October 15: Biden Is the Early Favorite For Reelection Even If Dems Lost Ground in 2022
After absorbing a lot of Democratic gloom-and-doom about the midterms, I offered some silver lining at New York:
The 2022 midterms don’t look great for Democrats, who will try to buck history by hanging on to super-slim congressional majorities. Thanks to the particular lay of the land, Democrats have a decent chance of maintaining control of the Senate. But the House? Not so much: The two times since the New Deal when the president’s party won net House seats in a midterm (1998 and 2002), the president in question had sky-high job-approval ratings. Even if you believe Joe Biden’s plunge in popularity has been stemmed or even turned around a bit, he’s not going to have 60 percent-plus approval in November 2022 unless really crazy things happen. There’s just too much partisan polarization for that these days.
Thankfully for Democrats, even if they lose their congressional majorities next year, Biden himself won’t be an underdog for reelection in 2024. After all, the last two Democratic presidents were reelected after historically terrible midterms. Democrats lost 54 U.S. House seats in 1994 and 63 in 2010. Yes, they had bigger majorities going into those elections than Democrats have now. But they lost the national House popular vote by an identical 6.8 percent in both midterms, which is pretty bad, particularly since Democrats suffer from a voter-inefficiency problem in House elections (too many voters concentrated in too few districts).
It’s possible for a president’s party to lose a midterm so badly that bouncing back in the next cycle is all but impossible. Consider the man whose unique comeback accomplishment Donald Trump will be emulating if he runs in 2024, Grover Cleveland. The president Cleveland defeated in an 1892 rematch, Benjamin Harrison, was a Republican whose party lost an incredible 93 House seats in the 1890 midterms. This, mind you, was at a time when the House had only 332 members, which means the GOP lost over half their caucus in one cycle (an even worse percentage than in 1894, when Democrats lost a record 125 House seats during the midterm after Cleveland’s comeback triumph). In this era of polarization, nothing like that is going to happen to Democrats in 2022.
Looking more broadly at the power of incumbency, there have been 13 sitting presidents since World War II who were on the general election ballot. Nine of them won. The four losers all faced special circumstances. Gerald Ford had not previously been elected to anything more than the U.S. House; he ascended to the vice-presidency and then the presidency when disgraced predecessors resigned, and he pardoned the president who appointed him, the especially disgraced Richard Nixon. Jimmy Carter was caught up in a historical realignment that he had held off four years earlier by carrying his native South, which then resumed a massive Republican trend. George H.W. Bush suffered from a terrible economy but then also a party split (third-party candidate Ross Perot won a lot of previously Republican voters). And we all know about Donald J. Trump, who was impeached twice and seemed determined to offend swing voters.
In retrospect, what’s most remarkable is that Ford and Trump very nearly got reelected despite their handicaps, exhibiting not the weakness but the strength of incumbency. And it’s with that perspective that any early handicapping of a potential 2024 rematch should be considered. Trump benefited from incumbency in 2020, as will Biden in 2024. So the idea that the 45th president has some built-in advantage over the 46th — absent the renewed election coup so many of us fear — doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Kerry needs to discuss the Bush administration’s inept response to information that was given to them before 9/11 concerning terrorist activity in the US. People need to understand that “our great protector” and his administration was given information about possible terrorist plots (ie plane hijackings) and they failed to act on the information! How can someone look at Bush in the same positive light knowing that he failed us back in 2001? And then, he was initially against the Homeland Security Department. Security is a BIG concern in this election. I see nothing that indicates to me that Bush has made us more secure. Another thing, most people I know, regardless of political affiliation, are not happy with the way things are going. People are stressed out! Kerry needs to speak to these people. There are a lot of us. Life is difficult anymore and there is no empathy coming from the Whitehouse. Kerry needs to address this.
Joe
Dan,
I think you are correct on the media buying. I have said this before and will repeat – in the final analysis many folks will not be able to pull the B/C lever or whatever method of voting available. I suspect you need to select one or two polls and stick with them while filtering out the others.
Who are the Republican pollsters and who are the Democratic? I subscribe to Rasmussen and also follow Zogby. I was a Zogby junkie in 00. I have regaining confidence.
There is an arrogance about the B/C crowd. Also things are looking mighty grim in Iraq.
Jody
If you look at the states that K-E are not buying media in at this time, they are all competitive Senate races, except Arizona. If Demos want to allow the Senate candidates to establish themselves you cut down on K-E buys in September, pour money into the Senate race and then buy in October when B-C is buying and the K-E ads do not tie the Senate candidate to the national ticket.
Arizona is a special case because any early push there provokes a McCain response. In October that will not be as big a problem as McCain will be busy supporting the Arizona down ticket candidates.
In other words, there is a rationale that shows careful planning and not hysteria. I have been growing in my confidence that K-E do think through what they do.
Yet listening to Juan Williams on NPR this morning you would think the Kerry is ready to concede Missouri. Really, what the heck are we going to do with the mainstream media. What is with NPR?
Well, all I can say is “figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” I have seen the Gallup guy on TV with his so called groups. I saw a biased republican partisan. And the media is just as bad. So why should I believe the polls when I no longer believe the media. It was just tooooooooooo convenient.
From Missouri—-
I am seeing support for K/E in places where you should not expect it, given the demographics.
Missouri is winnable although it will be close. B/C are taking it for granted. It’s critical to get Edwards in key outstate areas to hold down the GOP vote and Kerry is needed in StL and KC, especially in the labor-oriented suburbs.
Please don’t give up on us. Strategic media buys in October can be critical, especially when the Cardinals are in the World Series.
This is the first time that I’ve been to this site, and I find it far better than the others. I did some research os SurveyUSA on their website.
The good news is that they are usually pretty accurate in their pre-election predictions. The bad news is that they usually, but not always, err on the side of the Democrats.
I also find it interesting that Bush went down in Newsweek but up in Time. Zogby stayed the same; Rasmussen is back to 1 point. Do the pollsters really know what they are doing or is it possible that there are more undecided voters than is commonly believed?
I want my W.rong For America! T-shirt and bumperstickers!
Kerry people are you listening??
I agree. Don’t give up on Missouri or other states in middle America. Independents and moderate to conservative Dems are looking for a reason, any reason to vote for Kerry. They don’t like Bush, but they remain undecided after the Repub convention. Maybe put together a commercial showing Kerry skeet shooting and talking about his joy of hunting. Is Carville on top of this? It works!
Reports are that Kerry’s campaign has pulled all advertising from MO. This now seems terminally dumb if this poll is even close to correct. Gore pulled out of Ohio assuming he was way behind when in fact he was closing. How do we keep Kerry’s folks from premature surrender in key battlegrounds like this? T.J.
Ruy, what is your opinion on SUSA’s methodology? They seem to have as good a record as anyone else based on past elections, but the Hotline for one has a real problem with them and won’t include their results (or Rasmussen’s, for that matter) in their polling summaries.