What Republicans and Democrats are planning for the midterm elections: 5 things to know

Republicans are strutting into the holidays after a series of wins in the fall, as they feel confident about overtaking the Democratic majorities in Congress during the 2022 midterm elections.

But Democrats, who control Congress by one of the thinnest margins in U.S. history, say they aren't resigned to defeat as weeks of infighting culminated in a major infrastructure package and possibly an even larger social spending agenda.

In 2022 Congress will be up for grabs as Democrats hold a 50-50 split in the Senate and a 4-seat majority in the House, where personal rancor between leaders and rank-and-file members has intensified since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The results will impact not just the rest of President Joe Biden's agenda and how much of it will be accomplished in his first term, but it could forecast how both parties manage the 2024 presidential contest.

Though the economy has seen a drop in unemployment claims and a rise in stock prices, those big-picture indicators have been eclipsed by a historic 6.2% inflation spike since last year, which has rankled consumers.

Republicans have seized that narrative early and argue it reflects on how poorly President Joe Biden and his Democratic colleagues have managed the country since taking power.

“Midterms are often implicitly or even explicitly about the perceived overreach or perceived mistakes of the presidential party,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the Crystal Ball, a political analysis newsletter at the University of Virginia.

More: Virginia election was opening salvo for 2022 midterms. What's next for Biden, American politics?

Biden is touting passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill, and Democrats are hoping their Build Back Better proposal makes it through the Senate, as polling shows inflation and the economy remain at the top of the list of concerns for Americans

Here are five things to know about Republican and Democratic strategies going into the 2022 elections.

Polls favor the Republicans

For starters, at the moment more Americans want to see the GOP take control of Congress, according to a Nov. 18 poll released by Quinnipiac University.

The survey of roughly 1,400 registered voters found 46% said they would prefer Republicans win the House majority next year, compared to 38% who said they wanted the Democrats to keep control.

The margin widens to a 10-point gap among independents, who favor Republicans over Democrats on the question of running Congress 41% to 31%.

The generic ballot test is an important one, said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, because it “removes the individual dynamics" of a specific race.

Instead it focuses on which direction voters are leaning between the two parties.

“That news should worry the moderate Democratic establishment, who are trying to steer their general elections through traffic and potholes without GPS, and while checking the rearview mirror for progressive Democratic primary challengers eager to overtake,” he said.

When measuring multiple surveys conducted this year on the generic ballot test, Republicans hold a net advantage of plus 4.2%, according to RealClearPolitics.

That is the first time the GOP has been ahead on the generic ballot question since 2014 when Republicans took the Senate under former President Barack Obama.

GOP: Crime, inflation and immigration

As a result, Republican strategists working closely with 2022 campaigns are giddy about their chances, saying they believe the issues voters care about most cater to more conservative voters.

Chief among those issues will be the economy, where poor and working-class Americans are daily witnesses to rising prices. In October, for instance, consumers saw a 0.9% jump in prices compared to the month before.

More: Inflation hit a 31-year high in October, but will it sway voters in the 2022 congressional elections?

What makes sticker shock more potent than other economic woes is that it is easier for average Americans to understand when they see the prices of everyday goods go up.

It is becoming an impossible issue to ignore for either party with 88% of Americans saying inflation is a major concern, according to a Country Financial survey released in October.

“Every time voters swipe their credit card, they're reminded of the inflation crisis the Democrats have created,” Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, told USA TODAY.

Emmer also indicated the NRCC and others plan to inject the country's uptick in violent crime into the 2022 elections, while seeking to tag Democrats as supporters of the “defund the police” movement.

Homicides went up by nearly 30% in 2020, which marks the largest single-year increase since the FBI began recording crime statistics six decades ago.

Those killings were the engine to an overall 5% increase in violent crime last year, the FBI's Uniform Crime Report said in September.

“I know the crime wave is going to put (Democrats) at odds with the American people, because they are the party of defund the police, no matter what they say at this point,” Emmer said.

Another issue GOP strategists are hopeful will catch on with moderate voters is immigration. Specifically, the crisis at the U.S. southern border, which right-leaning activists tried ferociously to put at the center of the country’s attention over the summer.

A Quinnipiac University poll released in mid-October found immigration was the third most important issue for Americans at 14%, which was just behind the economy at 19% and the coronavirus at 16%.

Immigration was the top issue for Republicans at 28%, and it ranked as the second most important for independents at 13%.

"I am very confident that a vote for a Republican is about getting inflation under control; a vote for a Republican next fall is going to be about peace in our streets; and a vote for a Republican is going to be a vote for competent leadership in the House," Emmer said.

What’s good for Democrats?

Kondik, the managing editor of Crystal Ball, said one bright spot for Democrats in 2022 will be fighting over a smaller congressional map. He said while redistricting at the state level will change many congressional seats, Democrats currently only hold seven Trump-won House seats.

