Democrats' Most Embarrassing Loss of the 2022 Midterms

Months before election night, Democrats were already widely expected to lose their majority in the House of Representatives and be in a dogfight to hold their grip on the Senate.

That didn't happen, however, as Democrats actually picked up seats in places like North Carolina amid an underwhelming night for Republicans in states where they were expected to be competitive.

What nobody saw coming Tuesday night, however, was the party's apparent loss of ground in a district otherwise expected to yield an easy win for the Biden White House.

As Governor Kathy Hochul held off a strong challenge by Republican Lee Zeldin in the deep-blue stronghold of New York, Sean Patrick Maloney—the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and a close ally of President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi—lost his seat in the New York City suburbs after three consecutive double-digit wins and a last-second change in endorsement by a coalition of rabbis in Rockland County, which boasts one of the highest concentrations of Jewish Americans in the country.

The cause of the underperformance is two-fold, Republican strategists said—the loss of momentum Democrats experienced following the overturning of Roe v. Wade at the start of summer, and a lingering narrative about Democrats' complicity in persistently high inflation that has lasted through Election Day that they, and Biden, have failed to counter effectively.

"There's no consistent message from the Democrats," Neil Newhouse, the former lead pollster for John McCain's and Mitt Romney's presidential campaigns, told Newsweek. "And the message that's coming across from the White House is, you know, 'Hey, the economy is better than you think it is.' Which is basically at odds with what most people think. And so it's landing on deaf ears."

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Some, like Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger, managed to retain their seats in tough races by maintaining support for Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. Maloney, a strong advocate for Biden's policies, did not, however, flailing even in a district Biden won by double digits in 2020.

"The president gets a bum rap," Maloney told MSNBC's Chuck Todd the Sunday before the election.

An anticipated thorn in Democrats' side was the party's inability to counter Republican narratives about rising crime rates in Democratic-controlled cities and states, despite violent crime rising in almost every region of the country and, some argue, being more prevalent in red states than blue. Hochul faced a barrage of negative ads from national Republicans tying her to the state's controversial bail reform efforts that had caused unease from many independent voters and attracted significant media attention that played in Zeldin's favor.

"I definitely think Zeldin's aggressive anti-crime message and momentum comes in part due to the hyperfixation on crime by the media in NYC and the surrounding area," Alisha Heng, spokesperson for the Gen Z-led organization Voters of Tomorrow and deputy communications director for Democrat Dan Goldman's congressional campaign, told Newsweek.

Hochul, ultimately, managed to squeeze by to lead by five points in the closing stretch of election night. However, Maloney was defeated in a close race, officially conceding to Michael Lawler on Wednesday morning.

"Crime obviously is among the top concerns for voters," Lawler told The Katonah Lewisboro Times prior to Election Day, before suggesting the federal government should have a larger role in challenging cashless bail laws.

"Crime is up 36 percent in New York City and over 40 percent of those who have been released on non-monetary bail have been re-arrested while those charges are pending," he added. "If New York state refuses to act and refuses to change its cashless bail laws, then the feds need to intervene."