Earlier in the year, we wrote about reasons for optimism in the midterms, citing several experts who opined about trends in redistricting and the problems with many candidates in GOP primaries. More than one reader suggested we were “whistling past the graveyard”.  Indeed, the macro environment was worse in early July than in the spring.   But after the Dobbs decision and the conclusion of several high-profile Republican primaries, we decided to take another look.

We recently asked more than 1500 Democratic and progressive political professionals—candidates, campaign staffers, consultants, and political directors at party and advocacy groups from coast to coast—to give us their confidential projections about the midterm elections.

In the summary below, we didn’t weigh by age, race, gender, or geography – we included all responses in our totals. This is not a statistically valid poll in the traditional sense.  Still, we found it useful to seek the opinions of clients, friends and others respected in our industry. We adapted the proven social pressure techniques from direct mail and voter phone banks and applied them to text messages.

• Slightly more than one in three respondents think Democrats will retain a majority in the US House—a rosier view than several of the professional election handicappers. More than one in six expect the Republicans to hold at least an 11-seat advantage.

• 85% of respondents think Democrats will hold at least as many US Senate seats in 2023 as they currently do. Almost two-thirds of respondents expect Democrats to gain seats. Women respondents are more confident than men in this survey.

• When asked how likely Trump is to be the Republican nominee in 2024, a strong plurality (43%) say the odds are 50/50. Almost no one says Trump is either guaranteed to be the nominee (4.5%) or guaranteed not to be (2.3%). Respondents lean slightly against Trump being the nominee (34.1% probably/definitely not vs. 22.7% probably will). Again, women are more likely to discount Trump’s chances as are the younger respondents in our survey.

• 46% of these Democratic operatives admit confidentially that they would advise the Biden team to make an early retirement announcement to give potential successors time to build their campaigns; only 18% say they for sure want him to run for reelection. The balance advises the President to wait until late 2023 to decide based on polling, the economy, SCOTUS decisions, etc.  Younger voices in our survey were more likely to call for an early resignation announcement. Women were also more likely than men to suggest President Biden retire.

We thank all those who responded to our survey for taking the time to share their insights. And we thank all our readers who work every day intending to make the USA a more socially and economically just nation.

You can find full-weighted crosstabs and toplines here.

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About Blueprint

Blueprint Polling is a sister company to Chism Strategies that conducts survey research in federal, state, and local elections.  This survey of 712 voters July 19-21, 2022, included landline and mobile phone responses and has a margin of error of +/- 3.67%.  Blueprint conducted this research with no input or funding from any candidate, committee, or interest group.