Tuesday was a rough odd-year Election Day for Democrats, not boding well for next year’s mid-term elections. Trumpist Republican Youngkin won the Virginia governor’s race. Democratic governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, barely won his race.
Why has President Biden’s support, and that of the Democratic Party in general, been declining?
I guess it doesn’t help that the pandemic is dragging on. Republicans and their supporters fight the vaccine and mask mandates, though.
People don’t know, don’t care, don’t believe— that we have now lost 750,000 Americans. That’s more than the population of Alaska, or Vermont, or Wyoming.
Should the Democrats ring the alarm bell and finally pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework & Build Back Better legislation?
Maybe it will help, but maybe not much. Paul Kane of the Washington Post writes ‘If history is any guide, Democrats will pass this massive agenda in the weeks or months ahead — and it will have little to no impact on their political standing in next year’s midterm elections’. He mentions several cases where the party in power passed transformative legislation aligned with its values (Obama 2009: Affordable Care Act, Trump 2017: Tax Cuts), only to be pummeled at the midterm elections thereafter.