At brookings.edu, William A. Galson makes the case that “The invasion of Ukraine unites a divided America,” and writes:

By the standards of today’s polarized politics, the unity members of Congress displayed on Ukraine at President Biden’s State of the Union address was extraordinary. The hall was dotted with the blue and gold colors of the Ukrainian flag, and the introduction of Ukraine’s ambassador evoked a prolonged and passionate ovation….To an extent rarely seen these days, the American people are united across lines of partisanship, ideology, race, and ethnicity—indeed, across every demographic marker—on the nature of the threat, who is responsible for the war, and how to respond to it.

Galston shares some polling data:

Polling conducted right before Biden’s speech showed that the people are paying attention, with 65% saying they’ve heard a lot about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. About 8 in 10 Democrats and Republicans sympathize more with Ukraine than Russia, and three quarters say they care who wins the war. Huge majorities of both Democrats and Republicans believe that Russia wants to reestablish the border of the Soviet Union and that Ukraine wishes to remain independent.

These attitudes represent more than moral sympathy for Ukraine’s heroism in the face of Russian aggression. Large majorities of both parties believe that what happens in both Russia and Ukraine affects the United States “a lot.” 49% of Democrats and 48% of Republicans believe that Russia is “an immediate and serious threat” to the United States, and majorities of both political parties think that the chance of a new Cold War is higher than it was five years ago. 46% of Democrats and Republicans fear that war between the United States and Russia is very or somewhat likely.

There is also a strong bipartisan consensus on how the United States should respond to the Russian invasion. Supermajorities of both parties favor imposing economic sanctions on Russia and Putin and sending financial aid and weapons to Ukraine. 54% of both Democrats and Republicans favor sending troops to reinforce our NATO allies in Eastern Europe, but there is bipartisan opposition to sending US forces to fight the Russians in Ukraine.

Galston adds, “Americans are in no mood to end the war by rewarding Russian aggression. Across party lines, they oppose promising Russia that Ukraine will never join NATO, they oppose allowing Russia more influence in former Soviet countries, and they oppose pulling back NATO troop deployments in Eastern Europe.”

However, Galston wites, ” These opinions are not set in stone, especially in an election year. For example, Republicans’ support for sanctions falls—more than Democrats’ support does—if sanctions lead to an increase in fuel prices. Still, the degree of agreement on the fundamentals of the invasion is remarkable and seems likely to persist.”

It’s good news indeed that the American people are uniting in opposition to Putin’s invasipon of Ukraine.   The question now is whether Putin’s invasion will united, or further divide, Republican elected officials.

Here was my quick take at New York on the international affairs segments of President Biden’s State of the Union Address:

As expected, President Joe Biden began his first official State of the Union Address by discussing the Russian aggression in Ukraine, devoting the first 13 minutes of his speech to the subject. Biden played it very straight. Despite the sub-strain of Republican admiration and even empathy for Vladimir Putin (exemplified by Biden’s predecessor), the president chose to depict Americans as completely united. “[Putin] thought he could divide us at home in this chamber and this nation and he thought he could divide us in Europe as well, but Putin was wrong,” Biden said. “We are ready. We are united and that is what we did. We stayed united.”

Biden projected calm resolution and even reassurance for nervous Americans, who have been hearing about possible nuclear war and absorbing frightful images of fighting and destruction in Ukraine. “I know news about what’s happening can seem alarming to all Americans. But I want you to know, we’re going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. When the history of this era is written, Putin’s war on Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger.”

From a policy point of view, Biden was predictable enough, but he has positioned himself on very high ground in terms of public opinion, which favors strong action against Putin without troop deployments, and strong U.S.-led diplomacy based on red lines in Europe the Russians will not be alloyed to cross.

The contrast with the erratic, blustering Donald Trump was implicit rather than explicit. But Biden subtly undermined Republican claims that his administration’s weakness somehow drew Putin into aggression. Meanwhile the alliance Biden now leads — including even Switzerland — provides a clear alternative to Trump’s unilateralist hostility to NATO and lone-ranger approach to diplomacy.

