OPINION:
As Sherlock Holmes famously observed, it’s often the dog that didn’t bark who cracks the case.
Our great mystery today is the upcoming midterm elections. Who will win?
Democrats, the media and pollsters — not to repeat myself thrice — insist there is a howling wind at the back of Democrats heading into the midterms. The giant red wave is failing to materialize, they say.
These are the very same idiots, it is worth remembering, who said Donald Trump would never be president and confidently predicted that President Biden would win the state of Wisconsin by 17 points in 2020. Mr. Trump won in 2016, of course, and Mr. Biden won Wisconsin by less than 1 percentage point.
Lo, they are back at it again.
Robert Cahaly, the founder of Trafalgar Group, is one of the only pollsters in America to have a winning record in the political prognostication business over the past few elections. Two shocking polls that he has conducted show Democratic Sen. Patty Murray winning reelection in Washington state by about 3 points.
An incumbent Democrat. In Washington state. Three points. In 2016, Ms. Murray was reelected by 18 points.
If Ms. Murray wins reelection by just 3 points this year, these midterms will be an absolute bloodbath for Mr. Biden and Democrats.
It is true that the Trafalgar polls are an outlier — as they often are. And by “outlier,” we mean “the only ones even close.”
Mr. Cahaly has been fairly magical in his ability to identify “shy” Trump voters who don’t want to talk to pollsters. And even if they take the call, these voters have no interest in telling strangers over the phone whom they intend to vote for.
Understandably, the reluctance of these elusive voters has only gotten more intense since Mr. Biden began openly calling them fascists, racists and threats to democracy. And it probably does not help that Mr. Biden has dispatched SWAT teams from his Department of Justice to begin raiding the homes of his political enemies.
Anyway, the polling business is rotten and many pollsters are liars.
It is far better to listen for the barkless dog, which we will get to in a moment. But another great way to predict elections is to look at the campaigns that candidates are running in hopes of winning those elections.
Increasingly, Democrats running for reelection this year are becoming more and more hysterical in their desperate bids to cling to power.
Obviously, they do not want to talk about Mr. Biden, whom even pollsters cannot retrieve from the toilet. Democrats would much rather talk about Mr. Trump, who has been out of power for nearly two years now.
Also, Democratic campaigns focus heavily on the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol, which have precisely nothing to do with any of the Republicans they are running against. Anyway, Jan. 6 is ancient history that has no bearing whatsoever on the lives, concerns or interests of normal American voters.
Most notably, Democrats want to talk about abortion. Indeed, probably their best chance to hold on to power is to campaign on abortion.
In other words, abortion is more popular than your generic Democrat running for reelection this year. The party is actually hitching its political fortunes to a gruesome medical procedure that nearly everyone agrees — at the very most — should be “safe, legal and rare.”
Vote Democratic — we are less popular than abortion.
The most startling feature of these midterms, however, is what nobody is campaigning on — the dog that doesn’t bark.
Not a single Democrat running for reelection this year is running on their record. The party has been in power for two years now. They control the White House and both chambers of Congress. They have been running the show for two years now.
Yet they cannot point to a single accomplishment on which they can ask voters to return them to power.
Pandemic lockdowns? The economy? Gas prices? Inflation? War in Ukraine? Open borders?
Not a peep from Democrats on any of these signature issues that define their unchecked power these past two years.
Even Mr. Biden’s desperate and cynical vote-buying scam forcing taxpayers to pay trillions to wealthy, woke universities has backfired so badly that Democrats refuse to discuss it on the campaign trail.
Everybody hates all the political ads this time of year. So hit the mute button whenever they come on and just listen to the ones they are not running.
Woof. Woof.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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