Hello there and welcome to another episode of Meet the Press reports.

It's our magazine show.

We do a deep dive under a single topic.

Well, this one is a pretty big single topic.

It's our preview of the 2022 midterms and the battle for Congress and the fight for control

of state houses. And before we get into the overall political environment, how about a little

history? President Biden and his Democratic Party faced some strong political headwind simply

for winning. Why do I say that? Because look at this, going back to

John Kennedy in 1962 midterms, every single president we've had except one lost seats in the first

midterm they had in office. The one, sort of the post-9-11 midterms of 2002. And I think I just explained why that was a unique situation.

And by the way, this gets worse in these highlighted years.

Because guess what these highlighted years?

This is when the first term president had a gallop job approval rating of less than 50%.

So these presidents, when their job rating was below 50, ended up losing

an average of 43 House seats. It's a big warning sign for Democrats. It's President Biden's

approval rating hovers in the low 40s near the end of his first year of office. And if you

look right now, overall, the political climate at the end of 2021, not very good for Democrats

right now. In the New Jersey governor's race, in Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy, barely squeaked by. The National Republicans, by the way, before I get to Virginia or the National Republicans, barely touch this race. People rode off Jack Chitterelli. People assumed it's a 16-point Biden state. Well, as you can see, despite Murphy outspending Chittarelli,

this was a nail-biter. Virginia, of course, was the bellwether we were all watching.

Republicans last won the governor's mansion in 2009, and this was their first victory since then.

And this, as you can see, is what got Republicans excited. But when you add up New Jersey and

Virginia from 2021, you realize

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