His unity pitch also denied Republicans much of an opportunity to take issue with his remarks without looking churlish (as extremist congresswoman Lauren Boebert later did by shouting about casualties in Afghanistan when Biden was about to mention his late son, Beau). He was well into the domestic section of the speech before Republicans in the room could do anything other than dutifully, if reluctantly, standing and applauding his words. The impression that Joe Biden is a flailing president at the mercy of an emboldened opposition faded significantly during this address.

Will Biden’s remarks on Ukraine help him pivot to a more effective and popular presidency? It’s too early to tell for sure, but the signs are positive. His support has been flagging among Democrats lately. The stirring international section of the speech is bound to rally Democrats to his banner, and the rest of it was candy to them. For bipartisanship-craving swing voters, the unity pitch on Ukraine should resonate, and Biden cleverly laid out a “unity agenda” later on composed of four specific things the two parties might be able to do together. It was the sort of speech that played to his strengths as a president and as a politician. But he needs to keep the momentum up now that he has struck a new tone for his presidency.

In their article, “If Congress Can’t Boost Workers’ Rights, the Administration Will Go It Alone: A new report lays out ways that federal agencies can increase worker power” at The American Prospect, worker rights advocates Deborah Greenfield and Lance Compa write, “The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, passed by the House and pending in the Senate, would dramatically improve protections for workers who try to form unions. The task force report notes that support for unions runs high, both in the general public (68 percent) and especially among Black women (82 percent), Black men (80 percent) and Hispanics (75 percent). But now and for the foreseeable future, 41 U.S. senators who might represent less than 20 percent of the American population can block passage of the PRO Act—unless, as appears highly unlikely, there are 51 senators willing to scrap the filibuster….Facing this reality, the only way for the Biden administration to amplify workers’ bargaining power is through executive orders, with the hope that they can later be codified in filibuster-proof legislation. This is how President Kennedy’s 1962 executive order granting collective-bargaining rights to federal employees became law under President Carter in 1978….The White House ordered the 20 executive branch agencies in the task force to dig into their governing legislation, rules, regulations, and practices to identify changes that would help workers organize and bargain. Their prospecting developed recommendations for actions spanning the many roles that federal agencies play—as employers, as contractors that hire private-sector providers, as grant-givers, and as models of healthy labor-management relations.” The article also details findings from the Administration’s Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment report.

Some good message points from “Biden soars abroad while he rebuilds at home” by WaPo’s E. J. Dionne, Jr.: “Like President George H.W. Bush, who quietly but persistently rallied allies to support reversing Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait in 1991,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres told me. “President Biden’s quiet diplomacy has been effective in rallying the West against Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But Biden will probably not get the credit Bush did because American troops are not directly involved in Ukraine.” In his SOTU address, Biden “reminded Americans of the record economic growth  he presided over in his first year and then outlined how his approach to battle inflation differed from conservative economic doctrine….“One way to fight inflation is to drive down wages and make Americans poorer,” he declared. “I have a better idea to fight inflation. Lower your costs, not your wages. … Make more cars and semiconductors in America. More infrastructure and innovation in America. More goods moving faster and cheaper in America. More jobs where you can earn a good living in America.”….he ended his speech by outlining an entirely different, bipartisan “Unity Agenda” that might serve as an alternative focus of action in an election year if his earlier proposals stall again. His new emphasis was on the opioid crisis, mental health, care for veterans and curing cancer. One can imagine moderate Democrats in swing districts embracing his unity theme with relief.”

