I spoke to Bloomberg Businessweek‘s Joshua Green about what would have to happen for Democrats to have a fighting chance to defy history and maintain the House majority through the midterm election.
Any upset would be predicated on one thing: a return to normalcy. Insiders agree that inflation would have to fall and Covid subside to the point where schools stay open and masks are an afterthought. “It needs to feel like 2019, not 2021,” says Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist.
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As much as Democrats might loathe the prospect of his return, Trump could plausibly short-circuit historical voting patterns by sowing discord within his party and sabotaging Republican voter enthusiasm. To defy predictions, Democrats probably need him to be a high-profile negative factor in the months leading up to the election.
Donovan has a theory about how that might occur. “For the last year, Trump has been in a straitjacket where he can’t harm his own party,” he says. “With Jack Dorsey [the former Twitter Inc. chief executive officer] leaving, maybe he gets back on Twitter.”
That would vault Trump back into the public spotlight. And then, who knows? Says Donovan, “There’s no bigger midterm wild card than letting the tiger out of its cage.”
Read the full piece here.