Democrats Are Set to Lose Big in 2022. Why Not Go Out With a Bang?

Pictured above: President Biden signing a bill on the lawn of the White House.

By Ryan Konarska ‘25

Democrats began the year with high hopes for the midterm elections and the Biden presidency. Fresh off two victories in the Senate runoffs in Georgia and the passage of the popular and effective American Rescue Plan, it seemed like Democrats might just break the midterm curse that Clinton, Obama, and Trump all endured in their first terms. The first test of whether this midterm curse was to be broken would be in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections, where big Democratic victories in 2017 seemed to foreshadow their 2018 success. Democrats had reason to be optimistic: moderate, experienced, and relentlessly electable former Governor Terry McAuliffe was back for round two in Virginia, and incumbent Phil Murphy, with the vast majority of New Jerseyans approving of his response to the pandemic, seemed on track to cruise to victory. Even in a nightmare scenario, Murphy’s margin of victory would be kept to around 10 points and McAuliffe would just scrape by.

Where Did It All Go Wrong?

In the November 2021 elections, Republican Glenn Youngkin, a Virginia businessman known for his relentless crusade against Critical Race Theory, won the governorship of Virginia by about 2 points after Biden had swept the state by 10 points one year prior. In New Jersey, it was Murphy who won by just over 3 points in a state Biden won by 14. With these results, the chance that Democrats had to hold on to Congress in the midterms evaporated. Congressional Democrats’ woes are exacerbated rampant GOP gerrymandering in the House and the structural bias towards Republicans in the Senate, as every state, no matter how small, is awarded two senators and Repbublicans hold disproportionate strength in these small states. If the swings seen in these elections were replicated across the country, Democrats would lose the House and Senate by wide margins.

With Biden’s approval rating sagging to Trump levels, it seems Democrats are on course for another 2022 “red wave” in the vein of 1994 and 2010. Many Democrats inside the Congressional delegation have already expressed concern that the results in Virginia and New Jersey represent a grave warning that Democrats need to ditch plans to pass a massive social spending bill. The pariah of the Democratic base, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), stated “for [the Senate] to go down a path that we’ve been trying to accelerate – I think we need to take our time and do it right.” Manchin’s warning affirms the belief shared among many Democrats:that the election results in Virginia and New Jersey represent a grave omen for 2022, and that the only way to avoid massive defeat is to hit the brakes on reconciliation and lurch to the center. But no matter how Democrats change their ways, it is almost certain at this point that Republicans will make gains in 2022—and given the minuscule majorities Democrats enjoy in both chambers, any gains at all would be enough to flip Capitol Hill.

Given the irresistible pull of history Democrats have been locked into leads towards midterm doom, why not go out with all policy guns blazing? Democrats should seek to cement their legacy by passing a major social spending bill, dubbed “Build Back Better” or “BBB” by the White House’s press team, rather than running to the center in the foolish hope that the midterms are still winnable. The tenets within BBB would be transformative: Paid Family Leave, Universal Pre-K, and hundreds of billions of dollars in spending to combat Climate Change have been at the core of Democrats’ agenda for years. These investments would cement Biden’s legacy and demonstrate to the Democratic base that their leadership can deliver on their promises when in power, helping to get them to turn out in 2022 and salvage as much as possible in the face of an inevitable “red wave.”

Democrats have been in this situation before. In 2010, Republican Scott Brown's shock victory in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate special election caused Democrats to hit the brakes and quickly pass the Affordable Care Act without a public option and to kill the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill. The momentum behind the legislative agenda of President Obama was lost, and Democrats failed to pass any further meaningful legislation. 

The cautionary tale of 2010 offers two lessons for Democrats today. The first is that infighting and indecision over legislation is the primary cause for backlash at the ballot box, not necessarily the legislation itself. Democrats have been locked in a fight of 48 against 2 for the past several months now as both the White House and congressional leaders try to get the most right-leaning members of the Senate Democratic caucus, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, to sign on to a massive reconciliation package. Through this battle, Democrats have appeared as a hopelessly divided and rudderless party—the ultimate sin in the eyes of voters.

The second lesson 2010 offers is that when such a massive piece of legislation is passed, it’s useless to run and hide from it, as it allows the opposition to control the narrative. In 2010, the last thing congressional Democrats wanted to talk about on the campaign trail was the ACA—they tacitly gave in to the GOP’s framing that “Obamacare” was a rotten piece of legislation that was hurting Americans. Only after Trump’s election and the GOP’s efforts to repeal the ACA did Democrats suddenly discover that many of its provisions were indeed very popular—fighting to protect the ACA, particularly its guarantee of coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, turned from Democrats’ biggest self-induced liability in 2010 to their greatest asset in 2018. If the reconciliation bill is passed, Democrats should embrace it and build their midterm messaging around its historic provisions.

The two-pronged approach of bringing BIF (the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework) and the BBB bill to Biden’s desk at the same time has fallen apart. On November 15, President Biden signed BIF after congressional Democrats allowed its passage on the condition that a second reconciliation bill be passed. On December 19, Joe Manchin reneged on this deal by announcing on Fox News Sunday that he could not bring himself to vote for the BBB bill passed by the house due to concerns over rising inflation. Manchin’s words dealt a huge blow to the effort to pass BBB, but while the bill may be on life support, it is far from dead—Democrats must return to the negotiating table and craft a bill that can win Manchin’s support, or else face punishment from voters in 2022.

By finishing the job and passing BBB, Democrats could prove to voters that they care about both the nation’s physical infrastructure—crumbling bridges, highways, and rail lines—and its human infrastructure—preschool, prescription drug prices, and the Child Tax Credit, helping establish a clear relationship in the eyes of voters between Democratic governments and support for working families. All indicators point to many of BBB’s proposed provisions, particularly Universal Pre-K and Paid Family Leave, being popular among the American public. Democrats shouldn’t blow this chance to salvage their declining popularity and cement the legacy of the Biden years by going big and passing a comprehensive social spending bill such as BBB.