How will the January 6th ‘insurrection’ investigation affect the midterm elections? Even if it shows the most damning evidence that Trump and his associates were guilty of a ‘criminal conspiracy’ and that Republican leaders did their best to distract voters from it, will that affect enough swing voters to make a difference in the outcome of the elections? An NBC News Poll conducted by Hart Research Associates (D) and Public Opinion Strategies (R). Aug. 14-17, 2021 asked 1000 adults “”Would you say, yes or no, that the protests that led to rioters overtaking the U.S. Capitol was an act of terrorism?” 52 percent said “yes,” 47 percent said “no.” A Quinnipiac University poll conducted July 27-August 2 asked “Which comes closer to your point of view: the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th was an attack on democracy that should never be forgotten, or too much is being made of the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th and it is time to move on?” 57 percent said it “should never be forgotten,” while 38 percent said it was “time to move on.” In light of such findings, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Democrats don’t have much to gain by making Republican complicity in Trump’s attempt to void the 2020 election a major midterm campaign issue, although a couple of reminders in campaigns where specific Republican candidates went too far in supporting the “insurrection” might help.

At The Washington Monthly, Chris Matthews makes the case “Memo to Democrats: Tie Putin to Trump: The carnage in Ukraine must be laid at the former president’s doorstep.” As Matthews writes, “Pretty smart,” Trump said of Vladimir Putin’s stark aggression. “He’s taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions, taking over a country—really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people—and just walking right in.” Yes, that’s what the Manhattan developer said about the most significant war in Europe since 1945….The Democrats, if they still know how to play political hardball, should make Trump wish he’d never said such words, as he did again at the recent CPAC conference, calling Putin “smart.” His toady Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has offered similar words of praise for Putin. Fawning international felons is really a thing with these guys….In black-and-white partisan terms, it’s time for the Democrats to nail Trump for his grotesque cozying up to Putin. Now that Moscow’s murderous intent is apparent, now that the problem with Ukraine is no longer an impossible-to-follow flowchart of Paul Manafort’s crimes and Alexander Vindman’s whistle-blowing, the Democrats can say, “Look at what Trump and Putin wrought.” It’s time to tie Trump to Putin’s attack on women and children instead of ignoring the connection….It’s a different world now, a united world. Democrats and Republicans, all Americans, now see Putin for who he is, and the Democrats must remind the country who was the strongman’s ally and dupe. They should plaster Trump-Putin posters on every telephone pole, cascade them on every social media site. They should rub that picture of the two wanna-be strongmen—showing off Trump’s hairdo and Vlad’s bare chest—for every American voter to see and never forget.” Matthews is focused mostly on 2024. But the argument also has merit for this year’s mideterm elections, since so many Republican incumbents and candidates have bet their electability on their association with Trump — a bet that doesn’t look quite as smart today as it did last week.

Since there were no major surprises in the President’s State of the Union address or the Texas primary results, I’ll go with some insights from Charlie Cook’s “Foreign Policy Unlikely To Save Democrats in the Fall” at The Cook Political Report:

Given how monolithic partisans are in their approval ratings and actual voting, it is always useful to look only at independents, the ‘jump ball’ Americans. Biden’s overall rating among them was 35 percent (5 points below his approval among all adults). His best marks were on dealing with the coronavirus (45 percent approval), followed by foreign policy (37 percent), Russia (35 percent), and the economy (30 percent). It is pretty clear the president and his administration’s denial of the threat of inflation and slow reaction to it was exceedingly damaging to him. (While we are on the subject, it is fascinating to see Senate Democrats, after so passionately advocating for more infrastructure spending this past year, propose suspending the gasoline tax for the rest of the year, no matter that the gas tax is the primary regular funding source for transportation infrastructure. Panic is never pretty.)

While we don’t know the trajectory that the Russia/Ukraine crisis will take, and there are many factors that can impact on midterm elections, we do know that in the absence of a large number of U.S. military deaths, Americans rarely vote on foreign-policy issues, particularly in midterms. The state and direction of the economy, particularly change in real disposable personal income, is far more determinative.

Turnout and the relative levels of enthusiasm between the two parties’ bases is key. There was a big gap heading into the 2018 midterm elections with, as usual, the party out of power much more motivated going into the fall of that year—though the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination did a lot to close the gap in predominantly rural areas, which helped Republicans actually score a net gain in the Senate while getting hosed (a political science term) in the House. Right now, Democrats are the party suffering from a lack of motivation among their base.

If someone wanting a read on a midterm is only going to watch two things, it should be a president’s approval rating and the generic congressional ballot test, both pretty good barometers of which way the wind is blowing and whether it’s light, moderate, or heavy.

