Raising the salience of abortion is likely a net benefit to Democrats based on the House map, but it is not likely a sufficient benefit to the party to overcome the structural bias of the maps and Biden’s bad approval ratings and win the House for the Democratic Party. It also makes races like Ohio 9 th, where the GOP are trying to flip the right-trending northwest Ohio seat red, more likely to go Republican as anti-choice Obama-Trump voters stay red. Will this ruling make some seats, like the Virginia Beach-centered Virginia 2 nd more likely to go Democratic, as socially liberal Romney-Biden voters stay with Democrats? Sure. Yes, the GOP have many pro-choice voters who might be motivated enough by the decision in Dobbs to change their votes, but the pockets of pro-choice Republicanism are mostly in districts that voted for Trump by double digits, like the Texas 24 th or Georgia 6 th, which makes them good medium term targets and bad 2022 targets when Democrats need to play defence, not offence. Yes, the GOP will throw away some number of districts away on bad candidates, but the idea that this will be enough to swing the nation far enough to give Democrats a fighting chance in the Senate is probably a liberal fantasy from many of the same people who presented Biden winning Texas in 2020. Most people might be able to name their Senators, maybe their Congressperson, but the idea that large numbers of independents and swing voters will vote for their Democratic incumbent on the basis of their Republican opponent having anti-abortion or otherwise fringe views is for the birds. Can they get enough voters in 2022, knowing it won’t be near the same number for the 2024 Presidential election? Yes, some of those people who have a negative approval of Biden are Democrats upset he hasn’t done enough, or independents who hate Biden but will hate Republican candidates more, but the problem for Democrats is that not enough people truly care about House races.
My best estimate is that Democrats would need to win the House popular vote by 2% to win the House, which would be on the very low side of historical results given this is a midterm – and would also be incongruent with the idea of their President having a 39% approval. Because of court losses in New York and the GOP legislature in Florida caving to Ron DeSantis, what looked at points of this year to be a fairly unbiased map still actually has a Republican bias. The thing is, there’s a path for Democrats to win the House, but it is extraordinarily narrow. The best case scenario for Democrats would be that the Roe repeal ends up costing the GOP across the board enough that they can hold the House this year, giving them a potential path to another two years of unified control and two years to try and maybe pass, amongst other things, a federal law protecting abortion access. 2022 Midterm Elections: Balance of Power Odds To Control HouseĢ022 Midterm Elections: House of Representatives Odds Which party will control the House after 2022 election? To Control House