On this week’s episode of The Brief, cohosts Markos Moulitsas and Daily Kos political director David Nir (on loan from The Downballot) discussed the 2022 midterms, important battleground U.S. Senate races to keep an eye on, and how Democrats can keep the energy and the fight going into this November. This week’s guest was J.B. Poersch, the president of Senate Majority PAC.
Even when Democrats have held majority control of both the Senate and the House, they have often struggled to pass landmark legislation and get things done. Partisan gridlock has resulted in dissatisfied constituents who wonder why their elected officials aren’t making good on their promises. But, as Nir and Moulitsas explore, it’s more complicated than elected officials simply not following through on what they said they would do—especially thanks to the filibuster, which many people don’t understand. “People think it’s so irrational that nobody actually thinks it’s true,” Moulitsas noted.
With 2022 is shaping up to be a difficult midterm for Democrats, where do we start with the map? Nir suggested we take a look at seats where Dems are on defense:
There are four states, really, that Democrats have to be most concerned about—and the top two are Arizona and Georgia. These are both states where Democrats won amazing special election victories in 2020, only for the final two years of the terms in both of those states. So, Mark Kelly in Arizona … and Raphael Warnock in Georgia, who won that extraordinary runoff just last year. They are both up for reelection.
Kelly and Warnock certainly get most of the attention, but Democrats have another two seats that are also going to be really difficult to defend. One is in New Hampshire, where Maggie Hassan is up for reelection. She won in 2016; she beat a Republican incumbent by just around 1,000 votes. It’s really her race that gave Democrats their current 50-seat majority—that was the closest race of any member of the Democratic caucus right now. Then finally, there’s Nevada: Catherine Cortez-Masto, also first elected in 2016. Again, Nevada is a swingy state, just like New Hampshire. It’s one that’s kept going Democrats’ way by small margins for many years now. The real question is whether they can keep that magic up.
While this is definitely shaping up to be a difficult midterm, Democrats still do have an opportunity to go on the offensive, Nir noted:
- In Pennsylvania, a swing state where Trump won in 2016 and Biden won in 2020, there’s a race for an open seat to replace Republican Senator Pat Toomey, who is retiring.
- In Wisconsin, Republican Senator Ron Johnson is running for reelection and is being challenged by Mandela Barnes, the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, who would be the state’s first Black senator.
- In North Carolina, where there’s an open Senate seat, Republicans are dealing with a vile primary. Democrats have rallied around their candidate, former state supreme court Justice Cheri Beasley.
- In, Florida, Marco Rubio, one of the “top most despised Republican senators,” as Nir puts it, is facing a tough challenge. Democrats have also rallied behind a candidate there, Val Demings.
“Rubio didn’t want to run for reelection for Senate a few years back when he ran for president, so who knows how much he wants to be there?” Nir mused. He also noted that Florida is going to be tough because it seems to keep getting redder.
Moulitsas added that Florida reports early and often sort of sets the tone for the evening. “Losing Florida creates a sense of doom; it would be nice if we could reverse it,” he said.
At this point, Poersch joined the show to share his thoughts on Democrats’ strategy to win more Senate seats and how to capture a solid majority in the chamber.
Moulitsas recalled how history has shown us that the party in power in the White House almost always loses seats in the midterm elections, as backed up by relatively consistent data. Nir then asked Poersch to talk about the “nasty GOP primaries” that have been happening and how he sees them playing out. As Nir put it, “Progressives, of course, have to be careful what we wish for. A lot of us thought that Donald Trump would be easy to beat in 2016, and of course, he was anything but. So rooting for the most awful candidate doesn’t always work out for us, but there definitely seems to be blood getting drawn on multiple sides in some of these states, like North Carolina and Pennsylvania.” Turning the question to Poersch, Nir asked, “What are you seeing of note, of interest?”
Poersch highlighted the important role partisanship has played in the outcomes of elections in recent cycles: “Partisanship has been a significant factor in races arguably since 2016. In 2018, you saw sometimes it mattered, sometimes it didn’t. Partisanship still matters here. And then, lastly, the quality of the candidates—yes, candidates still matter.”
Moreever, he thinks Republicans are still struggling with infighting and deciding which direction to take after Trump has left office. As he explained,
This continuing tension between McConnell and Trump has played itself out into Senate races, and specifically into Senate recruiting, and it’s uncomfortable for Republicans. But more to the point, it made it harder for them to ascertain candidates the way that they normally would. McConnell has had success in the past recruiting candidates, but now he’s essentially in a Halloween costume hiding because he doesn’t want to get picked out by Trump as recruiting at all.
And the one that just screams [this] out starts in Georgia, where McConnell had concerns about a troubled history for Herschel Walker and incidents in his past. So he had made it clear that they were going to look for another candidate; [he] seemed to be talking to Perdue and maybe the others. And when Trump put his arm around Herschel and said, ‘He’s my candidate,’ all of a sudden, mysteriously, a whole bunch of opposition research popped up on Twitter. And a lot of it was being moved around and forwarded by McConnell’s political allies, which was reasonably entertaining, because the stuff was gut wrenching. Three weeks later, the polling firm in Atlanta, Trafalgar, comes out with a poll that says, ‘Herschel wins any potential primary by about 31 points.’ The reporter from Politico goes down on the floor and asks Mitch McConnell, ‘now what do you think about Herschel Walker?’ and he said, ‘I’m warming up to him.’ The truth was, he wasn’t warming up to him—he got rolled.
Moulitsas wondered, “How much do primary troubles actually portend general election consequences?”
