Five X factors for the 2022 midterms

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( Get Jonathan Bernstein’s newsletter every morning in your inbox. [Click here to subscribe]( Candidate recruitment and even some actual campaigning has already begun for next year’s midterm elections; after all, there’s less than a year to go before the first midterm primaries. Normally, I’d tell you that midterm elections are fairly predictable. The president’s party usually loses ground, with the president’s popularity and the party’s “exposure” — the number of vulnerable seats it has — limiting or increasing the damage. So 2022 would be a good year for Republicans, although their gains would probably be somewhat smaller than usual because Democrats, especially in the U.S. House of Representatives and in state legislatures, lost ground in 2020. Then I’d say: Watch President Joe Biden’s approval ratings, and those will tell you the rest of what’s predictable. And that’s probably what will matter most next November. But there are several unusual factors that could change things. Let’s get to it: The pandemic. If things go well, the coronavirus plague will be long gone by next fall. That’s most likely to mean it would have little electoral effect. I’d bet that Democrats campaigning on ending the pandemic would be tuned out by voters who are more interested in the present and future. But we don’t really have evidence one way or another about whether a once-in-a-century health disaster could be different. [If the virus returns]( over the winter and then again next fall, would voters hold it against the incumbent party? There’s no way to know. The economy. Political scientists have found that the economy generally affects midterm elections indirectly, through its effect on the president’s popularity. But that’s the normal economy, not the pandemic and post-pandemic version. Normally, a strong recovery from a recession would help the president and therefore the president’s party, but even if the economic statistics appear strong, will most voters feel prosperous? The wild swings over the last year suggest that we can’t be as confident as usual. Trump. Normally, former presidents have zero impact on midterm elections. Jimmy Carter was still unpopular in 1982, two years after leaving office, but that didn’t save Republicans from getting clobbered. The same was true of George W. Bush in the Republican banner year of 2010. That might still be the case with Donald Trump. But he is trying a lot harder than Carter or Bush to stay in in the limelight. Democrats would be more than happy to have another election that’s a referendum on Trump; at this point I’d bet against that happening, but you never know. Cheating. Unfortunately, it appears that this factor is going to have to be on the list going forward. After an election in which Trump and many other Republicans invented false claims of fraud and unsuccessfully pressured election administrators to overturn the honest results, and after Republicans have attempted to change [laws]( and [personnel]( so that those efforts would not be frustrated again, we can’t be confident that the 2022 and 2024 elections will be on the level in many states. Republican dysfunction. Since the Tea Party’s rise starting in 2009, Republicans have occasionally thrown away winnable elections by nominating candidates who weren’t competitive. Still, there haven’t been many of those electorally awful nominees, and there probably won’t be this time. Probably. The big caveat is that adding Trump and his endorsements and threats to the Republican nomination mix could produce several disasters for the party. On the other hand, Trump’s interventions in nomination politics were only marginally costly during his presidency, and it’s not even clear how much influence he’ll have in 2022 Republican primaries. In other words? Most likely, this and the other potentially unusual factors bearing on the midterms will fizzle out. But they’re all worth keeping an eye on. 1. Ashley Daniels and Pearl K. Dowe at the Monkey Cage on [Representative Val Demings as a Democratic Senate candidate]( in Florida. 2. Dan Drezner on [the Belarus situation](. 3. John Hudak on [Biden administration marijuana policy](. 4. Dean Baker on [inflation worries](. 5. Nathaniel Rakich on [partisan games in filling U.S. House vacancies](. 6. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Robert A. George [on House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy](. 7. And Kevin Drum on the reasons for [vaccine reluctance](. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. [Click here to subscribe](. 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