In my view, Biden and his team are handling this incredibly challenging crisis far better than many other things over the last year. But this is unlikely to save Democrats from what is increasingly looking to be a pretty horrible midterm election.

In short, none of the relevant data indicators are looking very good for Dems at this political moment. But Dems who want a little more hope should check out Andrew Prokop’s analysis of “The Presidential Penalty“at Vox, which Cook cites. As Prokop concludes, “Considering how historically difficult it is for a president to even get a draw in the midterms, Biden will probably need not just one but several things to break his way — an improving approval rating, growing real incomes, and an improving pandemic. And he likely needs both turnout and persuasion to break in his favor: He has to give sporadic Democratic voters a reason to cast ballots this year, and to win back some voters who initially approved of him but who have since soured on his presidency.”

That’s asking a lot. But another factor to chuck into the hope bucket is the deepening Republican split, which could become worse by election day, in light of Republican divisions on Russia’s Ukraine invasion. And Democrats do have a +3 point lead in the latest “generic congressional ballot” indicator. If the primaries in the months ahead help Dems to run the strongest House and Senate candidates – another big “if” – the midterm outcome may not be so bad.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

Molly Murphy and Brian Stryker at Impact Research (Biden’s polling firm) have some excellent advice for Democrats. This is no longer an option but a necessity if Democrats are not to fall even farther behind the public mood. They need to see restoring a sense of normality as their number one task.

“After two years that necessitated lockdowns, travel bans, school closures, mask mandates, and nearly a million deaths, nearly every American finally has the tools to protect themselves from this virus. It’s time for Democrats to take credit for ending the COVID crisis phase of the COVID war, point to important victories like vaccine distribution and providing economic stability to Americans, and fully enter the rebuilding phase that comes after any war.

Declare the crisis phase of COVID over and push for feeling and acting more normal. Thanks to Democrats, we are nowhere near where we were two years, or even one year ago. Democrats have a tremendous opportunity to claim an incredible, historic success – they vaccinated hundreds of millions of people, prevented the economy from going into freefall, kept small businesses from going under, and got people back to work safely. Because of President Biden and Democrats, we CAN safely return to life feeling much more normal – and they should claim that proudly.

Recognize that people are “worn out” and feeling real harm from the years-long restrictions and take their side. Most Americans have personally moved out of crisis mode. Twice as many voters are now more concerned about COVID’s effect on the economy (49%) than about someone in their family or someone they know becoming infected with the coronavirus (24%). Two-thirds of parents and 80% of teachers say the pandemic caused learning loss, and voters are overwhelmingly more worried about learning loss than kids getting COVID. Six in ten Americans describe themselves as “worn out” by the pandemic. The more we talk about the threat of COVID and onerously restrict people’s lives because of it, the more we turn them against us and show them we’re out of touch with their daily realities.”

“How Will Americans Grade Biden’s Handling Of The Crisis In Ukraine?” Nathaniel Rakich addresses the question at FiveThirtyEight and observes: “According to a Feb. 18-21 poll from The Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Americans disapproved of Biden’s handling of “the U.S. relationship with Russia” by 56 percent to 43 percent. Meanwhile, a Feb. 1-17 Gallup poll found that Americans disapproved of his handling of “the situation with Russia” by 55 percent to 36 percent. And in a Feb. 10-14 Quinnipiac University poll, Americans disapproved of his handling of “tensions between Russia and Ukraine” by 54 percent to 34 percent. These figures were all within a few points of his approval numbers on foreign policy more generally in those polls. (In addition, a Feb. 19-22 Fox News poll found that 56 percent of registered voters thought Biden had not been tough enough on Russia, virtually identical to the share who disapproved of his foreign-policy performance.)….These numbers were also within a few points of his overall approval rating, suggesting that Americans may not yet know how to judge Biden on the crisis and have simply retreated to their partisan corners when answering this question. That’s consistent with findings from political science research that Americans don’t have strongly held opinions on foreign policy and look to signals from political elites to tell them how they should feel about it.’

