The first midterm election after a presidential election is most often a referendum on the new president and his party, along with a natural pendulum swing toward the other side. Rarely do individual issues dominate such races. The 2022 midterms, however, could well be different.
The 2020 presidential election was, in significant part, the culmination of a five-year battle against Donald Trump. It started before his 2016 election and continued unabated throughout his time in office. The 2020 election of President Joe Biden was far less about him than it was about Trump.
While the Russia–Ukraine war has made matters worse, it’s the policy response to that war that may well define the 2022 midterm elections.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). a leading Democrat, stated on national TV on March 20, “I think it is completely wrong for us to blame President Biden.” He also stated: “We are fighting and waging a war against climate change. It is a war that will decide what America will look like and what the world will look like for the next generation.”
In other words, in the face of historically high gas prices and high inflation, the priority of the D.C. Democrats isn’t Middle America’s pocketbook; it is their “war against climate change.”
The problem for Democrats, of course, is that those policies are the reason why gas prices and inflation are so bad. Their renewed push for even more of those policies promises more of the same.
As to Russia’s war on Ukraine, it has crystallized the issue for the 2022 midterms by adding to gas prices and, therefore, increased consumer prices. The responses of the Republican and Democratic Parties could easily define the November midterms.
The Democrats, even though they are badly losing on the issue of gas prices and inflation, appear bound and determined to double down on their bad policies. Indeed, two high-profile moves by Biden defy American common sense. First, the Keystone XL pipeline appears to be an obvious solution to many. It isn’t even being considered by Biden.
Second, voters are rightly questioning why Biden is sanctioning U.S. oil companies, including by shutting down that pipeline, while he is going hat in hand to ask countries such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to produce more oil. Democrats also voted against a bill promoting American energy independence.
Calls for U.S. energy independence, a goal of the Trump administration, are resonating with voters. If Republicans are smart, they will rightfully tie high gas prices, inflation, risky foreign affairs, and Democratic policies to a lack of American energy independence.
It isn’t a hard sell, and it’s an issue that Americans face virtually every day when they go to buy groceries or gas up their vehicles. Biden is making the case himself and branding the Democrats by continuing to deny the Keystone pipeline and by begging for oil from Venezuela and other unfriendly socialist/authoritarian states.
By contrast and smartly, the Republicans are calling for U.S. energy independence, oil production, and American jobs in Texas and Oklahoma and with the Keystone pipeline. The Republican National Committee has started registering people at gas stations in Arizona to vote. Republicans everywhere should do the same.
That’s a good start, but not enough. Republicans could cement their coming gains in the November midterms by branding themselves the party of American energy independence, the little guy, and common sense. In short, by making the 2020 midterms about an issue, not just the failures of Joe Biden.
