Democrats Could Use a Cold Shower Before the Midterms

The Democratic wilderness is starting to look awfully sunny. Gone, for the most part, are the blame-casting, hand-wringing, and paralysis-by-analysis that gripped the party after Donald Trump’s reelection. Same with the constant grousing about how the party is fractured, leaderless, locked out of power in Washington, and unloved across the country.Actually, that might all still be true. But you don’t hear about it as much. Democrats are too busy being giddy with anticipation for the midterms. Examples of this hyper-confidence began popping up at the beginning of the year (“Democrats will cruise to victory, including Senate control,” the writer Brian Beutler predicted) and have proliferated since then. Nearly every day seems to bring another Democratic overperformance in a special or off-year election, or another great poll for the party, improved House or Senate forecast, or headline about how Republicans are bracing for a brutal November. Is a blue wave coming? A blue tsunami? Or another blue mirage?The causes for Democratic optimism are legitimate. The president’s approval ratings—historically a solid predictor of a party’s midterm outlook—have now dropped consistently into the 30s. Trump was already underwater on his two most important issues, the economy and the cost of living. Then he launched a protracted, unpopular war of choice with Iran that sent gas prices soaring, the Middle East into turmoil, and his numbers ever further south—all while he dismissed Democrats’ talk of affordability as a “good line of bullshit” and spoke nonstop about the need for an extravagant ballroom at the White House.According to The New York Times’ polling average, 58 percent of Americans disapprove of the president’s overall performance, the highest share since right after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. A recent Fox News poll also showed that, by four percentage points, Americans prefer Democrats to Republicans on the economy, the first time since 2010 that Democrats