The Democrats’ political problems go beyond their embarrassing defeat in Virginia, reports Politico, as a new poll shows that the Democrat brand has been destroyed over the past ten months.
The liberal group Third Way spoke with suburban Virginia focus groups and what they found is a disaster for their party.
“Voters couldn’t name anything that Democrats had done, except a few who said we passed the infrastructure bill,” Third Way and its pollsters found. According to their report, most of the Biden voters they spoke with “could not articulate what Democrats stand for. They could also not say what they are doing in Washington, besides fighting.”
Democrats have pursued their most radical agenda yet despite their razor-thin majorities in the House and Senate, making passage of legislation difficult as they’ve struggled to appease both the moderate and socialist wings of the party. Despite claiming he would bring Democrats and Republicans together in compromise, Biden has struggled to even get all of his own party on board for key parts of his agenda.
“Just one year after Democrats kicked Donald Trump from the White House, it’s not obvious to many voters what Democrats are doing now that they’re in charge,” Politico explains.
The House did pass a trimmed-down social spending package last week, but one Democratic strategist who advises major donors told Politico it’s “too late. We’re f—ed.”
“Voters believe the economy is bad, and no amount of stats can change their mind [at least in the short term],” the Third Way report said. “Jobs numbers, wage numbers, and the number of people we’ve put back to work don’t move them. We should still talk about these [more the wage and back-to-work numbers], but we should realize that they will have limited impact when people are seeing help wanted signs all over main street, restaurant sections closed for lack of workers, rising prices, and supply disruptions. Even where things are getting better, Biden doesn’t get credit.”
Adding to the Democrats’ problems is that while they hoped the infrastructure and social spending bills would help them in the midterm elections, Third Way found little evidence that these would help them at the ballot box. They also found that Biden voters “do not necessarily blame him for ongoing problems with the delta variant, inflation, or supply chain bottlenecks,” however they don’t have a lot of good things to say about Biden either. They describe Biden as a disappointment. “They were reluctant to say he’s not up to the job, but they don’t feel like he’s getting it done right now.”
Gee, I wonder why?
Related: Is the White House in Crisis?
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