China’s major new struggle with Covid-19, for instance — fueled by its low vaccination rate — and its repressive lockdowns threaten to again crunch global supply chain lines that helped push inflation higher in the first place. And if the war in Ukraine, as expected, severely impacts the harvest in the breadbasket of Europe this year, Americans could see prices soar for daily staples since the invaded country is a huge source of global grain and sunflower oil.
So it’s quite likely that the daunting conditions that are currently depressing Democrats’ hopes could actually get worse before Election Day.
Inflation is hammering Democratic midterm hopes
All of this explains a sense of inevitability settling into Washington’s conventional wisdom that Republicans are strongly favored to retake the House of Representatives while the Senate could go red too.
These numbers get to the fundamental weakness of the Democrats’ case as they approach the midterm elections. Biden cannot lock in full credit for the economy’s strong rebound from the pandemic and historically good job numbers because millions of Americans are disgruntled by high prices.
Biden’s triumph in beating then-President Donald Trump in 2020 was an example of the power of comparisons. He offered a return to calm leadership after the tumult of the previous four years of scandals, lying and chaos in the White House.
But the 2022 midterms are already turning into a referendum on the President and Democrats, who control all the levers of political power in Washington and therefore carry the can for the public’s current discontent.
While Biden’s overall job approval rating ticked up to 42%, only 38% of those asked approved of his handling of the economy. And 68% disapproved of his record on inflation. The issue proved particularly irksome to independent voters who will be crucial in close House and Senate races in November.
White House misfires
The President’s plight on inflation has been exacerbated by his own White House’s previous assertions that the heat up in prices was “transitory” — a messaging error that threatens to detract from the trust voters have in administration pronouncements and that offers an easy target for Republicans.
And while Biden has taken several steps to tackle high prices, including programs to unblock US ports and clogged supply chain and has released millions of barrels of oil from the nation’s strategic reserves, his efforts don’t seem to have had a noticeable impact on the lives of many Americans. And it’s not clear that chalking up the high cost of living to “Putin’s price hike” is getting him out of his political jam either.
“Nobody wants to hear that. And they want to say, ‘Hey, how are you going to get us out of this?'”
Read More: 2022 election: The political environment is terrible for Democrats — and it may get worse