Poersch replied, “It’s not the primary trouble—it’s the quality of the candidate that [affects] results. Not all trouble results in a bad candidate, but again, if you’re in a competitive state and a competitive election, and you come out with someone who’s either very extreme, or has holes in the resume … we could come up with example after example where primaries and extremism led to bad situations for Republicans.”
Shifting their attention to Democratic messaging and ads, Moulitsas raised the issue of how Democrats often struggle with their messaging. “What other issues do you see on a macro level? … I mean, obviously we have to let the primaries play out, and that’s going to inform a lot of the message in specific races, but from a more macro, national standpoint, what are the themes that you guys see early on that may be driving this election?” Moulitsas asked. “Because [Republicans’] are ‘Critical Race Theory,’ cancel culture, trans athletes and women’s sports, and the border, right?”
Poersch said it’s likely abortion is going to be a key part of the conversation in 2022 and that Republicans seem to be big on complaints and short on actual substance and solutions:
It won’t surprise anyone if the [Supreme] Court takes action before the election, and it’s likely to make this a more salient issue—[but] we don’t know that for sure. I would add to it that I think voters across the board do have concerns about rising costs around inflation, but it’s easier for Republicans to simply say, ‘Oh, this is all Joe Biden’s fault.’ I think voters are a little smarter about it, I think voters realize it comes out of the pandemic, even before what’s happened in Ukraine as far as rising gas costs. They see price gouging, they see corporations trying to make up for lost profits all being part of the deal here, even before you get a partisan, ‘Oh, it’s Trump’s fault,’ ‘It’s Biden’s fault.’ And then when you get to solutions, the Republicans really aren’t saying anything. [Their strategy seems to be,] ‘We’re not going to talk about it. We’re only going to say it’s the Democrats’ fault, and hope that’s enough.’ Several Republicans have already said, including Kevin McCarthy this week, ‘Putin didn’t [cause the war in Ukraine], Biden did.’
Republicans are trying to avoid any position on these issues at all, he added, and they will likely oppose a whole host of these potential solutions offered up by Democrats.
Moulitsas is worried about the issue of student debt: “One of the issues that really resonates with the party base—and Biden, for whatever reason, hasn’t acted on it—is college debt relief. Is there anything that you see on that front that Democrats can do or run on or pressure? Because that has the opportunity to motivate people that right now seem to be depressed because they were promised debt relief, and it hasn’t happened.”
Poersch agreed, noting that it's very much on the minds of voters: “You know Leader Schumer is a major proponent in the party to seeing good portions of the debt relieved off the backs of families who are struggling with it. So regardless of how this gets addressed going forward in this Congress, I just think it’s going to be part of the conversation.”
Moulitsas asked Poersch to rank the races in terms of opportunities for pickups. Poersch provided this overview:
Starting with that map of six, seven, eight states that get talked about … I think Democrats have a legitimate shot in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Pennsylvania we probably even start at maybe a little bit of an advantage for Democrats. In Wisconsin, Johnson’s numbers are as bad as they ever were … Don’t sleep on Cheri Beasley in North Carolina … [She] is a quality candidate and deserves her day. And that other presidential state you mentioned, [Florida], Val Demings has been fantastic … so I’m not sure we should just give that state away.
Moulitsas asked if there were any other opportunities to expand the map in Ohio, Iowa, or other states. As Poersch put it,
Donors and activists in the Democratic Party never let me forget places like Ohio … If you’re a Democrat, how can you not be annoyed by the Republican candidates that are running in Missouri and Ohio that have moved not just to the right, but away from the norm? We’re talking about potential fringe candidates, and the Trump derby has played out in these states, where Republicans are so eager to do just about anything to kiss the ring … so I think those states are going to get a lot of attention. Yes, they’re challenging states, there’s no doubt about it. But I think you’re going to see a candidate develop in Missouri. I think, assuming that [Tim] Ryan wins his Democratic primary [in Ohio], he’s going to be a great candidate too.
Democrats can’t quite relax or simply accept defeat, as there are opportunities to pick up seats, Poersch believes: “I think Republicans … if they’re not in touchdown dance stance already, they certainly have the mindset that things are going their way, and they’re pretty cocky about it. You need Democrats to stay involved here because just like the last cycle, we’re playing for big huge stakes. So come on in, the water’s fine.”
“They always say democracy is on the line,” Moulitsas commented.
Poersch agreed, adding, “But it also feels more true with every passing year.”
Moulitsas and Nir also discussed reforming the filibuster, which has become a huge issue for Democrats. As Nir said, “It will be hard to find a Democrat that doesn’t support some form of filibuster reform … [now,] I think it would be almost impossible for a Democrat to win in a competitive primary who doesn’t support filibuster reform.”
“One argument that really resonated with me is that our system is set up for so much gridlock that a party wins an election and they don’t even have a chance to enact the change that they promised voters … I think it’s healthier for democracy [to change the rules of the filibuster],” he added.
Moulitsas urged that even when we don’t know what could possibly happen, given current events and other influences, so much is possible for Democrats if we keep fighting:
We don’t know how Roe v. Wade being thrown out by the courts is going to galvanize people … We don’t know how Ukraine and Donald Trump are going to influence [the election] … This is not a normal midterm election … You fight, because you don’t know what the climate is going to look like … I’m seeing a winnable cycle, if everything goes right. Donald Trump won because everything went right for him. So it happens, it can happen.
Before closing out, Moulitsas and Nir spotlighted Daily Kos Elections’ new podcast, The Downballot. You can find highlights from the most recent episode of The Downballot here, and subscribe to The Downballot wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes come out every Thursday morning!
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