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The midterm elections are nearly a month away and results will surely reflect voters’ perception of the economy, inflation and how President Joe Biden is handling both. The U.S. economy is grappling with the worst inflation in four decades, and subsequently, the most hawkish Federal Reserve response since the 1980s. Recession has become a distinct possibility. With this as the backdrop, Democrats are favored to win the Senate, while Republicans in the House of Representatives have odds stacked in their favor. Straight Arrow News contributor David Pakman breaks down voter psychology in one of the tightest election cycles of recent times:
What do people believe about the economy when they go to vote in just a few weeks? If people generally feel that – okay, prices are high, but things are pretty okay, particularly given that we came out of a pandemic and all these different things happen – it’s very good for Democrats. If people feel as though Joe Biden has not been a good steward of the economy, then it’s very bad for Democrats.
More than likely this only impacts the House of Representatives. Why do I say that? Well, Biden’s not on the ballot. We don’t have a presidential election this November, in the Senate numbers are looking increasingly good for Democrats. In fact, when you look at the 538 Senate forecast, at this point Democrats are believed to have a 72% chance of holding the Senate. Republicans only a 28% chance.
And so where this ultimately really matters is in the House of Representatives. Republicans are still favored to win. If Republicans take the House of Representatives, whether it’s on mediocre or good or bad economic news doesn’t matter. If Republicans take the House of Representatives, and you have a divided Congress, with Democrats having the Senate, and Republicans having the House, nothing, nothing, nothing will be done for the next two years that could be good economically.
And so Republicans are going to create a situation for 2024 where they can say, “Look at how this guy Biden and these Democrats, they’ve done nothing for us for the economy for the last two years. You should vote for us.” And they do it all the time. And of course, we could rightly say, “Well, nothing was done because you obstructed it.”
But it doesn’t matter. It works. And so this is why the state of the economy, the perception of the state of the economy, and what inflation does over the next few months, already will play a major role in what 2024 is going to look like.
