The 2022 Midterms in Review

Democrats over-perform expectations driven by record youth turnout and popular progressive policies in a clear rejection of Republican Party extremism.

Maxwell Frost, Delia Ramirez, Greg Casar, & Summer Lee are expected to be among the most progressive of the House Democrats when they are sworn into office early next year.

Republican dreams of a widespread backlash against the Biden Administration’s modest and mostly uncompleted center-left policy set were dashed shortly after polls closed on Election Night. While the mainstream conservative reasoning predicting a Republican Congressional takeover was flawed (no, Ilhan Omar is not forcefully transitioning schoolchildren by feeding them fentanyl-laced Skittles), the expectation of the House of Representatives and/or Senate to flip from blue to red was not unfounded.

The party of the incumbent President tends to lose ground in Congress during midterm elections. Since World War II, the President’s party has lost an average of 26 U.S. House seats and 4 U.S. Senate seats, which is often enough to lose control of Congress for the party in power. In the case of the 2022 midterm elections, the Democratic Party over-performed expectations — while the slim Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives appears likely to have been lost to an even slimmer Republican majority, the U.S. Senate will remain in Democratic control, with the potential for a net gain of one seat if Democratic Senator…