by Robert Romano
Thirty-seven percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Independents say America is on the wrong track, according to the latest Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted from March 14 to March 15, signaling strong discontent among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters headed into the Nov. 2022 Congressional midterms.
And that’s bad news for President Joe Biden, who continues to languish with very low approval ratings—averaging just 40.8 percent approval and a whopping 54.8 percent disapproval in the latest average of polls taken by RealClearPolitics.com.
In the last two Congressional midterm cycles of 2018 and 2014, former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama were similarly registering discontent in the Reuters-Ipsos poll on the question of right-track, wrong-track.
In March 2018, 26 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Independents said the country was on the wrong track. Trump and Republicans went on to lose 42 seats in the House of Representatives, but picked up two seats in the Senate, keeping control there.
Similarly, in April 2014, 39 percent of Democrats—Independents were mentioned in this poll—said the country was on the wrong track. Obama and Democrats went on to lose 12 seats in the House of Representatives and nine seats in and control of the Senate.
So, what we are seeing in 2022 matches pretty well with prior administrations’ performances in polls leading up to Congressional midterms. Whenever one party claims the White House, members of the opposite party will immediately begin telling pollsters that the country is on the wrong track. Republicans will generally oppose the direction of the country when a Democrat is in the White House, and vice versa.
Normally, in midterm elections dating back to 1906 through 2018, the party that occupies the White House usually loses on average 31 seats in the House, and about three seats in the Senate. If that happens, Republicans will easily reclaim Congress this year.
But where the difference is made in terms of Congressional midterms, certainly how passionate the opposition party is about voting certainly makes a difference, but also how disaffected members of the incumbent party are — which consistently results in them staying home when it comes time to vote. The degree of disaffection determines how badly the incumbent party tends to lose in the midterms.
And with 7.9 percent inflation that appears destined to go double digits, the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that left hundreds of American citizens who are still stranded in the country and a failed legislative agenda that included not much else than trillions of dollars of too much spending, that disaffection will continue to cast a long shadow all the way to November.
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Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
Photo “Joe Biden” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
They are upset because Biden sold them out to the Republicans by failing to use ALL his constitutionally authorized executive powers to force party unity and a Congressional up-or-down vote. Biden is no LBJ who forced Congress to break the filibuster and pass civil rights legislation by keeping Congress in session until they finished their job. Also, the fact that the supposedly progressive leadership (up-Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi) FAILED to keep de-facto Republicans within their ranks like Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin in line shows that Biden and the Democrat leadership are, at worst, incompetent, or, at best, secretly in cahoots with the Republican Tea Party. For too long, progressives have allowed the corporate Democrats like Biden, Sinema, Clinton, et al. to take them for granted. Maybe, a lot of progressives will decide to boycott the elections in disgust, even at the risk of a Republican victory, to cleanse the Democrats of the Sinema and Manchin types.
William, I have to comment. LBJ was far from what I would consider a model president. He was responsible for the American escalation of the Viet Nam war. And, while during his term very meaningful Civil Rights legislation was passed, many of the social programs of that era did more harm than good in giving people the ability to raise themselves out of poverty instead of the government handing out free money.
As to Sinema and Manchin, it is their responsibility to represent their constituents, not blindly toe the party line.
As to the incompetency of Biden and the democrats….never in my life have I witnesses the level of damage inflicted on our nation by it the ruling political party. The only group the current administration is in cahoots with are the globalists who are bound and determined to destroy our Nation and rebuild it under the Great Reset..
The “progressive” wing of the democratic party is what is tearing it apart. Without doing any research I would guess that the majority of democrats who are not running for reelection are from the traditional democratic party that actually worked together with the other side of the isle to pass meaningful legislation that actually benefited ALL Americans.
Good luck with those voting machines. Cheers.