Further, Rakich writes, “a separate Morning Consult survey conducted Thursday — the only poll asking about Ukraine conducted entirely since Russia’s invasion so far — told a different tale. In it, registered voters gave Biden a positive net approval rating on his handling of foreign policy in Ukraine and Eastern Europe: 48 percent to 43 percent. This could reflect what will happen to Biden’s approval ratings on Ukraine (and perhaps overall) once the public hears more about the crisis and has new information on which to base their opinions — such as Biden’s televised announcement on Thursday that he would impose harsh economic sanctions on Russia and not send U.S. troops to Ukraine. As my colleague Geoffrey Skelley wrote at the time, both of those positions are popular among the public.”

Rakich also warns about “potential downsides for Biden,” including “the Morning Consult/Politico poll, 58 percent of registered voters would hold Biden very or somewhat responsible if gasoline prices increased as a result of the conflict.” Rakich concludes, “For now, though, this is all speculation. A wide range of outcomes are still possible. Ukraine could dominate the headlines for the next several months — or some other major event could take place and overshadow it. U.S. involvement in the conflict could prove to be minimal — or the nation could end up getting dragged into war (a lot of this, of course, depends on what Russian President Vladimir Putin does, which is even less predictable). And Biden could prove a deft negotiator of the situation — or he could bungle it.” The great wild card in all of this speculation is the intensity and durability of protest inside Russia. There is no reliable polling data explaining how Russians feel about Putin’s invasion. But Dasha Litvinova reports at Time that “From Moscow to Siberia, Russian anti-war activists took to the streets again Sunday to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the arrests of hundreds of protesters each day by police…According to the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests, police detained at least 2,710 Russians in 51 cities for anti-war demonstrations Sunday, bringing the total of those detained over four days to nearly 6,000.”

At U.S. News, Susan Milligan writes in “The Benefit of a Crisis: As global conflicts go, Russia’s threatening posture toward Ukraine is one that could actually work in Joe Biden’s favor” that “as crises go, experts say, this is one that could work to Biden’s benefit….While senators in Biden’s own party are denying his domestic wish list, the question of how to handle Russia will not involve arm-twisting the likes of Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia or Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona….”I think this is a defining moment, not just in the Biden presidency but in Joe Biden’s long political life,” says Fred Kempe, president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy think tank. “To his credit, in his campaign and afterward, he has defined this moment as an inflection point in the systemic struggle between democracies and autocracies. Now he has the challenge to execute against that diagnosis.”….”This is an opportunity for President Biden to show what he’s made of on the foreign policy front. He knows his stuff inside out,” Fiona Hill, a former official at the U.S. National Security Council specializing in Russian and European affairs, said during a recent webinar sponsored by The Common Good…..And unlike some domestic issues or more nuanced foreign policy questions, Russia’s threat to invade Ukraine is an easily digestible matter for Americans, especially those with a memory of the Cold War, says Jeffrey Engel, founding director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University….”He can talk about traditional tropes of American foreign policy rhetoric that are impossible to refute. He can say, ‘You can’t appease dictators,'” Engel says.”

Some days you read something that leaps right off the page and sinks an evil fang into your arm. That happened to me with a document released by Florida U.S. Senator Rick Scott, and I wrote about it at New York:

In nearly every midterm election cycle in which U.S. House Republicans are in the minority, you will hear suggestions that the GOP adopt a new “Contract With America,” like the one that (not really, but according to lore and legend) led the party to its first conquest of the House many decades back in 1994. The idea is that everyone knows what Republicans are against, but nobody knows what they are for, since their contributions to the great legislative accomplishments of American history since about 1929 are limited.

This craving for a midterm GOP election agenda is typically strong in the House, partly because of the 1994 mythology and partly because House Republicans are, relatively speaking, pretty well united around a conservative ideology. You usually don’t hear much about this from Republican senators, as they are not quite so uniform ideologically and their long-time leader Mitch McConnell famously thinks obstruction of what Democrats are trying to do works just fine as a party message when the GOP is not in power.

