Why Democrats Are Likely to Retake the Senate

     Up until about six months ago, if anyone told a Republican on Capitol Hill that the Democrats had a better than even chance of retaking the Senate, they would've been laughed out of the building and for good reason. But six months is a long time in the political continuum. A lot has happened in the last six months, most notably Trump stupidly getting us into a seemingly endless proxy war in Iran that's already cost us nearly $100,000,000,000, 13 American lives and the armaments with which we'll need to defend ourselves should the need for them arise. 

     For the folks at home, the consequences of that war are landing on our dinner tables. When the war began on February 28th, the national average for a gallon of gas was at $2.98. Now, Americans are paying at least $4.50 a gallon with gas stations in some states, such as California, rising over $8 a gallon. The price of diesel has also skyrocketed, which causes hardship for farmers all over the nation as their farm equipment runs on diesel. The price of fertilizer, too, has sharply risen upward, also hurting farmers.

     You don't need to be a Nobel Prize-winning economist to know that when energy prices jump, that affects virtually everything else, including food. By last month, inflation had risen to 3.8%, matching pandemic levels. With the price of health care also spiking, the last thing middle class and poor families need is to make a choice between food and medicine or gas.

     Republican voters are feeling the pinch just as much as Democrats and Independents. After all, we all go to the same gas stations, the same supermarkets, deal with the same HMOs, insurance and utility companies. We're all in the same boat and the boat has sprung a serious leak. And the media have been driving the same point home for months now- That It's the Economy, Stupid 2.0.

     It's the one abstract issue that affects those of us not in the top 10%, the thing that unites us.

     Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Green Party and libertarians, MAGA and Democratic socialists.

     And Americans voters from one end of the political spectrum to the other are pointing their fingers in the same direction: At Trump and incumbent Republicans. The national economy is always the Great Equalizer, the thing that affects us all. Polls after poll this year has shown that the economy, affordability, is the number one issue concerning voters. And Trump didn't do his party any favors when he recently said he doesn't think about how much Americans are hurting. All we see is a guy who invests more time and energy into his vanity projects than he does the economy.

     A recent Fox poll showed that incumbent Senator Jon Husted is trailing former Senator Sherrod Brown by 8 percentage points in the Ohio Senate race. 8 points is obviously well outside the margin of error. Brown's favorability rating is also at 53%, 12 points higher than Husted's 41%. In a deep red state like Ohio, that should be positively frightening to Republicans.

     It's always dangerous pointing to one state's straw and push polls and trying to make it a synecdoche of the mood of the entire nation but it's tempting to do so when it comes to a red state like Ohio. And this turning red state trend is popping up in other red states like Alaska, Iowa, Maine and Texas (Texas!).

     Yes, Democrats have a better than  even chance of flipping the entire US Senate but that's contingent on the Democratic incumbents hanging on to their seats. But, with poll results coming in from red states, I think for once Democrats have just cause for feeling optimism for this November's midterms.