Writer Tom Del Becarro explains 5 factors at play in 2022 politics. The most important, according to him? A Latin swing towards Republicans.

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Del Becarro: President Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., didn‘t get their big spending plan, didn’t get their so-called “voting rights” bill, and couldn’t get a majority of senators to eliminate the time-honored Senate filibuster. Those are all big developments right out of the gate in 2022.

Nevertheless, the government remains by far the biggest industry in America today and that means politics is a full-time business. With so much at stake, there are many dynamics at play in this midterm election year. In 2022, here are five of the most important dynamics to watch.

5. Will the Democrats moderate their law-and-order views? Throughout 2020 and 2021, polls showed that violent crime was a major issue in the eyes of Americans as the Left’s push to “defund the police” took hold across the country. In May 2021, 49% of Americans believed that violent crime was the biggest of the very big problems Americans faced. That was up just 1% from 2020, but all other issues receded far below it, including COVID – which dropped to just 32%.

4. Democrats’ spending desires v. inflation. As I have written elsewhere, Democrats care more about new, preferably large spending programs than they do the next election. Democrats believe they are building their long-term voting base to have voters dependent on government programs that most often become permanent.

3. Will Biden abandon his tax hike? Almost no voter likes a tax hike. Even so, Democrats have variously talked about a major tax hike as part of the Biden agenda. The problem for Democrats is that 57% of voters disapprove of how Biden is handling taxes – even though his major tax hike has yet to be passed. Just 40% approve of his handling of taxes – a drop of 4% since October. Obviously, that is another issue where a clear majority of voters are against a major Democrat position.

2. Will Putin and China leave Biden alone? Since foreign policy, in the form of the Vietnam war, cost Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats the presidency in 1968, Democrats have loathed the interference of foreign policy in their domestic political plans. Russia’s buildup of 100,000 troops on the border of Ukraine and the interplay between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin has garnered international headlines like this from the BBC, “Ukraine tensions: Putin tells Biden new sanctions could rupture ties” amid questions about whether Russia will invade Ukraine.

1. Will Latins continue to move toward Republicans? The headline could not be more stark: “Hispanic Voters Now Evenly Split Between Parties, WSJ Poll Finds. Republicans have made rapid gains among a crucial voting demographic that has long favored Democrats.” Of course, for many years now, Latins have been the political target of the Democrats’ future. By co-opting this fastest-growing political group, the Democrats planned to control a majority of the American electorate as far as the political eye could see.