Democrats’ Midterm Prospects Are Looking Up. They Still Don’t Have a Long Game.
Democrats are hoping to win the midterms by touting the pared-down Inflation Reduction Act and their (modest) commitment to abortion rights. That might work in November — but it’s a poor strategy for reversing hemorrhaging support among working-class voters.
President Joe Biden, center, hands the pen used to sign H.R. 5376, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, into law, to Senator Joe Manchin in the State Dining Room of the White House on August 16, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
This spring, the Democratic Party’s prospects in the coming midterm congressional elections looked extremely bleak. With high inflation squeezing wallets, President Joe Biden’s approval ratings at record lows, and most of the party’s national policy agenda apparently dead in the water, a Republican sweep in November seemed likely. And the risky strategy being pursued by Democrats in some states — boosting far-right candidates in GOP primaries in the hope they’d be easier to beat in the general election — seemed like a dangerous Hail Mary from a party short on ideas.
But two things have happened since that may improve Democrats’ fortunes.
First, on June 24, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in a six-three decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in the face of overwhelming popular support for legal abortion. (Even voters in deep-red Kansas recently rejected a referendum proposal to strip abortion rights from the state’s constitution.) The ruling teed up abortion rights as a popular issue for Democrats to run on this November.
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