Republicans may have gained ground in the House of Representatives during the 2020 election, but candidates and campaign staffers don’t have any time to rest on their successes with 2022 midterms right around the corner. Historically, the party who doesn’t control the White House has better luck in the midterms, but the Democrats are already doing everything they can to make the 2022 midterms another referendum on former President Donald Trump instead of current President Joe Biden.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the House Democrats’ campaign organization, has already started running ads in the first week of February, hitting people they see as potential targets almost two years down the road. Meanwhile, House Republicans are taking every opportunity to take aim at President Joe Biden’s progressive policy agenda to try to gain enough momentum to overcome the Democrats’ majority.
That means Republicans will spend their energy talking about the Democrats’ big-government, high price tag policies that they say will kill hundreds of thousands of jobs in key sectors like energy development. The fact that Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) kept her spot as the No 3 Republican in the House by a large majority shows the caucus’ desire to focus on advancing popular conservative principles. On the other hand, the caucus’ unwillingness to punish Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-AL) within the Republican ranks shows trepidation of alienating the Trump base.
Republicans are in somewhat of a transitional period following a tumultuous end to Trump’s presidency, and nationally there is a need to figure out what their unified message will be heading into the next cycle. This effort is going to be made even more challenging by Democrat efforts to exploit any and every Republican misstep or disagreement.
Since the market’s opening, traders on the political prediction market, PredictIt, have had Republicans gaining control of the House in the 2022 midterms elections. But what will happen that may change the political landscape in the next 21 months is still anyone’s guess, To learn more about 2022 election predictions go to Predictit.org