NBC launches ‘Meet the Midterms’ initiative ahead of 2022 elections

NBC News‘ “Meet the Press” franchise is already gearing up to cover the 2022 midterm elections in November.

The Jan. 18, 2022 edition of “MTP Daily” on MSNBC was billed as a “special edition” under the banner “Meet the Midterms.”

As anchor Chuck Todd, who also moderates the weekly “Meet the Press” public affairs program on Sundays, noted, the branding will be used throughout 2022 as both shows look toward November 2022.

The show used its normal open — which itself is a modified version of the main “Meet the Press” open — before immediately piping in NBC’s iconic election theme and showing fullscreen graphics. “Meet the Midterms” was styled throughout in the network’s election brand, which uses the format “Decision (Year).”

The last iteration of MSNBC’s election branding.

NBC will continue that practice with “Decision 2022” this year, according to a logo file provided by the network.

The logo from the newest iteration of the network’s election branding, courtesy MSNBC.

The “Decision” look has used a star motif since 2010, but Decision 2020 saw that cut back to half a star with a red and white stripe element to one side done with a flat shadow effect, which is also used in the “Meet the Midterms” lockup.

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NBC has frequently modified the “Decision” look over the years for debates and special segments.

In the “Meet the Midterms” iteration, a red rule was added between the tiers, intersecting with the top red stripe in the lower right corner. The word “the” is also set inside a red box with reversed-out lettering. 

NBC isn’t quite done with the alliterative branding — it also introduced the “Midterm Meter,” a colorful visual representation of how sitting presidents’ parties have fared in midterm elections both in the past and, potentially, in 2022.

The meter ranges from the creative “shellacking” as its “worst” chance to “exceptional,” which is a bit more straightforward.

The “Meet the Midterms” coverage will also hit the road — with Todd journeying to Georgia Jan. 19 and 20 to get a local perspective on “MTP Daily.” Similar trips across the country will take place over the next nine months or so, according to NBC News.

Plans also call for other NBC correspondents to fan out across the country on the “Meet the Midterms” tour.

MSNBC is also featuring a “County to County” initiative across its programming that uses an italicized version of a stacked “2022” star-and-strokes icon with matching parallelogrammatic borders around the words — which shift from red on the left to purple in the middle and blue on the right.

The purple is presumably meant to represent the so-called “purple” counties that are less polarized. It’s also worth noting that the red and blue colors are flipped from the “left” side that would normally be represented by Democratic blue and Republican red.