Can Biden Turn 2022 into 2002?

President Biden with Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH),
one of the most vulnerable senators in next year's midterms

I'm still getting the lay of the land in kicking off the 2022 midterms, so while I promised I'd be taking a slight break from politics, I should've known that politics doesn't like taking a break from me (and my mind is frequently swimming with ideas for articles I want to try).  We might still take a break as we get to actual legislating, but not today.  One of the conversations that keeps happening online is talk around the inevitability that the 2022 midterms will be rough for Democrats.  This isn't without merit.  Historically the party out-of-power has lost seats in the midterms, and this has in fact led to some of the least-balanced cycles in recent political history.  The Democrats won back both the House & Senate in 2006, the former for the first time since a reverse shellacking the party had received in 1994.  Republicans used the Obama years to win the House (2010) and Senate (2014) during the president's midterms, and the Democrats took back the House in 2018 while Trump was president.  History teaches us that the House will be near impossible for the Democrats to hold, and the Senate will be difficult as well with President Biden in office.  But it's early, and so I think it's worth playing a little devil's advocate before we start writing the stars for 2022, and so I wanted today to take a look at the exception to the rule.  The midterm that defied all expectations by being one that favored the incumbent party in the White House, and what caused such a situation.  Today, we're going to ask the question-can 2022 be a repeat of 2002?

Let's provide some context on what 2002 looked like.  Obviously like 2022, it was a redistricting year (though unless HR1 doesn't pass in the coming months with some gerrymandering reform, 2022 is more likely to indulge in gerrymandering than 2002...even though the latter was a big year for the practice in select states), but if you look at the Senate map, the Democrats had a lot of reasons to be hopeful.  Republican retirements were high, with openings in four Southern states, and a fifth incumbent lost in the primaries in New Hampshire.  The Democrats had no retirements, though Sen. Bob Torricelli had to drop out late in the race as scandal had created a scenario where he was DOA for the general election.  George W. Bush had won in 2000 by the slimmest of margins, and many Democrats the country over felt they had been cheated out of the White House that they had rightfully earned (Al Gore had, after all, won the popular vote & the term "butterfly ballot" had entered the lexicon for a reason).  Additionally, the Democrats, thanks to the party switch of Jim Jeffords of Vermont, had the majority in the Senate-the party in the White House doesn't regain the majority of a house of Congress during a midterm.  That doesn't happen.

But national tragedy had struck the year before in the form of the September 11th attacks, and President Bush had utilized the 9/11 attacks as a political weapon, both to get the country into the Iraq War, but also as a cudgel against Democrats running for office in red/purple districts.  It's hard to grasp twenty years later if you didn't live it, but Bush's attacks were pretty finessed, and focused on using the rally-round-the-flag sentimentality that emerged in the wake of 9/11 as a way to equate his agenda with patriotism.  To be against Bush was to be against America in a time of crisis.  And the Democratic Party was against Bush, axiomatically, and therefore it was easier for him to have the midterms be a positive referendum on himself.  This, for the record, is one of the main reasons that Democrats don't like the media trying to repaint Bush as a sweet, goofy guy who is besties with Michelle Obama & Ellen Degeneres; this campaign was bitter, and it cost them key figures in their party.

Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA)

Bush, and in large part his political mastermind Karl Rove, were smart though-they didn't go after leading Democrats like John Kerry at the box office, but instead went after figures who had actually supported them during key votes.  One of the most odious moments for Democrats on the campaign trail were the attacks against first-term Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia.  Cleland, a Democrat who had voted for the Iraq War authorization, was still mercilessly attacked for his patriotism.  At one point, the senator, who had lost three limbs as an army captain in Vietnam, had to endure his opponent Saxby Chambliss (who had gotten out of the war on a medical deferment due to a football injury), running ads having Cleland's face plastered alongside Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.  While the ads were decried by most, including Cleland's Republican colleagues John McCain & Chuck Hagel, they worked.  Cleland lost reelection, and many of his supporters wondered if these attack ads played a part.

