Conventional wisdom is that Democrats are doing better than they were a few months ago and what was once assumed to be a red wave now looks more like a trickle. Where are we? I think that the recent special elections are consistent with the idea that we are at something of a neutral political environment. It just seems to me at the moment that turnout is going to be through the roof on both sides. It's going to be higher than it was in 2018. And both sides have reason to turn out now. Then it becomes a question of which of the two sides ultimately kind of has the upper hand. So, the case for Republicans is, just historically, what really matters and what has mattered in midterms has been the performance of the incumbent. You've had some pretty abysmal data points for [President Joe] Biden that Republicans have made hay out of, from the inflation figures to the rise in gas prices. Those are the things that really kind of defined the election up until about a couple of months ago. The Democratic argument, I guess, would be that this is something of an election almost like '98 or '02, where you had kind of a historical event happen that disrupts that midterm pattern. I think that the burden of proof is maybe a little bit higher on Democrats here, because that doesn't happen very often. The counter-examples are small, right? The '98 midterm with the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the '02 midterm after 9/11. Is there a possibility that overturning Roe v. Wade was kind of a historical event or a disruption on the level of those things? Yeah, it's possible. But Biden is not necessarily sitting at a 60 percent plus approval rating as we're having this conversation. So, there's that possibility, but the burden of proof is still high that it's actually going to turn out that way, particularly as Republicans have a chance to sharpen their messaging, which has honestly been all over the place this summer. How should Republicans do that? It's trying to bring that focus back to the economy, right? I feel like it's just been such defense for the last two months that really that has not broken through. I would say that's still going to be pretty powerful when it comes to the fundamental metrics being pretty bad in terms of the right-track number being in the 20s and Biden's approval rating being still underwater by a considerable degree and his approval on the economy still being underwater by a considerable degree. What should we draw from Democratic overperformance in a series of special elections this year? Obviously, specials are imperfect predictors at best of what will happen in the fall. These have been pretty low-turnout specials. I could certainly make an argument that when it comes to that more expanded electorate, Democrats won't necessarily be able to sustain that motivation in the same way. But it clearly seems that they might. I don't think the specials point to, necessarily, a political environment that leans Democrat, but it does signal that they maybe eroded a lot of the Republican advantage that existed earlier in the cycle. There's absolutely been a shift that Republicans have needed to reckon with. There's sort of a sense of, well, there's not really much margin or room for error, when the conversation prior to this was like, well, is it going to be a 30-seat gain, is it going to be a 20-seat gain? And now we're talking about something where Republicans are still clearly favored to take the House, but it's a more narrow window in which to do it. So, does this all come down to Roe? I would be in the camp that says it was a hugely significant event. I think this is something that clearly disrupted the momentum that Republicans had. I think also there wasn't a clear response to it in terms of candidates saying exactly what their position was or laying out a position that was more middle of the road in terms of this. As a result, that leaves Democrats to kind of paint the worst-case scenario for the voters, right? So, if you yourself will not say exactly what you believe, what you would do, what you would vote for, then I think Democrats can come back and say, well, it's going to be a six-week ban all across the country, no matter what state you're in. Your polling suggests reducing inflation is more important to voters than protecting abortion rights. Do you think inflation will still decide the election? Ultimately, I think there's a better chance it gets decided on inflation than it gets decided on Roe. Even in our polling, we did a head-to-head of inflation versus protecting abortion rights as sort of, what is the defining issue. And it was like a 66-to-27 split in favor of inflation. I just think that has been such a cross-cutting issue this cycle. Nonetheless, the Roe issue right now is a huge motivator for the Democratic base, which puts them in the game at least to some extent. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight's authors at dsiders@politico.com and mward@politico.com or on Twitter @davidsiders and @MyahWard . And keep up with tonight's election results with Massachusetts Playbook reporter Lisa Kashinsky and on POLITICO's live page for Massachusetts.
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