In January, McConnell recommitted himself to election-year nihilism, as Business Insider reported:

“During a press conference on Wednesday, McConnell declined to offer any details about what Republicans would do in the event they recaptured both chambers of Congress in November.

“’That is a very good question,’ he told reporters. ‘And I’ll let you know when we take it back.’”

But now the senator who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Rick Scott of Florida, has released his own suggestion for an agenda, as Politico reports. “As a general rule, you know, probably this year’s election is going to be a lot about the Biden agenda. But I do believe we’re going to win,” Scott said. “We ought to have a plan and what we’re trying to get done when we get the majority.”

Scott’s “11 Point Plan to Rescue America” shows exactly why McConnell doesn’t like such exercises in hypotheticals. It is beyond extremist.

Sure, there is a lot of boilerplate conservative language in the document (the preamble harrumphs that “our government is eroding our work ethic by paying people not to work,” and one of the 11 points promises to end “the soft-on-crime days of coddling criminal behavior”). But there’s a weird “actually, science and scripture agree” tone running through the manifesto, which is quite an innovation. For example, here’s point 9:

“Men are men, women are women, and unborn babies are babies. We believe in science: Men and women are biologically different, ‘male and female He created them.’ Modern technology has confirmed that abortion takes a human life. Facts are facts, the earth is round, the sun is hot, there are two genders, and abortion stops a beating heart. To say otherwise is to deny science.”

Many of Scott’s specific proposals straddle the line between stupid and evil pretty effectively. He wants to impose a 12-year limit on all federal employment (with “exceptions” for national-security purposes). Think about the immense cost and inefficiency of that kind of required turnover in the federal workforce, whose numbers, by the way, would be reduced by 25 percent in five years according to another pledge in the agenda. Guess that would somewhat mitigate the massive cost and disruptions associated with Scott’s demands to “move most Government agencies out of Washington and into the real world” and “sell offall non-essential government assets, buildings, and land.” The IRS would receive an even more draconian 50 percent cut in funding and workforce, which might make it a bit tough to impose the new minimum income tax Scott wants to impose on the majority of Americans who now have no net tax liability.

But here’s the pledge that really takes the cake: “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” Presumably this would include the Social Security Act, the Medicare law, the Civil Rights Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and the immigration and criminal laws Scott is so determined to enforce with the maximum degree of viciousness. Any candidate running on that plank would be tarred and feathered.

I won’t go through the whole document, but you get the idea; whoever drafted this monstrosity must have been told to ask “What Would Trump Do?” on every topic and then ratchet up the right-wing anger and MAGA rhetoric considerably. Instead of just attacking affirmative action, the plan would ban collection of Census information by race or ethnic group. Criticizing excessive “wokeness” isn’t enough; Scott’s agenda promises to ban the use of “tax dollars for any diversity training.” And Trump gets his props in the plan, too: It proposes to “finish building the wall and name it after President Donald Trump.”

No wonder McConnell isn’t interested in a midterm election agenda, if this is what it means. There are undoubtedly multiple 2022 Republican Senate candidates who are trying to appeal to swing voters and would not particularly want to identify themselves with all this howling MAGA ferocity or explain why they want to destroy the federal government and some of its most popular programs.

Perhaps Democrats should disseminate Scott’s agenda themselves, beginning with Florida voters, who may be surprised to learn their junior Senator wants to let Social Security and Medicare lapse if they aren’t reauthorized every five years.

In all seriousness, it’s alarming that someone representing a large and reasonably competitive state would endorse a document that sounds like J.D. Vance wrote it in a panic after reading the latest primary polls in Ohio. Scott swears he’s not at this point running for president, which is a good thing, since his current thinking would be simply disqualifying.

