In The Generic 2022 Ballot, The GOP Is Surging To Heights Not Seen In Recent History

It’s becoming clearer that on COVID-19 the Democrats are prioritizing science. Political science.

Just as the gallows concentrate the mind, in 18th-century British philosopher Samuel Johnson’s famous take, the prospect of Democrats being wiped out in the 2022 midterms is having an impact.

Blue states from Delaware to California are pulling down the COVID barricades erected by masking, lockdowns, and shaming the unvaxxed.

Even Beto O’Rourke is getting the message.

Three years ago the left-wing Texas congressman said “hell, yes” he was coming to take away guns, if elected president in 2020. This week, however, as Beto seeks to oust Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, O’ROurke had a different tune: “I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone. What I want to make sure that we do is defend the Second Amendment. I want to make sure that we protect our fellow Texans far better than we’re doing right now.”

Conservative columnist Allahpundit has a theory of the behavior driving Beto and the sudden no-maskers.

On Real Clear Politics’ question of the “generic” ballot for 2022, the Republicans have topped 47 percent of voter support. That, Allahpundit said, is unheard of.

“To appreciate just how unusual it is for the [Republican] party to top 47 percent in the RCP average of generic ballot polling, you should take 60 seconds and look at where the GOP stood in previous cycles,” Allahpundit wrote on Thursday.

Two years ago, the GOP maxed out at 43.2 percent. Two years before that it was 42.4 percent. Back in the Trump wave of 2016, congressional Republicans received a max of 45.4 percent. In 2014, in which the Republicans took back Congress, they achieved a high of 46.6 percent, which was up from the 46 percent the GOP received in 2012.

Rather, you’d have to look back 12 years, when the GOP slaughtered Democrats to take over the House, to find the party in the rarefied air it now inhabits.  

And even then, the harbinger of the “red tsunami” was not evident until August that year. At this point in 2010, the GOP was at 45.2 percent – a full two percentage points below where it is now.

“And if all of that’s not frightening enough for Democrats, note that the 2020 generic ballot polling badly underestimated Republican support on Election Day,” Allahpundit wrote.

“The final average that year put the GOP at just 42.5 percent but the party ended up taking 47.7 percent of the vote on November 3, good enough to shrink Nancy Pelosi’s margin in the House and almost flip the chamber.”

That was due to the same “nonresponse bias” in polling about Donald Trump, which caused pollsters to vastly underestimate his support.

“If nonresponse bias is still at work in today’s data, the true level of GOP support on the generic ballot may be in uncharted territory,” said Allahpundit.

Republican leaders seem to sense what is at hand.

As Allahpundit noted, “The generic ballot polling also explains why Mitch McConnell has been willing to antagonize MAGA types lately by slamming the RNC for its censure of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.”

“McConnell is playing a prevent defense; he doesn’t want to hear, or say, one word that might potentially give swing voters a reason to potentially reconsider their anti-Biden tilt towards the GOP. If that means taking on populists over January 6, he’s willing to do that.”

The GOP should not get cocky. But it’s clear that the GOP should heed the adage often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.

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