Mitch McConnell has a plan for Republicans to win the 2022 midterm elections

With a Democrat president in Joe Biden and midterm elections coming up in Congress next year, what is leading Republican in the Senate Mitch McConnell planning to do? Very little apparently.

McConnell is certainly not against using realpolitik and it appears he is prepared to do so again in the run-up to 2022. With Covid-19 and the economy major talking points right now, why look to be on the front foot when you can hit the Democrats for their failings instead? News website Axios reported that, according to people who’ve been in private meetings with the Senate minority leader, he has “long held the view that putting out an agenda ahead of midterm elections is a mistake – at least for Senate Republicans”. McConnell has pointed to when he led Republicans to reclaim the Senate in the 2014 midterms with no agenda.

The Kentucky politician seems to believe that if your party is out of power in Congress and the White House (Democrats control the House of Representatives and the Senate is evenly split with a Democrat vice president able to break ties), all you need to do is let voters know that you are the alternative, without making promises that could come back to haunt you.

Some in his party won’t be happy about this – with the success of Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” agenda in 1994 (during Bill Clinton’s first term) being a big pull. That year, proposing a legislative action plan some weeks before the midterm elections won the Republicans back unified control of Congress.

For McConnell, offering no legislative agenda means there is little for Democrats to pick holes in that isn't already on the table. This makes it easier to keep the conversation on polarising issues like Covid and the economy. Is it in the true spirit of US democracy? Arguably not, but such pragmatism may yet yield fruit.