Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“Democrats are growing increasingly worried about President Biden’s standing in the polls seven months out from the midterm elections… Democrats for months have feared they will lose the House majority this fall, and they are worried about losing the Senate, too, with polls showing Biden performing poorly in key states such as Arizona.” The Hill
The right predicts a Republican victory in the midterms, and urges the GOP to reach out to independents and anti-left Democrats.
“I’m sure you can find voters here and there who bought into the hype and really did want Joe Biden to try to be the next Franklin Roosevelt… But those folks are few and far between, and most Americans who picked Biden over Trump in November 2020 did so with a clear message: Just get our lives back to normal. And Biden repeatedly insisted he could do that…
“People rightly thought that the arrival of the vaccines meant their lives would get back to normal, but it was a long, slow, sluggish process, dragged out by risk-averse public-health officials and neurotic media voices…
“By the time Omicron arrived and as runaway inflation had become the most pressing problem facing the country, Americans had heard a lot of assurances from President Biden that the problems on Americans’ minds weren’t as bad as they looked, or would be short lived, or that he and his team had everything under control… It wasn’t just that Biden’ pledges and promises were contradicted by subsequent events; it’s that the contradiction came quickly, indisputably, vividly, and memorably.”
Jim Geraghty, National Review
“Democrats seem to alternate between blaming their unpopularity on poor ‘messaging’ and hoping that a political deus ex machina will rescue them from the debacle they’re facing. For one hot minute it seemed like the war in Ukraine might deliver that; Biden’s team has handled that conflict well, the occasional irresponsible babbling about ‘regime change’ in Russia from the top aside. But there’s no sign of durable improvement in his job approval lately…
“Team Blue is running out of time for an electoral gamechanger. Their best chance is the Supreme Court overturning Roe in June, but if that doesn’t kickstart Democratic enthusiasm to turn out then they’re facing a truly epic beating this fall. All hope that inflation might fade soon organically, without painful intervention from the Fed, seems to have been lost. And the White House appears intent on following through with lifting Title 42, creating a border stampede that’s likely to tilt the remaining Democratic-leaning swing voters towards Republicans.”
Allahpundit, Hot Air
“By 67 percent to 20 percent Americans oppose transgender men competing in women’s sports. An overwhelming 75 percent believe there are only two genders. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is even more common ground in America: Some 84 percent favor parents having the right to see everything their children are being taught in school. By the same margin, Americans think American ideals are worth fighting for…
“Done correctly, the 2022 and 2024 elections can bring together Republicans, independents and anti-left Democrats into a grand coalition comparable to the one President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created in the 1930s… There are tens of millions of Democrats who are tired of high food and gas prices, rampant crime, the collapse of the border, the inconsistencies of leftwing bureaucrats. This American majority can reject every element of the left and still be a broad coalition of Republicans, Independents and anti-left Democrats.”
Newt Gingrich, Fox News
The left urges Democrats to shift policy priorities and messaging to make up ground before the midterms.
The left urges Democrats to shift policy priorities and messaging to make up ground before the midterms.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) writes, “About two-thirds of likely American voters — including a majority of Republicans — say it’s time for billionaires to pay more in taxes. Nearly three-quarters of Americans want to put an end to wildly profitable corporations paying nothing or little in federal income taxes (yes, Amazon, I’m looking at you) and put into place a global minimum corporate tax. And a majority of Americans would like to use some of those tax revenues to invest in clean energy, affordable child care, and universal pre-K…
“By a margin of more than two-to-one, Americans support providing some student loan debt cancellation — an action the president could take entirely on his own… And he can do more. Decisive action on everything from lowering prescription drug prices to ensuring that more workers are eligible for overtime pay can be executed by the president alone, using the authority already given to him by existing laws, without rounding up 50 Senate votes…
“If we fail to use the months remaining before the elections to deliver on more of our agenda, Democrats are headed toward big losses in the midterms.”
Elizabeth Warren, New York Times
“Too many idealistic progressives fail to appreciate the ways their politics reflect their worldview, and their worldview reflects their privilege. Close to half of college grads of all racial groups say they are liberal, but that’s true of only one-quarter of white and Latino noncollege voters, and about one-third of Black and Asian American ones…
“This plays out over a wide range of issues. Americans who didn’t attend college are 26 percent less likely to support gay marriage, 25 percent more likely to think immigrants threaten American values, and 16 percent more likely to believe that abortion should be illegal than those with postgraduate degrees. These differences occur in every racial group; shockingly, 32 percent of Latino noncollege grads support reducing even legal immigration…
“College-educated Americans need to increase our cultural competence and treat non-elites with the respect that is due to coalition partners whose lives and values often differ from our own.”
Joan C. Williams, New Republic
“There’s a case to be made that, like Truman’s, [Biden’s] accomplishments will look better in retrospect. In foreign policy, Biden is more likely to be seen as the president who ended a misguided war in Afghanistan than one who botched the exit. He could wind up looking better on that score than either Trump or Barack Obama. And at least so far, Biden seems to be doing an excellent job of keeping NATO together in the face of Russia’s war on Ukraine…
“It’s also likely that legislative productivity during Biden’s first two years will seem better in hindsight… Biden’s first two years will likely wind up comparable to those of Obama and George W. Bush, and look far more productive than those of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Despite the demise of much of the Democrats’ aspirational agenda, plenty of legislation has passed — and a fair amount of it, most notably the infrastructure bill, with considerable Republican support.”
Jonathan Bernstein, Bloomberg
