Democrats’ momentum stalls ahead of 2022 midterm elections

Shannon Longworth
With the balance of Congress at stake on Tuesday, Democrats have seen their momentum wane in recent months. According to election tracker 538, Republicans will likely take control of the House. And this has appeared to be true for some time. It once seemed inevitable that Democrats would win seats in the Senate, as controversial candidates had put Republicans hopes in jeopardy. But with races tightening 530 sees a dead heat in the Senate with their simulation showing Republicans winning 55 out of 100 times. Joining us now to discuss is David Pakman, liberal commentator and host of The David Pakman Show. David, welcome. Thank you. My first question for you is did Democrats peak too soon? How much of this has to do with Republican messaging on the economy?

David Pakman
Yeah, I think that that’s absolutely part of what’s going on. I do think it’s important to start the conversation with historically these should be very bad midterms for Democrats, historically, with very few exceptions. 2002 being one exception, when one party takes the White House in the following midterms, the other party does really well. So the expectation really should have been not what was looking like the most likely outcome in July. But the historical reality, which is Democrats should do terribly. The overturning of Roe v. Wade absolutely boosted democratic chances. The idea, it’s almost like you drink the coffee too early in the morning, and then it wears off by the time you get to work. The effect, the timing of that Roe v Wade decision seems to have waned in the minds of many voters compared to economic issues. And one of the criticisms I’ve been making a lot of Democrats as someone who’s on the left, but I’m not a Democrat, I don’t particularly care about political party, is that Democrats ignored the rhetoric on the economic issues, assuming that Roe v Wade would still be the most important issue come November 8, and it’s just not seeming like that’s the case.

Shannon Longworth
I have noticed that some of the candidates have clearly picked up on that messaging in the last few months. It doesn’t seem to be making too much of a difference, though. Is that true?

David Pakman
The messaging on the economic issues or on Roe v. Wade

Shannon Longworth
on the economic issues, they’re starting to also talk about inflation, because they saw it was doing so well for Republicans. But it seems they’re a little late to it.

David Pakman
It does, it seems like it may be too little too late. And again, the most likely single outcome still is that Democrats lose the house, but have a good chance at keeping the Senate and compared to what things look like in July. It might seem not so good. But historically, that’s actually not a terrible outcome.

Shannon Longworth
Now, it seemed like there was a time when Republican candidate selection with the likes of Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz would dash their hopes of picking up more seats, what’s changing here.

David Pakman
But nothing has changed. It’s that the bar is so low that it’s below the ground for Republican candidates. There’s a reason that Donald Trump ran as a Republican in 2016, which is the bar was low enough that voters might choose him Donald Trump never could have won a Democratic primary. Because they’re just different standards. Herschel Walker can barely speak and can’t explain his position on any issue coherently. He’s an obvious liar. He urged and then paid for two women to have abortions despite claiming to be absolutely against abortion in all cases. And when you talk to the voters, one woman recently we looked at a clip she was confronted with that reality. And she said, Well, we all make mistakes in our youth. Herschel Walker was 50 when he did that with one of those women. So the issue which is I guess a great thing in a way for Republicans is there is no low too low, they will explain away any conflict or contradiction. And it’s great for people who have no business, you know, running an ice cream shop, nevermind being senator of the United States, like Herschel Walker, it’s a great thing for them.

Shannon Longworth
So let’s say these predictions are correct. And the House and the Senate do go to the Republicans. What is this going to do to the Democrats agenda over the next two years?

David Pakman
Well, nothing will get done. It will be just overt obstruction, other than on the most benign and banal uncontroversial issues, and then going into 2024. Republicans will accurately run on Biden didn’t get anything done. Of course, it will be because of them, but they will be able to use that in their 2024 campaign, so it’ll be very good for Republicans.

Shannon Longworth
We don’t want to put the cart too far before the horse but what would all that mean for the last two years For President Biden of this term, at least,

David Pakman
well, one of the things that is useful to Biden is that historically, the economy does much better under Democratic presidents. If you look at essentially any indicator, stock market growth, job creation, unemployment rate is lower on average under Democratic presidents GDP growth, higher inflation lower without even having to deal with Republicans in the House and Senate if things just kind of revert to their historical averages. There should be a pretty okay, economy over the next two years. Of course, there’s always predictions of a recession, but we just don’t know right now, if things just sort of regress to the mean, which is the economy does slightly better under Democratic presidents than under Republicans. Democrats should have a case to make to justify further democratic elections in 2024. But we just have to wait and see.

Shannon Longworth
Okay, David Pakman. Thank you very much. Thank you.