I just keep going back to the 2002 midterms as a potential model.

Back then, right after Bush's inauguration, many people (including myself) had just naturally assumed Democrats would win back the House since Bush was a fairly unpopular sitting President.

Then, 9/11 happened. The GOP created a "You're either with us or against" narrative on national security. Remember the campaign ads put out by Sonny Perdue's senatorial campaign, that had Max Cleland's likeness morphing into a photo of Osama bin Laden?

Republicans defied the midterm "conventional wisdom" and flipped up 8 House seats, while also flipping 3 Senate seats (and they'd only narrowly gained control of the Senate, a few months into Bush's first term, because Jim Jeffords switched caucuses after Bush snubbed him).

1998 was a little different, because Democrats gained a slight amount of new seats (although not enough to regain congressional majorities) due to citizens' outrage at how the GOP was conducting the Impeachment Trial. But, again, that's a case where Democrats defied so-called "conventional wisdom" of losing seats during Clinton's second midterm.

In my view, the Democrats' success will largely be their ability to mobilize massive voter turnout (strategically, district-by-district) on a slogan such as "Demand Better!" -- RATHER THAN an implied slogan of, "Oh, vote for us because you should be grateful to us for having saved you from 4 more years of Trump"...