It is late August, and no one starts casting ballots in for the general election until… er, a month from now, when Minnesota starts early voting. Most Americans won’t cast ballots for another 77 days.
There are still a lot of variables in play for the midterm elections. We don’t know what the inflation rate or unemployment rate will be when voters start casting ballots. We don’t know what issues will be front and center in the public’s mind. As always, candidate quality matters.
But if you told me that:
- Just 37 percent of all adult Americans approve of the job Joe Biden is doing in the latest Pew Research survey…
- Just 28 percent of independents approve of the job Joe Biden is doing in the latest Ipsos survey…
- The percentage of Americans who evaluate their lives poorly enough to be considered ‘suffering’ on Gallup’s Life Evaluation Index is the highest since they started measuring it in 2008…
- 74 percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track in the NBC News survey…
- and 82 percent (!) of Americans think the country is on the wrong track in the Monmouth survey…
… then I would tell you that I expect the incumbent party to do really badly. A frustrated, disappointed, stressed, angry public does not say, “please give me more of this, elected officials.”