The Afghanistan withdrawal was a disaster, but it may also have been the gush of water that broke the dam for Joe Biden and his party. Biden’s job approval is in free fall, and that is bad news for Democrats in 2022.
Republicans were already favored to take back the House, but the Senate is more in play with each passing day.
Sean Trende writes at Real Clear Politics:
Biden’s Job Approval Has Entered Dangerous TerritoryThe most important predictor of a party’s performance in a midterm is the president’s job approval rating. So, for example, the years where the president’s party has gained ground in the House during a midterm election have been years where the president has been exceptionally popular. The 1998 midterms occurred against the backdrop of a massive economic boom and an unpopular impeachment attempt from Republicans, while the 2002 midterms occurred while George W. Bush was still enjoying his post-9/11 bounce. Both presidents enjoyed approval ratings in the mid-60s on Election Day.While we don’t have polling data for FDR in 1934, one can imagine that his job approval was likely well into the 70s. One the other hand, abysmal elections for parties in power have occurred when the president was generally unpopular: Witness 1994, 2010, and 2018. Thus, the trend in President Biden’s job approval has to be concerning for Democrats:Let’s look at the implications of this, first through the lens of Senate elections, then through the lens of House elections. I’ve explored Senate elections in this article. As the chart near the bottom indicates, when Biden was hovering around 52% job approval, Democrats were heavily favored to maintain control of the Senate. The most likely outcome for the party was that it would actually gain a seat.But Democrats’ chances of holding the Senate were slated to drop off quickly if the president’s job approval fell any further. At 50%, they would be expected to break even, but would lose control about one time out of four. At 49% job approval, the Senate is considered 50-50.At 46%? Democrats would lose between four and zero seats 95% of the time, with an expected outcome of two seats. They only retain control about 4% of the time. This is obviously an outcome Democrats would like to avoid.
You can almost hear the sound of a car crash here (via RCP):
In the new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll, Biden has dropped six points in a month:
– Biden’s approval rating (43%) dropped six percentage points from our August poll (49%), driven by softening support among Democrats (down five points) and independents (down ten points).- Americans who strongly disapprove of Biden’s performance jumped from 30% in August to 41% in this poll.
A new Rasmussen poll finds 52% of voters want Biden to resign and 60% want him impeached:
The worst part for Biden and Democrats is that the crisis in Afghanistan is ongoing. They are better armed than they were when we went in in 2001, and there are hundreds of Americans still trapped there. It’s scary to think of what could happen.
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