Democrats Confront Wall of Worries Heading Toward 2022 Elections

(Bloomberg) -- The vast majority of Americans are vaccinated against the coronavirus, a generational infrastructure bill is now law, the House passed a $2 trillion social spending plan and the jobless rate is dropping. That should spell good fortune for President Joe Biden and Democrats in next year’s midterm elections.

But they don’t. Americans say they are worried about inflation, shortages in goods and are frustrated with the public schools. They think Democrats aren’t doing enough to fix it, according to polling data, the results of the 2021 elections and interviews with strategists.

Together, it all points to a bleak picture for the party that defeated President Donald Trump and won thin but complete control of Washington just one year ago.

The president’s party usually loses seats at the halfway mark of his first term. And Republican-led redistricting in a dozen or more states stands to eat into Democrats’ House majority by drawing new districts favoring GOP voters.

Governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey this month showed that Democrats are losing ground among independents and suburban voters who had been turned off by Trump. 

Here’s a rundown of the challenges facing Democrats.

Biden’s Popularity

A Nov. 18 Quinnipiac University Poll showed Biden’s approval rating at 36%, the lowest of his presidency. Biden’s favorability has eroded since spring as he faced criticism over the lingering coronavirus pandemic, a chaotic and violent U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and a general sense of dissatisfaction among voters with the economic recovery, in particular rising prices. 

Biden lost support among independents who voted for him because they couldn’t stomach Trump’s coarse rhetoric and were seeking a lower temperature on political discourse. 

But his administration’s vaccine mandates and mask requirements at schools mired him in heated exchanges with Republican officials, keeping the political tone at a fever pitch. The stubborn delta variant of the coronavirus has also blunted his ability to claim victory over the pandemic. 

Even his base is discontented. Black voters, largely credited with resuscitating his flailing primary campaign, are increasingly frustrated that issues like voting rights and police reform have taken a back seat to his economic agenda. The Quinnipiac University poll showed his approval rating among African-Americans at 63%, down from 78% in April. He won 87% of the Black vote a year ago. 

A recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll put it in the starkest possible terms. Nearly half of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents -- 44% -- want someone else at the top of the ticket in 2024. 

This low moment comes despite some victories, like the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that passed in March and the $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill he signed last week. On Friday, the House passed the rest of his Build Back Better agenda with more than $2 trillion in social spending. Some 80% of American adults have received at least one vaccination against Covid-19 and thousands of children are on their way to protection against the virus that has killed 766,000 people in the U.S.

And the midterm election is a year away.

“President Biden has a lot of time to right the ship,” said Joel Benenson, a longtime pollster for former President Barack Obama. “They’re drinking from a fire hose.” 

Benenson said the Biden administration needs to better communicate its accomplishments, saying they’ve been “speaking too much Washington-ese.”

Control of Congress

History is cruel to the president’s party in midterm elections. Republicans lost 41 seats in the 2018 midterms under Trump. Democrats lost 63 seats in 2010 during Obama’s first term, which he famously dubbed “a shellacking.”

House Democrats now hold 221 seats in the House compared to 213 for the GOP. One seat is vacant. 

Next year is unlikely to break the pattern. A Nov. 14 ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that Republican candidates hold the largest lead in four decades for a midterm vote preference. And the GOP isn’t stopping there. Republican-controlled state legislatures in at least 13 states have made at least a dozen congressional districts more Republican than they were before.

Benenson said Democrats could have spent more time and money on state-level elections that might have given them more control of the redistricting process but were instead hyper-focused on removing Trump. 

The Virginia governor’s race showed the folly of Democrats keeping their focus on Trump instead of issues voters are worried about, like the economy and education. Former Governor Terry McAuliffe lost soundly to political newcomer Glenn Youngkin with a campaign that almost single-mindedly tried to tie Youngkin to Trump. Yet a Nov. 15 memo released by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee shows that part of its strategy for 2022 is to tie House Republicans to Trump and the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. 

On the Senate side, Democrats have zero margin for error. The chamber is deadlocked at 50-50. Senator Mark Kelly in Arizona and Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, both Democrats, are likely to face tough races. Warnock will likely square off against Republican front-runner Herschel Walker, a former professional football player backed by Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. 

2024 Democratic Bench

The oldest person ever elected U.S. president, Biden, 79, has said that he plans to run for re-election in 2024. Some Democrats are preparing for him to serve only one term, rather than run at the age of 81.

To keep that perception from gaining ground, Biden and people in his inner circle have recently assured allies that he plans to run for re-election in 2024, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. He told a small group of donors at a virtual fundraiser this month that he plans to seek a second term, according to the Post. 

While Republicans have a dozen possible presidential candidates who would all likely step back if Trump sought the office again, Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black, female and Asian-American to hold the office, would almost certainly take another stab at the presidency and the party would cement her as an early front-runner, even though her approval ratings are even lower than Biden’s. 

She might even face a primary 2020 do-over from someone like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. 

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.