The margin in Congress is razor thin. In the House, Democrats hold an 8-seat edge, while in the Senate, it’s tied, 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking tie votes.
But a Democratic strategist says that all could change in the 2022 mid-term elections.
Douglas Schoen, a political consultant who served as an adviser to President Bill Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg, said it actually could be a “blowout.”
“The marked decline in support for President Biden and his administration nationally and in key swing states indicates that the Democratic Party could endure a blowout defeat in the 2022 midterm elections,” Schoen wrote in an opinion piece in The Hill.
“Moreover, Biden is in a significantly weaker position now than both of his most recent Democratic predecessors — Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — at this point in their presidencies, which suggests that Democrats could suffer even more substantial losses in 2022 than the party did in 1994 and 2010.,” he added.
Biden has been hit hard by a series of events: Afghanistan melted down as the U.S. withdrew troops, leading to the death of 13 American service members; COVID-19 exploded again nationwide with the Delta variant; both crime and inflation are soaring.
Americans are beginning to sour on the president, with new polls showing that less than 40% of the country approves of the job he’s is doing. A recent Economist/YouGov poll found that Biden’s approval ratings “on his handling of major issues, have all fallen, dramatically in some cases.”
“For the first time, a greater share of Americans disapprove (45%) of Biden’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic than approve (42%). This week, just 40% approve of the president’s handling of jobs and the economy, while 47% disapprove. In previous weeks, more usually have approved than have disapproved,” the poll found.
“Only 16% of American adults now think the economy is improving, while nearly three times as many, 44%, say it is getting worse. Another 27% say the economy is about the same. At the beginning of the Biden presidency, just as great a share of Americans as today said the economy was worsening (44% in the Jan. 30-Feb. 2 poll), but that changed quickly. In May and for part of June, more people said the economy was improving than worsening. No longer,” the poll also found.
Shoen said the polls are bad news for Biden. “For reference, at the same point in Obama’s first term, Obama’s net approval rating was 19 points higher than Biden’s is right now. At the time, a majority of voters (52 percent) approved of Obama, while 41 percent disapproved, according to a Gallup survey released on Sept. 13, 2009,” he wrote.
“That being said, in the 2010 midterm elections, Democrats lost a net of 64 House seats and Republicans gained six seats in the Senate. Likewise, on Sept. 12, 1993, Clinton’s approval rating was recorded at 47 percent approve and 42 percent disapprove by a Gallup survey. To put that in context, Clinton’s net approval rating was 13 points higher than Biden’s is at the same point in his presidency,” he wrote.
“Yet in the 1994 midterms, Democrats lost a net of 52 House seats and Republicans picked up eight seats in the Senate.”