have not gotten higher than 47% of the national vote, and current data suggests that they are struggling to break above that this time too. A strong and durable anti-MAGA majority really may have emerged in America, one which could keep the Rs from power - as long as they remain MAGA - for years to come.  

In current polling Abbott (TX), Rubio (FL) and DeSantis (FL), Gov. Reynolds and Grassley (IA) and Gov Stitt (OK) are all under 50, and Johnson (WI), Oz (PA) and Vance (OH) are closer to 40 than 50 in GOP held Senate seats.  Even GA's incumbent Governor Kemp is now polling regularly under 50. Democrats, on the other hand, are hitting 50 and above across the country in post Roe polling.  You can find Dems at 49/50 and above in the following races - Barnes (WI), Cortez Masto (NV), Fetterman (PA), Healy (MA), Hobbs (AZ), Hochul (NY), Kelly (AZ), Murray (WA), Pritzker (IL), Shapiro (PA), Sisolak (NV), Walz (MN) and Whitmer (MI).  If this was such a good GOP year, why aren't we seeing better GOP numbers? Why are their candidates struggling to raise money?

We are finally starting to get some district specific House polling, and here too we find chronic GOP underperformance.  Consider these 7 GOP held seats from 538 polling data - everyone under 50, 2 candidates under 40, only two even leading.  All sorts of signs of GOP struggle, underperformance here:

        PA-10 Daniels (D) 44 Perry (R/INC) 41

        NE-2 Vargas (D) 46 Bacon (R/INC) 47

        CA-22 Salas (D) 43 Valadao (R/INC) 35

        TX-34 Gonzalez (D) 47 Flores (R/INC) 43 (yes that Rep. Flores)

        FL-27 Taddeo (D) 34 Salazar (R/INC) 39

        IA-3 Mathis (D) 44 Hinson (R/INC) 44

        NM-2 Vasquez (D) 45 Herrell (R/INC) 44

Want to put some emphasis on this point - there are currently no major races where Republicans are overperforming or in comfortable positions.  While on the Democratic side there are many competitive races where we are overperforming or in comfortable positions.  Any fair look at publicly available polling data of actual candidates this cycle will not find that there was ever any evidence of a red wave.  A lot of folks jumped the gun, and made assessments outside of what the data was telling us. 

4 Polls Have Dems Improving Their 2020 Numbers with Hispanics - In a new thread NDN lays out why we are skeptical of the Hispanics moving to the GOP narrative.  In this thread we review large sample size Hispanic polls taken this spring which show movement from 2020 towards the Democrats, not towards Republicans, in AZ, NV, PA and TX.  Yes, even Texas. 

Guns/Gay Marriage - The recent Congressional GOP embrace of gun safety and gay marriage is a sign that Republicans are not comfortable with where they are in the 2022 election, and had to make huge concessions to Democrats on issues that matter to them.  These are signs of weakness, not strength for the GOP. 

Sincerely – the NDN Team

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                   
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