Alan I. Abramowitz examines redistricting and competition in congressional elections at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and argues that “The ability of House incumbents to attract votes across party lines and thereby insulate themselves from competition is now much more limited than it was in the 1970s and 1980s.” Abramowitz, author of “The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump,” argues further:

The declining personal advantage of incumbency has had a dramatic impact on competition in House elections, especially in districts in which the division of the presidential vote is close to the national average….partisan turnover has fallen slightly in the least competitive districts and remained fairly stable in moderately competitive districts. However, partisan turnover has increased sharply in the most competitive districts — those where the division of the presidential vote is closest to the national average. During the 1980s, the rate of turnover in these districts averaged only 5%. During the most recent decade, however, the rate of turnover in these districts averaged close to 18%.

As Abramowitz concludes,

Based on presidential voting patterns, a much larger proportion of U.S. House districts strongly favor one party, and a much smaller proportion are closely divided than 50 years ago. However, gerrymandering is not the major reason for this trend. Partisan polarization has increased dramatically in U.S. states and counties, whose boundaries have not changed. Moreover, despite the growing partisan divide evident in presidential voting, the competitiveness of House elections has changed very little over the past 5 decades because the personal advantage of incumbency has declined sharply during this period.

The declining ability of incumbents to attract support across party lines means that incumbents in marginal districts — those in which the presidential vote is close to the national average — are now much more vulnerable than they were in the 1970s and 1980s. Incumbents in moderately competitive districts remain somewhat vulnerable as well. Whether that vulnerability turns into actual party turnover depends mainly on the strength of national tides. Large-scale party turnover of House seats tends to occur when there is a strong tide favoring one party. Even if redistricting results in a decline in the number of closely divided districts based on presidential voting, a strong national tide favoring Republicans in 2022 could still result in a large number of seats flipping from Democratic to Republican control. The number of seats switching parties in 2022 and succeeding elections will depend more on the strength of national tides than the number of marginal districts.

While gerrymandering is still a force in state politics across the U.S. and Democrats have to keep at it as long as Republicans do it, Democrats would be wise not to expect too much gain or loss because of redistricting, and to allocate resources according to political attitude trends in each district.

Daniel Cox explores the question, “Why Are White Liberals So Pessimistic About Politics?” at FiveThirtyEight, and writes: “A new survey conducted by the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life, which I lead, found that less than half the American public felt optimistic about the country’s future. But there is a fairly stark divide among Americans on this question, with white Americans expressing far more pessimism about our country’s direction than members of other racial groups….White evangelicals were the most pessimistic group we surveyed, but I found in follow-up analysis for FiveThirtyEight that there was a notable racial divide among Democrats as well.¹ More than 6 in 10 Black Democrats (68 percent), and 62 percent of Hispanic Democrats said they were somewhat or very optimistic about the country’s future but white Democrats were much more divided — roughly as many said they felt optimistic (53 percent) as pessimistic (47 percent) about where the United States is headed.” Among the reasons this pessimism is politically consequential is “A greater share of Americans identify as liberals today than at any point in the past 30 years or so, according to polling from Gallup, even if they are still significantly outnumbered by self-identified moderates and conservatives.” It seems worth investigating, at what point does liberal pessimism turn into a decision not to vote?

Cox notes that “Eitan Hersh, a political scientist at Tufts University, argued in 2020 that college-educated white Americans — a group that has trended leftward in recent years — tend to engage in politics very differently from Black and Hispanic Americans. In his research, Hersh found that “white people reported spending more time reading, talking, and thinking about politics than black people and Latinos did, but black people and Latinos were twice as likely as white respondents to say that at least some of the time they dedicate to politics is spent volunteering in organizations.” There are reasons to be skeptical about ‘reading, talking and thinking’ data. But Cox notes a more consequential difference: “Hersh suggested that white, college-educated, left-leaning voters are much more likely to engage in “political hobbyism” than in building coalitions to address social problems. These efforts often require sustained energy and investments, which for many left-leaning hobbyists is likely a less attractive way of participating in politics, though it may prove more effective in the long run.” Cox adds that “a new study by the Knight Foundation shows that Democrats are already paying far less attention to national news today than they were just a few months earlier. Taking an interest in politics is an important part of being an engaged citizen, but for liberals, greater participation in local affairs and organizations may ultimately prove more personally rewarding.”

