Midterm election misery for Biden as key economy gauge flags 30-seat loss

Bloomberg

Whatever else is on Americans’ minds — and that’s a long list right now — the state of the economy looms large in any US election. That spells big trouble for Democrats in November’s midterm vote.
A new study by Bloomberg Economics takes one gauge with a knack of predicting ballot outcomes and projects it forward through election day.
The result: Based on past voting patterns, President Joe Biden’s party can expect to lose 30 to 40 seats in the House and a few in the Senate too, easily wiping out razor-thin Democratic majorities.
Of course, economics is only one part of the calculation that voters make. Democrats will be hoping that anger over abortion and gun laws and the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by a right-wing mob will energize their supporters.
There are lots of forecasting models, using all kinds of inputs and they’re predicting a range of outcomes. The analysis firm Inside Elections, for example, sees likely Democratic losses in the House at between 12 and 30 seats. Others indicate anything from a wash, with both parties ending up roughly where they started, to GOP gains of 45 seats or more.
Still, the consensus is that Democrats face an uphill battle. On most days lately, there’s enough in the economic headlines to suggest that a reverse for the incumbent party is all but baked-in.
Last week, the Federal Reserve delivered its biggest back-to-back interest-rate hikes since the early 1980s, as it seeks to tame soaring prices by squeezing consumers and homebuyers. And the government reported that the US economy has in fact been shrinking since the start of this year, cueing a partisan row in Washington about whether the country is already in a recession.
Officially, it probably isn’t — partly because it’s still creating plenty of jobs. Low unemployment, and an abundance of open positions, will be the Democrats’ strongest talking point on the economy in the coming campaign.
It’s the other component of the misery index that’s causing their problems, and making many Americans feel like they’re already battling through some kind of slump.