How Hopeful Should Democrats Be About the Midterms?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

53% : On the campaign trail, especially in closely contested races, few Democratic candidates emphasize January 6th, choosing instead to talk about abortion rights and the Administration's investments in health care, infrastructure, and clean energy.
45% : Much like the Republicans, the Democrats have responded to education polarization by following a path of least resistance, theorizing that they do not need to change their commitments on abortion, climate policy, student-debt relief, and L.G.B.T.Q. rights in order to maintain a majority.
44% : During the primaries, when I travelled with Republican candidates across the Midwest and South, the atmosphere was unique, in that many were at once saying extreme things -- that the 2020 election had been stolen, that when they won power they would ban abortion with no exceptions, even for rape or incest -- and, at the same time, very obviously measuring the drapes.
41% : Ten days later, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, effectively removing the federal guarantee of abortion rights, and opening the door to a wave of state legislation seeking to ban abortion.
39% : But it also asks the Party's voters to back some extreme positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, and cultural traditionalism generally.
34% : Conservatives in Kansas arranged a voter referendum to establish a constitutional ban on abortion in the state, and it failed spectacularly.
31% : On August 7th, the Senate finally passed the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden's diminished but still signature omnibus bill, which raised taxes on corporations and stock buybacks and invested in clean energy and cheaper prescription drugs.
31% : Charles Franklin, who directs the Marquette Law School poll of Wisconsin voters, pointed out to me that, after the Dobbs decision, just five per cent of registered voters in Wisconsin believed that abortion should be illegal in all cases.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.