Appearing on MSNBC's "The Katie Phang Show" on Sunday morning, longtime political analyst Jonathan Alter stated that revelations coming out of the House select committee investigating Donald Trump's actions during the Jan. 6 insurrection will weigh down Republicans in the November midterm election.
With host Phang stating responses from her audience showed a surprising number of viewers believe the hearings are an important inflection point, Alter said he agreed.
"Our Twitter followers said that the desire to preserve democracy has been driving the boat," host Phang began. "You mentioned this could be a call to action after a summer filled with stunning revelations for the Jan. 6 committee. How important will this issue be, come the fall midterms, these Jan. 6 public hearing disclosures?"
"They lend a stench to the Republican Party, which is not helpful to them," Alter replied. "There are some real indications that this will not be a red wave election. I've got a lot of polling data on my substack newsletter, which is very encouraging for the Democrats; there has been a real decoupling of President Biden's anemic approval ratings, and what they think of this congressional election."
"We were talking about young voters," he continued. "Abortion is a huge issue for younger voters, it is not an abstraction for them. They want to be able to do family planning and have control over their own reproductive rights. They do not want to have somebody stopping them at the state line if they want to go somewhere else for an abortion."
"This issue is resonating out through the economy, and the power of the democracy issue is that it gives a kind of moral push to the Democrats, to get this MAGA hangover, as it has been called, which drove the last three elections," he elaborated. "The Democrats won the popular vote and did extremely well in Congress in 2016, 2018, and 2020 because of a dislike of Donald Trump -- that factor is still present. Many Democrats believe he is a threat to democracy and, most important, many Democratic activists are going to push for that turnout, and are really really concerned that we cannot trust Republicans."
MSNBC 07 31 2022 07 23 48youtu.be
