Pundits from CNN, FiveThirtyEight, and Politico suggest that Democrats have a favorable Senate map in 2022.
“Ahead of another brutal fight for Senate control and a 2022 map tilted against the GOP, Republicans are racing to persuade their incumbents to run again,” write Burgess Everett and John Bresnahan in Politico.
“Democrats have a relatively favorable map,” FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver says of the 2022 Senate election map.
Chris Cillizza, the CNN editor-at-large, gives the strongest version of this argument, “Democrats' stunning sweep of the two Georgia Senate runoffs earlier this week installed Chuck Schumer as the incoming Senate majority leader. The 2022 map of Senate races looks likely to keep him there.”
The top targets described in all of these articles are Iowa, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. These pundits correctly reason that the Democrats will have an easier time taking these seats, as the Republican incumbents holding them are likely to retire. But does this make the overall map favorable for Democrats?
The answer is clearly no, and these pundits’ takes will age like milk by the time that the votes are counted in 2022. The key reason for this unmentioned by any of these writers is that Iowa, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are all more Republican leaning than the nation.
Democrats failed to pick up the Senate seats in Iowa and North Carolina in the 2020 elections, despite winning the aggregated popular vote in the House of Representatives by 3.1 percent. Joe Biden also failed to carry these two states, despite winning the popular vote nationwide by 4.4 percent. Iowa went to Donald Trump by 8.2 percent in 2020 and 9.4 percent in 2016, making it 12.6 and 11.5 percent more Republican than the nation in these respective years. This made Iowa more Republican leaning than Illinois was Democratic leaning relative to the rest of the nation.
North Carolina has a comparatively more modest Republican lean, as it voted 5.7 percent more Republican than the nation in 2020. Even if both Iowa and North Carolina had open races in 2022, these elections would be uphill battles for the Democrats due to their partisan lean. This would especially be the case in a midterm election where they hold the White House.
An iron law of American politics is that midterm elections go poorly for the party that controls the White House. An average of nearly forty years of midterm popular vote totals in House elections suggests that the party holding the presidency should lose by a little over 6 percent in a midterm.
The only exception to this trend is the 2002 midterm elections, where the Republican Party improved on their performance two years prior and won the aggregated House vote by 4.8 percent. The elections were conducted in the shadow of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent War on Terror, inspiring an enduring rally ‘round the flag effect for Republican incumbent President George W. Bush. On the eve of the 2002 elections, Bush had an approval rating of 63 percent to 33 percent disapproving, according to Gallup.
With these uncertain times, it is impossible to rule out the possibility that President Joe Biden could be leading the nation through the aftermath of a terrorist attack or during a major armed conflict. However, even if the Democrats were winning the popular vote by a little less than 5 percent, they would not be the favorites to take either Iowa or North Carolina due to their Republican partisan leans.
Assuming the 2022 elections are conducted in a political environment similar to most midterms, the Democrats would be the underdogs in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as well. While Joe Biden carried both states in the 2020 presidential election, he did so by relatively narrow margins. Biden won Pennsylvania by 1.2 percent and he won Wisconsin by 0.6 percent, making them 3.2 and 3.8 percent more Republican leaning than the nation respectively. Trump carried both of these states in the 2016 presidential election, as he won Pennsylvania by 0.7 and Wisconsin by 0.8 percent. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are thus roughly 3 percent more Republican than the nation, a largely insurmountable partisan lean even if the Democrats were winning the popular vote by a modest amount.
Contrary to pundit claims, the 2022 map is unfavorable for the Democrats because there are no pickup opportunities and at least a few seats in which their incumbents are underdogs. The best opportunities for the Republicans to make gains are Arizona and Georgia, both seats held by Democratic incumbents that won in 2020 special elections. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona won his seat by 2.4 percent, while Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia won his seat by 2.0 percent. Relative to the national environment as measured by the aggregate House popular vote, Arizona was 0.7 percent more Republican than the nation and Georgia was 1.1 more Republican. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden carried both states but both states voted 4 percent more Republican than the nation.
Let’s be generous and assume that the Democratic incumbents in these states have a 2 percent bonus relative to their partisan lean, as FiveThirtyEight found first-term incumbents in the Senate did in the 2018 midterms. Let’s be even more generous in assuming that the partisan leans for these states are determined by their respective 2020 Senate elections, not the presidential election. All of these generous assumptions would still mean that the Democrats would need to hold the Republican nationwide margin down to at least 1 percent, or risk losing both seats. Assuming a typical midterm national environment, these two seats would be low-hanging fruit for the Republicans.
In addition to Arizona and Georgia, Nevada is also a prime pickup opportunity for the Republicans due to its partisan lean. In the 2020 presidential election, Nevada voted 2 percent more Republican than the rest of the nation. This would all but neutralize the incumbency advantage of first-termer Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who would be the underdog in anything less than a tied popular vote nationwide. If the Republicans are winning nationally by the average for an opposition party in the last forty years, they would likely defeat all three Democratic incumbents in Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada.
Another pickup opportunity could be New Hampshire, where first-term Democratic incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan could face fierce competition. Potential contenders include former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who lost to Hassan in 2016 by a little more than 0.1 percent, as well as incumbent Republican Governor Chris Sununu. Sununu has an approval rating of more than 68 percent, and won re-election by nearly 32 percent in 2020. Sununu helped the New Hampshire Republican Party regain their trifecta the same year, flipping both chambers of the state legislature. While Joe Biden won New Hampshire by 7.4 percent, a less than 3 percent partisan lean towards the Democrats would likely not prove to be insurmountable during an average midterm election with a good bench for the Republicans.
The 2022 midterm elections are thus likely to see the Republican Party regain the Senate by defeating three to four Democratic incumbents. The map is unfavorable for the Democrats, as they are forced to three seats where the partisan lean is more Republican than the nation. The current pundit consensus that the Democrats have a good Senate map is both unfounded and short-sighted, but only the results of the 2022 midterms can confirm that one way or the other.