I'm an independent and vote issues, not parties, so I really don't have a dog in this fight. I find plenty to criticize in both parties. However, I do keep abreast of the political scene, and I gotta tell you, it looks really bad for Democrats in 2022.
The New York Times had a piece today laying out just how bad it is. Give the obvious tilt of the NYT, I was surprised the analysis was as hard-hitting as it was. I guess it's bad enough you really can't sweep it under the rug anymore. The author quotes the head of polling at ABCNews:
"As things stand, if the midterm elections were today, 51 percent of registered voters say they’d support the Republican candidate in their congressional district, 41 percent say the Democrat. That’s the biggest lead for Republicans in the 110 ABC/Post polls that have asked this question since November 1981."
Put another way:
"Bill McInturff, a founding partner of Public Opinion Strategies, provided me with data from the October WSJ/NBC poll asking voters which party can better manage a wide range of issues. On three key issues — controlling inflation (45R-21D), dealing with crime (43R-21D) and dealing with the economy (45R-27D) — the Republican advantage was the highest in surveys dating back to the 1990s."
And while a year is a lifetime in politics, the issues that dog the Democrats don't look to be lifting anytime soon:
"While a year is a lifetime in politics, the Democratic Party’s difficulties are deep; they include soaring economic discontent, a president who’s fallen 12 percentage points underwater in job approval and a broad sense that the party is out of touch with the concerns of most Americans — 62 percent say so. The numbers are even worse for Democrats in the eight states expected to have the closest Senate elections, according to Langer — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Not only is Biden’s overall job approval rating in those states 33 percent, 10 points lower than it is in the rest of the country, but registered voters in those eight states say they are more likely to vote for Republican House candidates than for Democrats by 23 points (at 58 percent to 35 percent)."
Gallup poll results echo those above:
"An examination of Gallup survey results on the question “As of today, do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?” reflects the damage suffered by the Democrats. From January through August, Democrats held a substantial 7.9 point advantage (48.2 percent to 41.3 percent). In September, however, Gallup reported a 2-point (47-45) Republican edge that grew to a 5-point (47-42) edge by October."
One political scientist predicts the Democrats will lose 40 or more seats in the House in 2022. Another political scientist at Duke opines:
"Biden was elected as a moderate to put back some sanity into government through a steady hand and incremental reforms. Instead, a wing of the Democratic Party took the 2020 election in which the Democratic Party lost a surprising number of House seats as a voter mandate to implement a pretty fundamental program of social reform and sociocultural change . . . [T]his programmatic ambition is consistent with the wishes of only a minority of core Democratic voters, and certainly not that of the centrist voters who prevented Trump from being re-elected."
I think he's right, and today I was reading another piece, by Kara Dansky, that puts some flesh on this abstract bone. (BTW, it's highly ironic that feminists like Dansky find they can only publish in right-wing outlets like The Federalist, but that's where we are now.) Danksy fingers the trans agenda as a major factor in the swift plummet of the Democrats' fortune, seeing it as part of an agenda that, as noted above, is only resonating with a small minority of voters:
"All of “gender identity” and “transgender” politics is a men’s rights movement intended to objectify women’s bodies and erase us as a class. The entire edifice is a lie. It is left-wing misogyny on steroids.
"Democratic Party leadership will not permit discussion about this, anywhere. But I assure readers that there are countless rank and file Democrats who are furious about it. I hear from them every day. Democrats are disgusted that party leadership is promoting the teaching of “gender identity” in schools down to the kindergarten level, celebrating the mutilation of healthy children’s bodies, and cheering on performances of “drag queen story hour” in public libraries.
"The Democratic Party of today looks nothing like the Democratic Party that I was proud to be a part of just about all my life. Many Democrats share my despair. If the Republican Party manages to nominate just about anyone who is a decent human being for the presidency in 2024 (hint: “Grab ‘em by the p-ssy” guy is not included in this category), many Democrats will vote Republican.
"Gender ideology is one of the reasons Democrats lost House seats in 2020 and one of the reasons Glenn Youngkin won the governor’s race in Virginia this month. I was proud to stand with parents in Loudoun County, and grateful to The Federalist for covering it (that coverage eventually got picked up in the U.K. via The Daily Mail). Gender will be one of the reasons that Democrats will lose more congressional seats in 2022 as well as the presidency in 2024.
"I know people who have left the Democratic Party because of gender and become Independents. I know one woman who left the Democratic Party because of gender and registered Republican. I choose to remain a Democrat because I continue to hope the party will reverse course, as unlikely as that appears to be at this time, and have done my best to warn party leadership about what is coming here and here and here.
"I am a second-wave feminist and a Democrat. I stand for the rights, privacy, and safety of women and girls. These cannot be protected if sex is redefined incomprehensibly to include so-called “gender identity.”
"Feminists have a saying: we cannot protect women and girls on the basis of sex if we cannot say what sex is. My hope is that lawmakers across the political aisle will get a grip and right the wrongs that have been perpetrated in the name of “gender identity.”
I'm on a few feminist listservs and sites, and Dansky is not exaggerating. There's huge discontent among feminists concerning the Democratic Party. Here's a few comments that have been posted recently by dyed-in-the-wool feminists:
"Women volunteers make up something like 70% of the Democrats' ground game. Black women disproportionately volunteer to knock on doors and register voters. For some d**n reason the bigwigs seem to believe that women will keep showing up to do unpaid labor for the Party after they encounter gross men in their restrooms and watch their daughters, nieces, and granddaughters lose to mediocre males in sporting events- costing them potential college scholarships.These women may not flip to voting Republican but perhaps they'll find other things to do on their summer and autumn weekends. Party leadership is disgracefully out of touch."
and . . .
"I am so tired. I worked my ass off for voting rights, and what's more important to the Dems in power is sneakily codifying gender identity, and giving private plane owners 100% write offs."
and . . .
"I did not knock on so many G** damned doors over the past four years just so the Democrats could cave on economic issues, throw up their hands on Climate Change, refuse to charge insurrectionist lawmakers, and surrender on voting rights yet somehow fight like hell to put men in women's spaces."
and . . .
"I have never voted for a Republican. I have voted for Dems every election since I was eligible, so in 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020. And a few of the midterms as well. I've donated and I've volunteered for Dems. I volunteered in 2004 for Kerry's campaign before I was even eligible to vote! I will never vote for another Democrat again, not a single one, until they stop demeaning women. I can't see myself voting for a Republican, so I won't do that either, but I definitely no longer consider myself a Democrat and I will no longer lift a single finger for the Democratic party. Not to vote, not to donate, not to volunteer. This would have been unthinkable for me in 2016. I'm just done, I'm over being trampled on, abused, demeaned and taken for granted by these f***ing sexist ghouls and their delusional cultists."
and . . .
"Dems are so stupid. I no longer consider myself one (and I've voted Dem for every election since I could first vote, in 2008). Independent all the way, and no more voting for anyone who makes "trans rights" their cornerstone."
These are hard core feminists saying they will sit out the next election . . . I'm stunned. And the Democratic Party ought to be stunned, too.