Henry Olsen of The Washington Post recently wrote that he believes, based on the current political climate and historical precedent, the GOP will, at a minimum, pick up 20-35 seats in the House. He says that gaining fifty seats isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
So, with disaster on the horizon, it appears that Joe Biden is going for a Hail Mary.
In a speech on gun violence Thursday night, Biden made his usual insincere call for unity while demanding Republicans get on board with his gun control plans. Many political experts believe the speech had more to do with the midterms than guns.
“The White House set the scene to exploit the murders for votes,” Fox News Digital’s Dan Gainor observed. “Biden was flanked on both sides by rows of burning candles representing the 56 states and territories. The drama was about resuscitating the Democrat base in time for November.”
Gainor’s assessment wasn’t unique.
“In an acknowledgement [sic] that Congress may not touch his wish list of legislation, Biden made a political point, saying that he believes Americans will make it a central issue when it is time to vote,” Emily Cochrane of the New York Times noted.
Her NYT colleague Glenn Thrush agreed. “Biden’s speech was a broad summons to the American people — and a vow to make the issue of guns central in the midterm elections,” he said.
Related: Joe Biden Is Still Drowning as Approval Hits New Record Low
“This is the kind of legislation that could theoretically excite the democratic base right before the midterms,” left-wing writer Molly Jong-Fast predicted.
But, will it? Spoiler alert: It won’t, and there are many reasons.
For starters, Biden is past the point of being able to save his party. Last month, CNN acknowledged that polls show Biden was near “the point of no return with Americans on the economy” and dangerously close to an “irreversible severing of public confidence in his capacity to deliver prosperity and financial security.”
Bill Clinton pollster Doug Sosnik also said the Democrats’ fate in the upcoming midterms can’t be changed at this point, as past elections have proven that by this point, the voters have already “lock[ed] in on their views of the state of the country and their expectations for the future.”
“In the last four midterm elections, by June the public had made up its mind about the leadership in Washington and how they were going to vote in November,” he wrote.
Even Politico admitted that the speech won’t change anyone’s mind. Like the abortion issue before it, many on the left fail to understand the political bubbles they’re in. Many thought that the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade might save the Democrats from getting destroyed in November.
“This gives Dems a fighting chance in [November],” predicted S.E. Cupp after the leak of the draft opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson. She was not alone in making this prediction, of course. Social media was full of unhinged liberals promising “payback” in November.
However, a CNN poll taken after the Dobbs draft majority opinion leak found that enthusiasm to vote in November increased slightly for both the left and the right. On top of that, the generic Republican edge over Democrats even increased slightly. The left often thinks that they’re the only side with activists… that they’re the only ones with any passion for the political process. They don’t realize that there are people as passionately pro-life as they are pro-abortion. They don’t realize that there are people as passionate about gun rights as they are about gun control.
That’s what happens when you live in a bubble.