Rove's politics were dirty, but they were also tactical.  The attack against against Cleland wouldn't have worked in a state that Al Gore had just won like Illinois or Rhode Island.  Instead, Rove started to target specifically candidates who were running in states that Bush/Cheney had won in 2000.  This is one of the guilty realities about the 2002 election-it took 9/11 & the higher approval ratings for Bush to have a chance at winning seats in 2002, but he also needed a decent map.  Democrats were uniquely vulnerable that year.  While there were no Republicans up in states that Al Gore had won, there were myriad Democrats up in states that Bush had won.  In fact, by that metric the Democrats did pretty well (they held seats in South Dakota, Montana, West Virginia, & Louisiana), but Georgia & Missouri were both pickups, and a backlash over the memorial to the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (and having to start a campaign from scratch days before the election) hurt the Democrats in Minnesota, allowing Norm Coleman to upset former Vice President Walter Mondale.  Democrats picked up one seat (in Arkansas against a scandal-plagued incumbent), but as we'd learn in the coming two decades, it takes a lot of work to win a contest in a state you didn't win in the last presidential election, and states like South Carolina, Texas, & Tennessee had just rejected Al Gore, a Southern boy who had once raised tobacco in Carthage.  They weren't going to rebound to his party just because the Republicans had the White House.

2022 does not pose the same sort of opportunity for the Democrats, at least not yet.  The Republicans have a lot more seats up, but they have a lot of seats up in states like Mississippi, Oklahoma, Idaho, & the Dakotas...states that the Democrats are not going to win without some sort of earthquake scandal.  But like 2002, the Democrats have a one-seat majority, and so they just (at least for 2002) need to hold the status quo, or (preferably) pick up a seat or two to make this look like a really good midterms for Biden.  That's not out of the question.  Wisconsin & Pennsylvania both are states that Biden won in 2020, and Trump won Florida/North Carolina by roughly the same margin as Gore won Minnesota in 2000.  There are opportunities there if Biden can find a way to maintain popularity, and have the American people want to endorse him, rather than reject him (like they did for Bush in 2002, but not for any incumbent since).

Former President Trump with Sen. Marco Rubio,
one of the Republicans up in 2022

The three ways that would happen are the Covid pandemic, the economy, and Donald Trump, and it's easy to see the path here.  The Covid pandemic is roughly the equivalent of the 9/11 attacks (i.e. something that will actually last in our memories longer than a couple of news cycles).  Getting it done successfully will impact Biden's support, and more over it will provide a reason for Democrats to vote in 2022 (because they will have a compare-and-contrast with the previous administration).  There are other underlying issues with the economy, and it won't rebound immediately after the pandemic, but it's probable we'll see something of an economic uptick in 2022 as more people get back to work, and service/travel industries start to rebound.  That will also help Biden's approval.

But, and I hate to make it about him but it's impossible not to right now, the biggest asset for Biden might be Donald Trump.  The past week showed that the Republican Party is not yet ready to move past Trump, mostly because they aren't sure they can duplicate his success without him.  As long as Trump remains a bogeyman within the party, that will provide incentive for the Democrats to get-out-the-vote to beat him, and unless he's on the ballot, it's become clear his unique ability with low-propensity voters doesn't work.  We saw that in 2018, but we saw it in particular in the 2021 Georgia midterms.  Voters knew Trump was gone, but still didn't want to give his party more votes, and hence the Democrats won the Senate.  It will be difficult, but if Trump is still looming large, particularly as a possible candidate in 2024, Democrats will have that incentive to get out to vote in a way they normally wouldn't need to, and having figures that regularly ally themselves with Trump (like Marjorie Greene & Lauren Boebert) on the ballot could also make the Democrats' case easier for them.  It's possible in 2022 we'll see the status quo, and the Democrats will lose one or both of their congressional majorities.  But unlike in the last three midterms, this doesn't feel like a guarantee, and is something the Democrats need to keep in mind as they attempt to buck history.