By John J. Duncan Jr.

duncanj@knoxfocus.com

The Biden Administration has gone so far to the left that they have messed up about everything they have touched so far.

What a record: high gas prices, highest inflation in 47 years, illegal aliens flooding in at record levels, record murder rates and outbreaks of crime, gifts to Big Pharma and radical environmentalists.

People are fleeing the Democrat-run cities and states, trying desperately to get out just as fast as they can.

All the polls show that if the elections were held today, Republicans would make big gains and probably take control of both the House and Senate. But that is the biggest if in the world, because the elections are not until Nov. 8, some 6 1/2 months from now.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am very pleased that the polls look so good for my party. However, I believe it would be a bad mistake to celebrate too soon.

I have always believed that candidates should always run scared and never take any voter or any election for granted.

I have seen, heard, and read about many elections that have turned and been won or lost in the last few days or weeks.

I will never forget the mid-term elections in 1990. All the polls showed that Republicans were going to pick up 20 or 30 seats in the U.S. House.

Then, just a little over three weeks before the election, the first George Bush went back on his no new taxes pledge and supported a big tax increase.

Ed Rollins, the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, headed a panicky late-night meeting in the Cannon Caucus Room across the street from the Capitol. He told us that Republican candidates had dropped by 10 points overnight. That doesn’t sound like much, but what it means if you were ahead 60-40, suddenly you are tied, and if you were ahead 55-45, suddenly you are behind by that much.

Instead of adding 20 or 30 seats like the polls had predicted, Republicans lost nine seats, going down from 175 to 166 members in the House. This was a swing of 30 to 40 seats in favor of the Democrats based on the earlier polls.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who came to Congress when I did, won his primary in the last week when it came out that the woman who had been in the lead had falsified her college degree.

Rep. Steve Largent, the football star, lost a close race for governor in Oklahoma that polls showed he had been leading the entire time.

Rep. Eric Cantor, who was the second highest Republican in the House, lost his primary the day after his pollster had told him he was more than 30 points ahead.

I could give many more examples of this with probably the biggest upset in American History being Harry Truman’s win over Thomas Dewey in 1948.

I am optimistic about Republican chances this fall because the great majority of the time polls even six months out are fairly accurate.

Also, Biden has to placate far left extremists like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and the so-called “Squad” who want him to go even further to the left.

Unfortunately, there are no conservative Democrats in Congress today. If the national media was honest and accurate, the Democratic Party would be called the Socialist Party.