Antle points to candidates such as Michigan Democrat Abdul el Sayed as examples of Democrats potentially pushing too far to the left in a year when the party otherwise has a favorable political environment. He also examines Republicans’ risky candidate choice with scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas.

“The Democrats have a good bit more margin of error than Republicans do,” Antle says. “But that doesn’t mean that Democrats can make an unlimited number of bad decisions and expect to win.”

President Donald Trump is not helping Republicans, either, by blowing off the rise in gas prices. People tend to vote with their wallets. With both parties making potentially costly strategic choices, the midterm elections could ultimately come down to which party does a better job of avoiding its own mistakes.

Antle is then joined by editorial director Hugo Gurdon to discuss his cover article on why the Democrats’ growing extremism will surely backfire.

“They’ve tried all sorts of different ways to try and beat [Trump’s] brand of politics, and they haven’t been able to succeed,” Gurdon said. “So now almost for want of anything better, they’re adapting to do politicking in rather the same way as he is. They’re becoming more violent in their rhetoric … becoming more like Trump in the sort of violence of their rhetoric in order to try and beat Trump.”

Gurdon is not sure that Democrats leaning even further left will win votes.

“There’s a palpable sense that what the country would now like is something closer to normality. … More people wanting centrism,” Gurdon said. “Frankly, that’s what they thought they were going to get with Biden. They elected Biden because they’d had enough of four years of the sort of extreme rhetoric and the coarse rhetoric of Trump.”

For our in-depth report, we look into Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) once again refusing to debate a Republican challenger, reviving a question that could become increasingly difficult for incumbents to avoid: Can they get away with avoiding a face-off against their opponent, a staple of modern statewide campaigns?

DOES ANYONE WANT TO WIN THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS?

Senior writer Barnini Chakraborty writes, “If [Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ)] can convince voters that Hobbs’s refusal reflects an unwillingness to defend her record, it could become a liability. If voters barely notice, Hobbs may have avoided the downside of a debate without sacrificing much in return.”

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