Sounds fine to me, and increasingly sounds plausible to boot. Given the uniquely bad political environment of the moment — high inflation, five quarters of wage erosion, generationally high crime, and a border crisis to boot — it’s small wonder that voters want a change in leadership. They can’t vote Joe Biden out of office next week, but they suuuuuure can vote his enablers in the House and Senate into minority status.

The New York Times reports that voters now prefer a GOP-controlled Senate, but according to their polls, may not prefer the Republican choice presented to them:

Control of the Senate rests on a knife’s edge, according to new polls by The New York Times and Siena College, with Republican challengers in Nevada and Georgia neck-and-neck with Democratic incumbents, and the Democratic candidate in Pennsylvania clinging to what appears to be a tenuous advantage.

The bright spot for Democrats in the four key states polled was in Arizona, where Senator Mark Kelly is holding a small but steady lead over his Republican challenger, Blake Masters.

The results indicate a deeply volatile and unpredictable Senate contest: More people across three of the states surveyed said they wanted Republicans to gain control of the Senate, but they preferred the individual Democratic candidates in their states — a sign that Republicans may be hampered by the shortcomings of their nominees.

Well, those are the NYT/Siena results, anyway. In each one of these races, Siena’s results are outliers to recent polling, although not by an astounding amount. Let’s start with Masters, where the Siena poll shows Kelly up 51/45. The RCP average on this race puts it at 47.7/45.3 for Kelly, and no other poll in the last four weeks has Kelly at or above 50%.

What about the others? Siena also looks outlier-ish in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Nevada, in all of which RCP includes Siena’s results in their average:

• PA: Siena 49/44 for Fetterman; RCP 47.5/46 for Fetterman
• Georgia: Siena 49/46 for Warnock; RCP 47.2/45.8 for Herschel Walker
• Nevada: Siena 47/47 between Cortez-Masto and Laxalt; RCP 47.5/46.5 Laxalt

In none of these races is Siena an outrageous outlier, mind you. However, in all of them, Siena’s results occupy the outer marker for Democrat-favorable results. They’re close enough to be plausible, but are noticeably distant from the prevailing trend.

All of which is to say that voter desire for a Republican Senate may end up driving some of these contests as well. In Georgia, for instance, a new poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows Walker narrowly in front by a point while Brian Kemp is now sailing past Stacey Abrams in the gubernatorial race by seven points. And even that poll may be missing the Category 5 headwinds facing Democrats on the economy, crime, and radicalized public-school curriculums that parents have belatedly discovered.

Those daily lived experiences drive voter turnout and behavior. Especially when voters have gotten fed up with the status quo and the leadership that led them into that catastrophe.

AJ Kaufman and I discuss this and more in the latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast,  which we recorded this morning. Today’s show features:

• Should Republicans get muzzled because of an attack on Paul Pelosi? Media outlets demanded that across the board, which is the subject of my rant this morning.
• The same media that wouldn’t cover any connection between radical pro-abortion protesters doxxing SCOTUS justices and an assassination attempt against Brett Kavanaugh now claim that normal political criticism of a Democrat party leader is off limits. No one’s buying this argument, but the media’s all-in propagandizing is going to open even more eyes this cycle.
• On the midterms, AJ Kaufman returns to debate how the current electoral environment will play out for Republicans. Will candidate quality make the difference, or will the wave be too great?
• We also do a quick update on Ukraine, and the progressive face-plant over it.
• And don’t forget to sign up for our VIP and VIP Gold membership!

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!