“When the Democrats lost 64 seats in 2010, they were defending four dozen John McCain-won seats,” he said. “So to make really huge gains, Republicans will have to cut deeply into Biden-won territory. That can happen in a midterm, though, and it’s not hard to imagine Republicans winning a decent-sized majority next year.”

But Democrats cannot escape that Biden’s approval rating sits in the 40s right now.

More: Gloomy landscape for Democrats in midterms as Biden's approval drops to 38% in USA TODAY/Suffolk poll

When Democrats lost the House in 2010 GOP tidal wave, then-President Barack Obama’s numbers were around 45%.

That's why improving the president’s numbers will be a vital mission for Democrats, who hope enacting the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and potentially passing the massive $2 trillion Build Back Better agenda will boost Biden’s approval rating.

“Anytime you do good things for the voters, you hope that the politics follow,” said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“But our strategy is to do what the country needs by investing in our infrastructure and our families,” he added. “We're succeeding in that. And we think that the politics will follow.”

Maloney said too many people are predicting what will happen in 2022 rather than focusing on the work being accomplished in 2021. He pointed out the historic dip in unemployment — the lowest since 1969 — as a sign of how Biden and the Democrats have kept the economy afloat amid a 100-year pandemic, for instance.

The New York Democrat noted how House Democrats raised $11.6 million last month, which outpaces the $9.7 million raised by the House GOP political arm during the same period.

"If they're so likely to win the next election, you might want to ask why we're kicking their butt on fundraising," Maloney said. "Everybody ought to just retire that crystal ball for a minute, we are very much in this fight."

Strategists working with the DCCC told USA TODAY they are working with the White House on planning a full-scale offensive in key districts to tout the real world gains from the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

House Democrats have already begun to use digital spots to ding GOP lawmakers who vote against their social spending bill and its provisions to protect the environment, bring down prescription drug costs and extend universal pre-K education.

An outpouring in messaging will continue if the social spending proposal, which House Democrats bullied through last week, passes in the Senate.

DCCC's internal polling, shared with USA TODAY, shows Democrats moving in the right direction with voters on the question of who should control Congress after voters learn more about the infrastructure bill and Build Back Better agenda.

In July, Democrats were down on the generic ballot question by 6% compared to 2% in November, according to the internal poll.

Within the party many on the left, such as Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, argue that Democrats need to be bolder in 2022 and wield their majorities in a way that will excite their base and attract voters on the sidelines.

“I think the ultimate persuasion tool is impact,” Pressley told The Washington Post. “And that is why it does not behoove or benefit society and certainly not the Democratic Party for us to play small… I don’t think that we risk the majority by going big. We risk the majority by playing small.”

Polling from Quinnipiac University conducted in October showed the top three urgent issues for Democrats are COVID-19 at 28%; health care at 14% and climate change at 13%.

Democrats are hopeful that coronavirus booster shots and vaccines for younger children will further ease anxieties among their base about COVID-19 and fuel the economic rebound.

Who is vulnerable during redistricting?

Given the House is so evenly divided as states redraw congressional maps based on the decennial census, both parties are uncertain about what many districts will look like next year.

Nonpartisan political analysts at The Cook Political Report currently list 19 competitive congressional races across the country, ranked as either toss-ups, leaning or likely for either party.

Democrats are on the defensive in 12 of those 19 seats.

But what's telling is how both sides agree on which Democrats will be most vulnerable next year.

The NRCC, for instance, unveiled an expanded target map earlier this month that brings their total to an ambitious 70 Democratic incumbents who they are looking to boot from office.

Many on the GOP target map are also on the list of 32 "frontline" incumbents who Democrats announced will be a defensive priority next year,.

Among the most closely watched of those races — where strategists on both sides plan to play out their plans in a redrawn district — will be in Iowa's 3rd Congressional District, where Democrat Cindy Axne announced she was seeking reelection in 2022.

Axne, who voted for the Build Back Better Act, is going to be a top target for GOP attacks on inflation, according to Republican campaign officials.

But she also is an incumbent Democratic officials indicated they will defend fiercely in 2022. Axne is outspoken when it comes to defending her support of supply-chain-related proposals, which she argued in a recent interview will help ease the price hikes.

The DCCC said it isn’t strictly playing defense either, noting they have a target list of 22 congressional seats that are either GOP held or open that they plan to be aggressive in next year.

A 2022 surprise?

One thing that Democratic strategists and political observers said cannot be overlooked is if 2022 is about an entirely different set of issues, such abortion restrictions, which could infuriate progressives.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of the controversial Texas 6-week abortion ban on Nov. 1 and will hear oral arguments in a Mississippi case on Dec. 1.

New data by a Washington Post-ABC News poll shows 60% of Americans believe the high court should uphold its decision in the historic case that ruled abortion access was a constitutional right.

And 75% of Americans said that a woman's decision to get an abortion should be between her and her doctors.

"This is why I am very curious to see what the Supreme Court does about abortion, and what the reaction to that is," Kondik said. "A ruling that does away with Roe vs. Wade could have a mobilizing effect on Democrats. That is something to watch."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Midterm strategy: What Republicans and Democrats are planning