We are on the eve of the start of the first big segment of the primary season for the 2022 election.  Texas had its primary back in March, but primary season really starts this Tuesday with primaries in Ohio and and Indiana.

Including the Texas run-off, there are primaries or run=offs set for every week between now and June 28 other than the week of Memorial Day.  During that period, a grand total of thirty states will have primaries or run-offs (with some having both).  There is normally a longer breaker between the Spring primaries and the late Summer/early fall round of primaries.  But due to postponed election dates, Maryland will have its primary in mid-July and North Carolina will have its run-off on July 5 or July 26, depending on the offices which require a run-off.  Phase two of the primary season begins on August 2 and runs through September 13.

Mid-term elections are tough for the party in power.   The public always want the big problems solved instantly.  And big problems are typically years in the making and will require years to solve.  Making things worse, the party that wins an election always tries to pass what their primary voters want (which is not the same as what general election voters want) but ends up with in-fighting between the various factions of the party.  It has been a long time since any party has won by a big enough margin to be able to pass legislation despite those differences.

This year’s mid-terms have several complicating factors.  First, there is the on-going redistricting issues.  Normally, by this time of the cycle, redistricting is done.  This year, in part due to the delay in releasing the Census numbers and state courts upholding state constitutional rules on districts, maps have been very fluid and are not yet final.  Two states (Missouri and New Hampshire) have not yet finished redistricting (which might ultimately be decided by the courts due to in-party disagreements within the Republican Party), two states are currently without maps due to court rulings (New York and Kansas), and several states still have pending court cases which might or might not be resolved in time for this year’s election.  With the caveat of the unresolved status of several state maps, the one thing that seems to be clear is that redistricting is mostly a net wash.  That’s not a completely good thing as the 2010 maps were pretty biased in favor of the Republicans.  While the map has not shifted in favor of either party, it has shifted against general election voters.  In the states in which the Republicans have been in control, they have tended to eliminate swing districts and turned lean Republican seats into safe Republican seats.  It is almost certain that we will have fewer swing districts than in past cycles, And unless courts reject the seats in Florida, we already have more safe Republican seats for the 2022-30 elections than we had for the 2012-20 elections.   The Democrats have, on the other hand, tended to draft maps with more winnable seats at the expense of safety.  And, many of the nominal Democratic gains were in seats that were already electing Democrats (even though such seats were toss-ups).  So, while Democrats have slightly better chances at gaining a majority in a decent year, the Republicans are better protected against bad years.  Given current numbers, the Republicans will have an advantage going into the general election for the House.

Second, the Senate map is actually slightly favorable for the Democrats.  With a handful of exceptions, most states have been electing Senators of the same party that won the presidential vote in the state.  Since two of the states that flipped in 2020 (Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) are on the ballot this year, Democrats have a chance at picking up those two seats.  Of course, there are some states that Democrats narrowly one in 2020 that might flip Republican in 2024 that are on the ballot too.

The Democrats are certainly hurt by the fact that we “won” in 2020 without winning.  A 50-50 split in the Senate has made it almost impossible to get anything done.  And that difficulty is complicating by the fact that Senator Joe Manchin is acting like the Emperor in Amadeus (too much spending, not enough taxes) and Senator Krysten Sinema has an entirely different set of objections and is insisting that she will not budge on anything.

The Democrats real hope of surviving, however, is the Republican Party or, to be more precise, the Trump wing of the Republican Party.  And that hope is on display in the Ohio (May 3) and Pennsylvania (May 17) primaries.  In both states, you have an open Senate seat and a large number of Republican candidates.  Similarly, in both states, you have multiple candidates running for the Republican nomination for Governor (even though in Ohio, the incumbent is a traditional conservative Republican).  The races in both states have been a headlong spring to see who can portray themselves as the biggest ally to the treasonous former President.  And, at least in the two Senate races, Trump has weighed in by endorsing extremely unqualified candidates.    While the other candidates in both races also have flaws, the Democrats have to be hoping the Trump gets his way.  Of course, the risk is that with party-line voting in the general, those psychophants could actually get elected to the Senate.

So the whole country is watching the primaries in these two and other states.   In the handful of contested races in which Trump has endorsed, will his endorsement make the difference.  (And, it is more likely to make the difference in the races with crowded fields where 25% might be enough to win.)  Or will the saner voices in the Republican Party (which are not always that sane) manage to prevail.  Regardless of whom emerges in these primaries, Democrats will have to work very hard in the general and occasional Democratic voters must turn out.  If the Democrats can keep the House and pick up two or three seats in the Senate (eliminating the Manchin & Sinema vetoes over legislation), there will still be two years left before the presidential election to finish what could not be done in this Congress.  If we lose either, we will spend the next two years investigating Hunter Biden and impeaching cabinet members for not being Republicans and maybe not filling any judicial vacancies.