At The Cook Political Report, Amy Walker writes “Democrats like NDN’s Simon Rosenberg urge the president to acknowledge the challenges the country has been through over the past couple of years and “to make the grit, resilience, ingenuity, can do spirit of the American people the hero our story in 2022.”….But, Rosenberg also wants to see Democrats selling their successes. “As the incumbent party, Democrats will be judged this fall largely on whether voters think we’ve done a good job, that things are better. Things are better, and we should spend the next 10 months relentlessly making the case that they are.”….In a slide deck released this week, the Democratic research organization, Navigator, made a similar argument. When voters are presented with the tangible economic gains made during the Biden era (such as “more than 6 million jobs created last year,”), the presentation shows, opinions about the state of the economy improve….”The story Dems have to show is that the economy is back up off the mat,” Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson (and adviser to Navigator Research) told me. “That doesn’t mean everything is fixed or everything is better, but just that it’s heading in the right direction. This can’t be mission accomplished, but it does need to be mission underway….But, former Obama White House senior advisor David Axelrod warns Biden not to overdo it on the happy talk. In a New York Times op-ed this week, Axelrod writes that “[Y]ou simply cannot jawbone Americans into believing that things are better than they feel.”

Walker continues, “All of this advice is coming up on a pretty hard economic reality. Americans’ views of the economy aren’t likely to get better until they see that inflation improves. I’ve yet to sit in a focus group where the issue of the rising costs of groceries, rent or gas didn’t come up. In fact, many of the participants can tell you, to the dollar, how much more they spent at the gas station or the grocery store this week than they did a year ago.”….The Brooking’s Institution Bill Galston pointed to a recent Economist/YouGov survey showing that inflation has become the dominant factor determining voters’ view of the economy. Asked to identify the “best measure” of how the economy is doing, 52 percent pointed to the cost of goods and services, compared to 17 percent for unemployment and jobs and just 6 percent for the stock market. As such, writes Galston, while “the Biden administration wants Americans to focus on rapid job creation and the sharp decline in unemployment, it seems that the people are more likely to emphasize rising prices until the pace of inflation abates.” Walker adds that Biden does not have Trump’s gift for bragging and getting away with it. Instead Biden’s strong card is his ability to convey real empathy for struggling Americans. That alone won’t inspire the needed uptick in his approval ratings that can help Democrats in the midterm elections. For that he’s going to need a downtick in Covid and inflation — or at least some credible executive action on both fronts.

It’s eight plus months till election day. But former President Trump’s coddling of Russian President Putin’s Ukraine policy during his Administration and now the invasion of Ukraine may turn into a midterm campaign issue benefitting Democrats.

Stephen Collinson reports at CNN Politics, ” It took only 24 hours for Donald Trump to hail Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dismembering of independent, democratic, sovereign Ukraine as an act of “genius.”….The former President often accuses his enemies falsely of treason, but his own giddy rush to side with a foreign leader who is proving to be an enemy of the United States and the West is shocking even by Trump’s self-serving standards.”

It gets worse. Trump also said, “So Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent,’ a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force,” Trump said. “We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. … Here’s a guy who’s very savvy. … I know him very well. Very, very well.”

Collinson notes, further, “Trump’s latest idolization of Putin is likely to widen the growing divide in the GOP between traditional hawks, who have sometimes praised Biden for standing up to the Russian leader, and pro-Trump lawmakers – and conservative media stars like Tucker Carlson – who have sided with Putin….The House Republican leadership, which is in Trump’s pocket, accused Biden of “appeasement” on Tuesday – the same day that their de facto leader described Putin as a “genius.”

No doubt many Republican candidates for the Senate and House are squirming today. But former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised Putin for being an “elegantly sophisticated.” Mitch McConneell, along with some G.O.P. House members tried to deflect criticism to President Biden. Representing the sane wing of the G.O.P., Rep. Liz Cheney tweeted “Former President Trump’s adulation of Putin today – including calling him a “genius” – aids our enemies. Trump’s interests don’t seem to align with the interests of the United States of America.”