Aside from the loss of the seat, the rest of the Biden presidency could see little or no movement on the legislative agenda.
Aside from the loss of the seat, the rest of the Biden presidency could see little or no movement on the legislative agenda.
At the moment there are some in the Democratic Party in the United States who are watching whether US President Joseph Biden will run for re-election in 2024. Instead, all eyes are on the US mid-term. Elections on 8 November. The general belief is that Mr. Biden and the Democrats are going to lose more than just their shirts and go into a situation where the next two years of his term will be lame ducks, with little or no movement on the legislative agenda, especially if The Senate also comes to the Grand Old Party. Almost every single election and pundits have written off the House of Representatives.
an argument that can hold
With minor exceptions, the traditional argument has always been that the president’s party loses a midterm election; Statistics show that this has always been the case since the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. The President’s party has lost 19 of the 22 midterm elections in the House; and 15 out of 22 in the Senate. In 2022, a total of 469 seats are being counted – 435 in the House and 34 in the Senate (14 with the Democrats and 20 with the Grand Old Party). And in November, there are five Republican incumbents who do not seek re-election. All eyes are on the Senate where both parties are tied at 50, with Republicans looking to gain only one seat to control the chamber.
Poll and Biden Positions
If Mr. Biden is going to be defeated on November 8, he won’t be the first; Some of his predecessors have also faced the heat. In 1994, Bill Clinton lost 54 seats in the House and eight in the Senate; In 2006, George Bush lost 30 in the House and six in the Senate; Barack Obama sank in 2010 when he lost 63 in the House and six in the Senate; And during the Donald Trump presidency, Republicans lost control of the House as they lost 39 seats but added two in the Senate. But if the president and Democrats are facing special attention this time, it has something to do with the fact that the political spectrum is not past the hangover of the 2020 presidential election and what the 46th president plans to do in January 2021. has created. ,
There are at least two things that worry Democrats. First, the presidency among young Americans: In a latest survey from the Harvard Institute of Politics, only 41% of young Americans approve of Mr. Biden’s performance – down 46% from last fall and 59% from last spring. There may be no correlation between young Americans’ approval status and midterm election results, but Mr. Biden has to be reminded that in the last 2020 presidential election, he had the support of 69% of this category; And their approval rating of the economy is just 34% among young adults. Mr Biden scored better in his handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic and Ukraine.
Second, Mr. Biden’s position among minorities (who have always stood by the Democrats) is also falling and worryingly at that. In the 2020 presidential election, it was estimated that 90% of the African-American community voted for Mr. Biden; But since 2021, the president’s approval rating has fallen from 86% to 76%, much of it attributed to political troubles faced by Democrats over voting rights and ‘build back better’ legislations. The African-American community was instrumental in Biden’s victories in the swing states and the South; Sitting at home and not voting due to apathy in November will make a big difference.
Hispanics are disappointed
But the big blow to the Biden White House and Democrats comes from support for Hispanics that has fallen to 26% (or less than the support of whites) in the latest Quinnipiac poll. What the Hispanic people had hoped for a concerted movement on the all-important issue of immigration has turned out to be a major disappointment. In fact this latest poll puts Mr Biden’s overall rating at 33%, the lowest of all polls in recent months. An argument is made that the progressive and left-wing Democrats’ over-emphasis on the agenda has led to the closure of minority groups.
With six months to go for the midterms, traditional Democrats should be concerned about the direction of the White House and its inability to prepare or fix the messenger. Neither Mr. Biden nor Democrats have the luxury of sitting back and arguing that nearly every president in recent times was on the same level before his midterm; Even Donald Trump was in much better shape at this time of his presidency, while his predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, were far ahead in the midterm approval-rejection ratings.
‘All politics is local’
There is no doubt that Mr Biden is a decent man, but hanging everything on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s coat is not going to work. Inflation has been running high for the past several months and gas prices have been hitting the roof long before Mr. Putin’s tanks rolled in Ukraine. Undoubtedly, the economy and the job market have benefited, but few in the party or administration have been able to present it in the midst of the noise it generates. Foreign policy barely makes a dent in US elections because, as the former Speaker of the House of Representatives said, “all politics is local”. And having lived in the political circles in Washington DC for nearly four decades, Mr. Biden should know better.
Sridhar Krishnaswamy was a former senior journalist in Washington covering North America and the United Nations