I mean, I think you see this really significantly in New Hampshire, in particular, where Maggie Hassan I think was thought to be very vulnerable early in the cycle. I think, obviously, part of what’s happening in the Senate, like everybody would tell you, is Republicans have gone with a lot of bad candidates in a lot of races. So how do you see what’s happening here? matt yglesias Those two things seem at odds to me, particularly given where inflation is and the general mood of the country. At the same time, the polls and forecasts give Democrats, I’d say it’s fair to say, a fighting chance in the midterms, a two in three chance of keeping the Senate, a one in four chance of keeping the House. Joe Biden’s approval rating is about 42 percent in the averages I’m seeing.

As always, my email Yglesias, welcome to the show. So I wanted to have him on the show to talk about where Democrats are on the eve of this year 2022 election. How do Democrats and Republicans present themselves to the public? Who governs and shapes that presentation? What do they actually do when they govern, and how does that affect how they’re seen?Īnd Matt has particularly become a critic of a Democratic party that he often argues is in hock to a highly educated staffer class and has lost sight of the voters it most needs to win over. Now Matt writes the newsletter “Slow Boring” and he co-hosts the podcast “Bad Takes.”Īnd in recent years, Matt has become more focused on party strategies.

We were early political bloggers together back when the blogosphere and the internet and we were young. But maybe there’s more than that at play. That’s something we cover in this episode, too. And maybe the polls aren’t to be believed. No chamber looks set for the kind of wipeout we saw in 2018, or 2010, or 1994. Republicans are favored to win the House, and not by some giant landslide. Democrats are favored to hold the Senate. And add in that midterms tend to swing against the president’s party and we should be on track for a massacre.īut if the polls are to be believed, we’re not.

So Biden’s approval rating is hovering around 42 percent. And things are looking a bit different than I would have expected.

The midterm elections are just about two weeks away. Transcript Have Both Democrats and Republicans Lost Touch With Their Voters? Matt Yglesias breaks down the polls and helps take stock of this wild midterm election year.

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