Democrats limp into Election Day without a bumper sticker

It is a big key to every election — the winning campaign slogan. The message that is powerful yet pithy enough to fit on a bumper sticker.

In the modern political era, the best ones are easy to list without looking them up: 

* Ronald Reagan, 1980: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

* Barack Obama, 2012: “GM is alive and Osama Bin Laden is dead”

* Donald Trump, 2016: “Make America Great Again”

In 2022, it’s difficult to find the Democratic bumper sticker heading into the midterms. The party has used much of the national television time allotted to it without interruption for the Jan. 6 committee hearings, which began with tremendous hype and ended having little impact on the election and changing few minds.

Even “Saturday Night Live” mocked the committee’s effectiveness recently. Here’s SNL cast member Heidi Gardner as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.): “Whether you’re a Republican who’s not watching or a Democrat who’s nodding so hard your head is falling off, one person is responsible for this insurrection: Donald Trump. And one person will suffer the consequences: Me.”

When looking at top voter priorities, the news gets worse for Democrats and any bumper-sticker potential. In a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris poll for The Hill, just 7 percent of those surveyed said the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot was an issue they deemed important, while 37 percent said price increases and inflation mattered most; 29 percent viewed the economy and jobs as a top concern, while 23 percent believed immigration is. “Women’s rights” (See: abortion) finished fifth overall. 

So, if the Democratic bumper sticker is “Vote Democratic because democracy is at stake” or “Vote for Democrats, save abortion” … well, those two issues are dwarfed by inflation, the economy, crime, drugs and the border. And as we’ve seen time and again, most political races (especially midterms) come down to two things: A referendum on the party in power, and how people feel regarding what they pay for food, clothes, gas, their electric bills, rent, etc.

In his first midterm in 1994, then-President Clinton lost 54 seats in the House, despite polling higher than President Biden does today. Same goes for President Obama in 2010, who also polled higher than Biden today but still lost 63 seats. 

Republicans need to flip just five seats to take back the chamber. 

Democrats had momentum in August after passing the so-called Inflation Reduction Act along party lines. But just because a bill becomes law doesn’t necessarily mean it’s popular. And it’s why so many Democrats are avoiding even broaching the Inflation Reduction Act on the campaign trail in this homestretch, because multiple studies and analyses show it will not reduce inflation and, instead, may only initially increase it. 

Voters know this. A recent YouGov poll asked: “Do you think that this bill will increase or decrease inflation?” Just 12 percent – 12 percent! – of adults said it will decrease inflation, while 23 percent said it won’t change anything. 

If ever there was legislation that couldn’t be more contradictory in its name, it’s truly difficult to recall. 

As for the Senate, the alarms are sounding there for the Blue Team as well. The RealClearPolitics forecast now puts the GOP in control of the chamber, with a 52-48 edge after all the votes are counted. And the nonpartisan Cook Political Report just shifted its ratings for Senate races in Florida and in blue Washington state in favor of Republicans. 

FiveThirtyEight, which once gave Democrats a 70 percent chance of holding the Senate, has dropped that chance down to 60 percent in just the past few weeks. 

You get the feeling that momentum is decidedly at the GOP’s back right now, and it’s showing up in the polls. Inflation isn’t going anywhere. Gas prices will likely continue to increase or stay at their current high levels. Violent crime is front and center on every local newscast. And President Biden is being shunned by fellow Democrats in key races in Ohio, Georgia and Arizona because he’s still polling poorly in those states, as well as nationally.

The blame game has already begun, most notably from a former president who has been curiously inactive on the campaign trail until very recently. 

“Where we get into trouble sometimes is when we try to suggest that some groups are more — because they historically have been victimized more, that somehow they have a status that’s different than other people,” Barack Obama said in an interview with Pod Save America recently. “We’re going around scolding folks if they don’t use exactly the right phrase, or that identity politics becomes the principal lens through which we view our various political challenges,” he said.  

“Sometimes Democrats are [a buzzkill],” Obama concluded. 

As we’ve seen throughout this campaign cycle, Democrats are attempting to run against Donald Trump, who hasn’t been in office for 21 months. But that won’t cut it when pocketbook/kitchen table issues blot out everything else, especially in races for the Senate and the House. 

Every election has its share of slogans; some fall flat, while others really resonate. 

For Democrats in 2022, there is no bumper sticker to evaluate — because it’s nonexistent. That’s what happens when a party has so few positive things to run on. 

Joe Concha is a politics and media columnist.