I used to think I was a decent political prognosticator, but I no longer pay close attention to congressional races. That being said, I expect Democrats will enjoy big victories today,*

And since I think I’m a decent economist, I’m going to explain why. In part, Republican losses will occur because the party controlling White House generally loses some seats in mid-term elections.

But big losses usually are a sign of economic discontent. And I wrote late last year and less than two months ago that worker compensation is stagnant.

As such, this chart from @ChrisCillizza should not be a surprise. Trump’s second-term approval rating on the economy is miserable.

The key question, though, is why?

I don’t know @jarod_e_a, but he offers a plausible theory. He did some editing of Chris Cillizza’s chart to make the point that Trump governed as a conventional Republican in his first term but has followed his own preferences in his second term.

I’m assuming that he mostly is referring to protectionism when he changed “2nd term” to “Trump economic policies.”

I think that’s a very plausible hypothesis. Trump’s trade taxes have been very expensive for American families and they have contributed to economic inefficiency.

Some supporters of protectionism have argued that the real problem is the attack on Iran, not protectionism. Since voters don’t like higher gas prices, that’s a reasonable argument.

But it’s not a convincing argument. I tinkered with the Cillizza chart to show when Trump launched his foolish trade war and when he attacked Iran.

As you can see, Trump’s approval rating was already on a big downward trajectory well before hostilities began in Iran.

We don’t know, of course, what would have happened if there was no attack on Iran. Would his ratings have continued their downward trend? Would they have stabilized? Or perhaps recovered somewhat?

All of us will have different guesses, but the bottom line is that protectionism is either a big anchor for Republicans or a giant anchor for Republicans.

They should have learned from history.

*My very rough guess is that Democrats will climb to 53 seats in the Senate and 242 in the House. Given Biden’s bad track record on trade issues, I’m not holding my breath that this will lead to less protectionism.