It is a decent bet that the winning party next year will not be the party that the election is about. If the midterm election is a referendum on Biden and the Democratic Congress, losing the House would almost be a foregone conclusion; the remaining questions would be whether they would have any chance at all of holding onto the Senate and how deep the holes that they will have dug heading into the 2024 election.

On the other hand, if this election is about Trump and a Republican Party seemingly obsessed by fighting culture wars—clashing with Democrats over symbols and engaging in proxy fights, appealing to a shrinking core constituency—Democrats can win. Central to this scenario would be that, like during the tea-party period of 2010 and 2012, GOP primary voters nominate “exotic” candidates in competitive states and districts, allowing Democrats to somehow hang on.

Trump’s efforts to purge the party of any elected officials who have crossed him is part and parcel of this. Be quite sure that there are already Democratic operatives working on plans to quietly undermine those GOP primary candidates in highly competitive states and districts who are deemed more electable, while boosting the candidacies of others with more problematic pasts or thought to have a propensity to shoot themselves in the foot. Then-Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill did just that in Missouri in 2012, helping the late Todd Akin (who died this month) secure the GOP nomination, an outcome that led to her surprising reelection.