The economy appears broadly on a path to recovery, but optimism was shaken by another poor jobs report on last Friday. Inflation lurks in the background, too. Along with this the dangers of the winter months are looming.
A little progress was made on the nation’s debt ceiling and avoiding the financial earthquake that would have resulted had the US neared default in mid-October. The temporary fix agreed between Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell means the fight will be waged all over again in early December.
A Quinnipiac University poll released last Wednesday indicates Biden’s fall to easily the lowest mark of his presidency, with 53% of registered voters disapproving of his job performance and only 40% approving.
An Economist-YouGov survey conducted in first week of October was not quite as bad, but it still made for discomforting reading for Democrats. 48% of respondents disapproved of Biden’s actions, and 42% approved.
There are even worries that Democrats could suffer an embarrassing loss in Virginia’s gubernatorial race early next month.
Democrats see the turbulent waters surrounding Biden and they look with trepidation toward next year’s midterm elections. The party that holds the White House almost always loses ground in the first midterms of a president’s tenure. Democrats are defending a tiny majority in the House and a 50-50 split in the Senate, where they hold the majority only through Vice President Harris’s deciding vote.
Republican strategist Dan Judy asserted that “the bloom is off the Joe Biden rose” after about nine months in power.
Biden got bad news on the economy on Friday, when new data from the Labor Department showed just 194,000 jobs had been added in September — the lowest monthly figure since December.
The divisions between progressives and their more conservative colleagues in the Democratic Party are on stark display. Biden faces a delicate task in trying to reconcile the ambitions of progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders and much of the rest of the party, with two skeptical Senate holdouts, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
The rhetoric across the Democratic trenches has become angrier in recent weeks; even as most in the party admit failure to reach a deal would be a political disaster.
“It is important for the president to be able to rally his side,” said Murray. “But I also think it is important to demonstrate that government is capable of working, of delivering results.
“I think there is a broad cynicism that exists in the American public that government doesn’t do anything,” he added. “To the extent that the Biden administration can show we are delivering results, I think that is very important.”
Any number of these events could break in Biden’s favor, reversing the slide he has endured since the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, but right now, he faces stiff challenges.
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