As results come in, the House is still projected to likely go to Republicans and the Senate remains a toss-up. But one political insider said the Democrats have done better than expected.
“This is the best performance for an incumbent president’s party in a midterm election since 2002. This is not a red wave, it’s not a red tsunami, it’s a red wavelet, or a red ripple,” said Bob Shrum, Democratic strategist and director of the USC Center for the Political Future.
“Republicans are, in my view, going to take the House, but they’re not going to pick up 35 or 45 seats, they’re going to take it by a much more modest margin than that,” Shrum added.
He said holding onto the Senate would be a big victory.
“Even if Democrats lost the Senate by one vote, lost the House by 20 seats or 23 seats, that would be a very unusual performance, given the averages that we’ve seen over the years,” Shrum said.
In the last few weeks, Democrats’ messaging has centered around the economy. Shrum said Biden can’t solve the problem alone, but being purely defensive about the situation won’t get him anywhere.
“Well, you’ve got two more years now before the next election. And I think this inflation is beginning to obey, we’ll see if the economy continues to perform strongly in terms of jobs. So that story has yet to be written,” Shrum said.
