Democrats shoved the “Inflation Corruption Act” down the throats of Americans in the 50/50 U.S. Senate thanks to the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.
The GOP has an opportunity to break that tie in the 2022 Midterms.
But Mitch McConnell just made Chuck Schumer’s year with this one line.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) just stabbed Conservative Senate candidates in the back with one simple line.
Blue Wave coming in 2022
Winning back Republican majorities in the House and Senate in the 2022 midterms would effectively turn President Joe Biden into a lame duck for the remainder of his term.
Easier said than done.
While all Congressmen and women are up every-two years, the Senate map this cycle does not benefit the GOP.
Out of the 35 Senate seats up for grabs in 2022, only 14 are currently held by Democrats, compared to 21 by Republicans.
Furthermore, while Democrats are defending just one open seat, the GOP has to defend six open seats.
However, the Blue team’s single open seat is sitting in Vermont – while half of Red team’s open seats are in battleground states, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Ohio.
And while both parties are defending in five swing states each –the most recent polling in those races have been a mixed bag for the GOP at best, and paint a nightmare scenario where Democrats could actually gain as many as three seats in the Midterms.
Minority state of mind
Making matters worse for Republican Senate candidates, their want-to-be leader, Mitch McConnell is tucking his head into his shell about 2022 prospects.
McConnell is now saying “candidate quality” could hurt the GOP chances of winning the Senate this November.
“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” McConnell said. “Senate races are just different. They’re statewide. Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”
One couldn’t fault McConnell for wanting to cut down on GOP voter complacency and optimize turnout for November.
And it’s perfectly understandable to play the “expectations management game,” to mitigate damages should the party fall short in the general.
However, with the Republican nominees in place in eight out of the ten battleground races, many view it as another thing entirely to openly call out the Party’s locked-in candidates as not being of “quality.”
McConnell vs. Trump
The fact is, Trump-endorsed candidates have won every Senate primary in swing states.
McConnell joins in with the National Review and establishment Republicans in doubting some of those primary victors – namely Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, J.D. Vance in Ohio, Hershel Walker in Georgia and Blake Masters in Arizona.
While that’s an assessment shared by even many Conservatives in at least one of those cases, it certainly doesn’t seem the case across the board.
The Senate Minority Leader is almost ensuring his status in the Minority by playing directly into Democrat talking points.
“We are just beginning to communicate about the deep flaws that their roster of candidates brings to these races,” said David Bergstein, the spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Their personal and political vulnerabilities are going to continue to be a centerpiece of these Senate campaigns in the months ahead.”
It is important to note, while Democrat politicians and their P.R. wing in Big Media gloat about positive polling, the GOP overcame similar polling deficiencies at this same point in the 2014, 2016 and 2018 elections cycles.
Many pollsters are struggling to adjust to new political landscape realities, including the Republican’s dominance in non-college educated white voters and the shifting political priorities of Hispanic voters.
