Newt Gingrich outlines the hurdles the Democrats face in 2022.

Newt Gingrich Former House Speaker; Chairman of Gingrich 360

Commentary

Our commentary partners will help you reach your own conclusions on complex topics.
What happens to China after Xi Jinping dies?
Jul 15 Peter Zeihan
Impact of Italy’s older, shrinking population
Jul 8 Peter Zeihan
‘On death’s door’: Undecided voters react to first debate
Jul 5 Dr. Frank Luntz
Biden and Trump are both unfit to be president
Jul 5 Peter Zeihan

Opinion

A decaying president and a tone deaf tweet. The Dems are in trouble in 2022.

Jan 12, 2022

Newt Gingrich Former House Speaker; Chairman of Gingrich 360

By Straight Arrow News

Pressure is mounting on the Democrats with the all-important mid-term elections getting closer every day, and they aren’t doing themselves any favors. A number of people on the left are retiring, putting the Democratic Party at a real disadvantage.

That creates open seats, increases the opportunities, stretches their resources.

Even if it’s a democratic seat, the people who run the primary are all gonna be out gathering money and absorbing resources that could have gone into competitive races.

President Biden is decaying daily. His poll numbers continue sagging, and he’s showing a real inability to deal with a long list of issues including inflation, migration, and, of course, COVID. He most recently set off a debate about how the country is dealing with the coronavirus when he called it a “pandemic of the unvaccinated“.

Beyond that, the White House is simply out of touch. We saw a great example of that in the midst of the huge traffic jam on I-95 in Virginia where people were trapped overnight as snow and ice brought everything to a standstill. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) was among the hundreds of drivers caught in the crisis with many calling and posting their story from their cell phones. Yet, the Vice President’s staff decided that was the right time to send out a tweet from Kamala Harris commenting on how the infrastructure bill had America moving again. How tone deaf can you be?

The Democrats are also dealing with a rocky economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell did not specifically address interest rate hikes at a Capitol Hill hearing on his nomination for a second term, but it’s likely an increase is on the way. Gas prices are also about to rise, and supply chain problems aren’t going away.

All of this could add up to a remarkable year for the Republicans, giving them the majority in both chambers and making House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) the Speaker.

As we enter 2022, I think virtually everybody is gonna look ahead to the elections. And it’s very interesting how many people on the democratic side are now retiring. In fact, they may be moving towards a record for the number of retirees. That creates open seats, increases the opportunities, stretches their resources.

Even if it’s a democratic seat, the people who run the primary are all gonna be out gathering money and absorbing resources that could have gone into competitive races.

At the same time, President Biden continues to decay as a president, his polling numbers get worse, his inability to deal with COVID, his inability to deal with inflation, his inability to deal with migration. The whole process we’re watching is one of failure.

It was sort of captured when there was a huge, uh, traffic jam on I-95 at Fredericksburg, Virginia, people literally were trapped in their car for about 24 hours. And it was in the middle of that, that, Kamala Harris’ staff sent out a tweet from Kamala Harris commenting on how the new infrastructure bill had America back on the road moving again. It was about as weird a moment as you’re gonna get and made her look kind of like she was totally outta touch with what’s going on.

That by the way, was a traffic jam so big that a US Senator actually was trapped in the traffic jam for about 24 hours. Cars were running out of gas cuz they had to keep their engines running just to stay warm. And it was, it was a pretty good mess although luckily I don’t think anybody was killed, which was a good thing.

The, economy, I think, is gonna be very rocky this year. Sooner or later the Federal Reserve is gonna have to raise interest rates cuz the inflation rate is gonna continue to rise.

The shortages are gonna continue. There are now over 120 ships that are sitting offshore from Long Beach. That’s up from about 60 a few months ago. They cannot solve their whole logistics chain problem. That’s gonna take them six months or a year more.

If they’re lucky to get that done, the energy problems will continue. The price of gasoline’s about to start going back up.

So I think it’s gonna be a challenging year for the Democrats, and could end up being a remarkably good year, uh, making, Kevin McCarthy speaker, giving the Republicans a majority again in the Senate.

So, we’ll see what happens and I’ll be reporting as the year goes on.