2022 and the Upcoming Midterms
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On today’s podcast, Chris Stirewalt fills in for Steve and Sarah and has a discussion with Josh Kraushaar of National Journal. They talk about the teacher strike in Chicago, which leads to a broader discussion of Biden and the Democratic Party’s unwillingness to challenge the extremes of the party. Plus, they discuss the upcoming midterms and the projected Republican landslide that could be the party’s largest majority since the 1920s.
Show Notes:
-Josh’s Interview with Jared Polis
-Josh’s article about Democrats/Joe Biden pandering to extremes of the party
-Poll on how two-thirds of Republicans believe the election was stolen
-David Shor on how the progressives have “hijacked” the Democratic Party
Very good point about how Schumer and some others are acting like they are deathly afraid of losing a primary even though they should be in very good shape. That seems to be the case in my state, where Senator Grassley should have no real problem flicking away anybody who tries to challenge him in a primary, yet seems to be acting like he has a serious need to guard his right flank.
Excellent discussion. However, I'm not sure I agree with Chris' assumption that GOP winners in swing House seats in 2022 will tend to be more moderate than the winners in noncompetitive districts. It is probably true that the median voters in swing districts are likely to be more moderate than the median voters in noncompetitive districts, and if party leaders could control the nominating process they would be more likely to nominate candidates who could appeal to the less extreme voters near the center. But in today's GOP the median primary voter is still likely to be far from the center of the general election electorate and party leaders in most states have little power to limit the primary field, incentivizing primary candidates to run hard to the extreme right to get the nomination. I live in a very competitive swing district (currently rated "tossup" by Cook Political Report) that has a lot of middle of the road voters, but any GOP candidate hoping to make it past the primary still has to run as a right wing Trump acolyte in the primary.