Is it the Economy, Stupid?: How this Year’s Midterms are Defying Conventional Wisdom

The United States Congress. Photo by Chuck Kennedy.

The conventional wisdom on midterm elections is that the president’s party loses seats in Congress, and that the most important determinant of a voter’s decision is their opinion of the state of the economy. Given this understanding of midterms, Democrats should approach this election cycle trying to minimize the damage. Democrats have only an eight seat majority in the House of Representatives, and the Senate has the narrowest of all margins: a bare 50 seat Democratic majority with Vice President Kamala Harris on standby to cast tie-breaking votes. With the president’s party losing an average of 28 House seats and four Senate seats in midterm elections since 1934, history is not on the Democrats’ side. Nor is the economy. Over the past year, inflation has been at record highs, American gross domestic product has shrunk over the first two quarters of 2022, and fears of a recession have only grown. Although Democrats have attempted to campaign on other issues, they have been fighting against the most accepted lesson in campaign strategy, best articulated by Clinton campaign strategist James Carville in 1992, that when it comes to election results, it’s “the economy, stupid.” As compelling as this conventional wisdom is, this year’s election is putting it to the test.

Instead of bracing for an electoral shellacking, though, Democrats have been looking forward to a history-defying potential victory: not only hoping to maintain their majorities, but even aiming to expand them. According to the statistical models used by political analysis website FiveThirtyEight to predict election outcomes, throughout August and September, Democrats stood as the party heavily favored to win the Senate while also having a decent chance of keeping control of the House. This came following a spate of legislative wins Democrats scored during the summer, passing huge bills on healthcare, climate, and fiscal policy. Most importantly, Democrats’ chances were buoyed by backlash to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Despite those boosts, as the election has drawn nearer, Democrats’ edge has begun to precipitously fall. According to FiveThirtyEight’s model, since as recently as October 13, Democrats’ chances of winning the Senate have fallen from a comfortable 66% with a likely gain of at least one seat to being locked in a dead heat with Republicans. In the House, Democrats’ chances have seen a similar slump. Given such a dramatic turn of fortune in such a short period of time, the question is: Why is this happening? Is it the economy, stupid? When looking deeper into the information voters are giving pollsters, the answer is an unsatisfying “maybe, maybe not.”

The strategies that the parties have employed provide a test for conventional wisdom. Ever since the Dobbs decision, Democrats nationwide have placed abortion rights at the top of their campaign agenda, seeking to mobilize the Democratic base and persuade swing voters that protecting abortion rights should be their biggest concern. Republicans, meanwhile, have been attacking Democrats as irresponsible stewards of the economy while inflation remains stubbornly high nationwide. By sticking to kitchen table economic issues that resonate with all voters in a time of economic hardship, Republicans hope to tap into voters’ material fears and skirt the issue of abortion, where the Republican party’s anti-abortion stance is broadly unpopular. If conventional wisdom holds true and voters’ economic concerns are driving Democrats’ decline, polls would indicate that the Republican strategy is working, resulting in voters prioritizing economic issues when choosing a candidate over other issues like abortion.

To see if this expectation is coming true, the best place to look is in polling from the most competitive Senate races. Unlike House races, Senate races are polled frequently by various polling organizations, providing a more detailed, reliable picture of the election. They also record the specific issues voters are thinking about and how those thoughts translate into specific election outcomes, unlike national polls of presidential approval or the generic ballot of party preference, neither of which will voters be actually casting a ballot on in November. 

What the Polls Say

The Senate elections examined here are in Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. In Nevada the race is between incumbent Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican challenger Adam Laxalt, in Georgia it is between incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker, and in Pennsylvania, where incumbent Republican Senator Rob Portman is retiring, the Republican candidate, celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, faces the state’s lieutenant governor, the Democrat John Fetterman. Taking place in three different regions with three very different electorates, these races will most likely decide which party will control the Senate. Out of all the polls that have been done and all the questions that those polls have asked, figuring out why the political winds have changed can be done by picking out two high quality polls for each race–one from August or September when Democrats were at their strongest and one from October as the tides began to shift–to look at how voters’ prioritization of economic issues has shifted and seeing how that shift aligns with Republican candidates’ performances.

The data produced by polling casts great doubt on conventional political wisdom explaining the Republican resurgence in terms of voters’ economic concerns. In Nevada, a poll by Suffolk University in August found that the economy was the top priority for 34% of voters, while abortion was a top priority for 13%. In Nevada, Senator Cortez Masto led by 6 percentage points over Adam Laxalt. By October, according to a poll by SSRS, the portion of voters who prioritize the economy rose to 44% and the portion who prioritize abortion remained effectively steady at 14%, with the lead in the race shifting to Laxalt, who took a 2 percentage point lead over Senator Cortez Masto. This data would support the idea that economic concerns are boosting Republicans, yet that conclusion does not carry over to other races. 

In Georgia, a poll by Quinnipiac University in September found that 41% of voters cared most about the economy, 12% cared most about abortion. In Georgia, Senator Warnock led by 6 percentage points over Herschel Walker. In Quinnipiac’s October poll, the race effectively stayed the same, with 43% of voters prioritizing the economy, 14% prioritizing abortion, and Senator Warnock’s lead over Walker growing slightly to 7 percentage points. Georgia’s race staying steady does not fit the narrative of economic issues boosting Republicans. 

Yet, Pennsylvania’s race is the most unusual. Marist College’s October poll found that 39% of voters cared most about the economy, 15% of voters cared most about abortion, and Lt. Governor Fetterman led Dr. Oz by 10 percentage points. According to a Wick poll in October, though, the portions of voters prioritizing the economy and abortion had both actually fallen to 31% and 10%, respectively, while Dr. Oz took a 5 percentage point lead over Fetterman, defying any easy explanation.

It is hard to draw firm conclusions from this data for a variety of reasons. Polls are snapshots in time, not everyone who votes responds to polls, every poll’s result comes with a margin of error, voters’ choices are more nuanced than just choosing a candidate and an important issue, and not every poll of these states asked voters what their most important issues were, limiting the amount of information available. One thing is clear, though: the simple explanation offered by conventional wisdom about the economy cannot account for the dynamics in all of these races. Conventional wisdom predicts the Republican resurgence to be tied to voters increasingly worrying about the economy. At best, this can only explain the shift in the race in Nevada. There does not appear to be a shift in voters’ top issues toward greater concern with the economy driving the Republican resurgence. Instead, polling from key races in Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania shows that parties’ broad strategies, voters’ concerns, and candidates’ fortunes are far removed from the traditional narratives surrounding the midterms. The question of why the election has shifted in Republicans’ favor remains unanswered. Have other issues such as immigration, crime, or investigations into former President Trump taken on greater importance? Has voter enthusiasm for Democrats waned while Republicans have been motivated as a result of seeming Democratic strength to this point? These are viable explanations for the state of the election, but one thing is for sure: the way voters cast their ballots and why will not be known until after the election, so be sure to vote on November 8th. History is in the making.

David Eckl (CC’23) is a staff writer at CPR studying political science and East Asian studies. When not reading for President Bollinger’s class on free speech or doing Chinese homework, he can be found watching Formula 1 or the New York Rangers.