Kerby Anderson

Yesterday I talked about a coming tsunami in our culture. Today, I would like to talk about a red tsunami that may crash upon the 2022 midterm elections.

Dr. Merrill Matthews was on my radio program recently to suggest that the coming red wave election may become a red tsunami. We began by talking about Professor Larry Sabato (Center for Politics at the University of Virginia) who has been looking at elections for decades and has made many accurate predictions. He reminds us that the president’s party usually loses seats in the first midterm elections. That is why he predicts that Republicans could win a majority in the House that may be the biggest in nearly a century.

In the recent past, there have been two red waves. In 1994, Republicans won 54 more House seats than they had won in the previous election. In 2010, they won 64 more Republican House seats. In case you have forgotten, both of those red waves were due to attempts at changing America’s health care system. The first time it was referred to as ClintonCare, and the second time it was called ObamaCare.

Health care reform is not an issue in 2022, so why does Merrill Matthews suggest that a red wave could become a red tsunami? The key difference is who is in the Oval Office. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were popular and great communicators. Those traits (and others we could mention) are not found in the 79-year-old Joe Biden.

The president’s critics can point to lots of disasters ranging from the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan to rising inflation. Candidates for Congress can also remind the voting public that the House and Senate have accomplished very little. A red wave this November seems likely, but it is also possible that it may end up being a red tsunami.