Amid declining poll numbers and a stalled legislative agenda, President Joe Biden has urged a restart on his presidency as he enters his second year in office — and as Democrats’ electoral prospects hang in the balance.
“Our work’s not done,” Biden said during a White House news conference Wednesday, using the nearly two-hour question and answer session to tout his administration’s spending on bipartisan infrastructure and coronavirus relief, new medical billing protections, a drop in poverty, and a surge in new hires.
Biden and his allies have been quick to note his successes. An inaugural committee advertisement released Thursday featured cameos from ordinary people underlining the president’s efforts to fight the coronavirus, even as the pandemic creeps into its third year.
“I can feel the change,” said New York nurse Sandra Lindsay, the first American to receive a coronavirus vaccine, in the video.
BIDEN AGENDA TESTED AFTER WEEK OF HARD SETBACKS
Biden, straight to the camera, insists, “I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future.”
While Biden has notched wins such as a record number of federal judicial appointments, some Democratic voters are itching for more, with the president’s campaign pledges on climate action, student debt relief, police reform, drug pricing, and immigration still lingering.
The president passed a trillion-dollar American Rescue Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure bill, “but there hasn’t been a whole lot of legislative progress since then,” said Matt Grossmann, the director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University. Biden’s Democratic predecessors had notched more wins at the one-year mark.
“If you stack up that legislative record, it is, so far, not as much as Barack Obama achieved in his initial time in office or as [Bill] Clinton and the Democratic Congress achieved in 1993,” Grossmann told the Washington Examiner. “It’s closer to Jimmy Carter in his first couple of years or John F. Kennedy in his.”
But Biden still has time to act, Grossmann said, with Obama passing in his second year the Affordable Care Act and the Wall Street reform legislation known as the Dodd-Frank Act. “So there’s time for more things to be achieved.”
The president’s rebuke to skeptics comes as his popularity with voters falls underwater, his disagreements with key Democratic senators over the mechanism to pass Democrats’ elections legislation take center stage, and his trillion-dollar social spending bill falters.
Moreover, the political landscape is less forgiving than it was one year ago. After insisting for months that rising inflation was transitory, Democrats are facing record price increases for everyday goods and gas. The party is also divided over the road ahead and how to protect its narrow congressional majorities in the midterm elections, while Republicans smell blood.
After notching several quick failures in the new year, including changes to the Senate filibuster and voting rights, Biden “is irreparably damaged, perhaps even fatally,” presidential historian Craig Shirley told the Washington Examiner. “It is Newton’s second law: An object in motion has a tendency to stay in motion, and Biden is in motion downward. He’s fallen, and he can’t get up.”
Arguing that Biden has failed to meet the expectations he promised during his campaign for president, Republican pollster Neil Newhouse characterized Biden as “rudderless” one year into office, with the president’s leadership skills exposed by his failure to enact Democrats’ voting rights and Build Back Better legislation.
“Biden finds himself in a deep hole that is of his own making,” Newhouse said.
The coronavirus, fractious pullout from Afghanistan, and supply chain and economic woes have “collectively kicked his butt,” the pollster added.
While the White House has pushed back on these assessments, in an interview this month with PBS, Vice President Kamala Harris conceded a “level of malaise” among the public following the resurgence of a new coronavirus variant, words that evoked comparisons to Carter’s attempt in 1979 to rouse the nation during a gas crisis.
Whether pricing woes hitting U.S. pocketbooks will prove more damaging to Democrats than a half-checked off Democratic wish list isn’t clear. But for many voters, kitchen table topics are front of mind.
In a recent CBS News poll, a majority of respondents voiced concerns about Biden doing enough to help the economy, 58%, while 65% said the same for inflation.
White House officials insisted last year that growing inflation was transitory, but higher prices for gas, groceries, and other essentials have stuck around. Prices in December jumped 7% year over year, logging a four-decade high.
Biden could face a rocky path to reelection regardless if he passes big legislation.
The president would earn plaudits among his supporters for fulfilling campaign promises, but moving too far to the left ideologically could haunt him too.
“There’s a negative relationship between policy and electoral success, with record midterm backlashes in 1994, 2010, and 1966 after liberals succeeded in moving policy in their direction,” Grossmann said. “Typically, you don’t get much credit for passing something — you either get blamed for not passing it or for passing something that’s too much for some voters.”
Some concerned members of the president’s party are quietly speaking out as liberal Democrats push for more spending.
“Over the last year, the White House has allowed the Left to hijack and misinterpret the rationale for Biden’s election,” a former Democratic official in close touch with Biden told CNN. “He was not elected to transform the country.”
Already facing headwinds, Democrats entering the 2022 election year may benefit from a slow start on the legislative front if the party hopes to avoid the sort of backlash Grossmann described.
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Moderating forces in the party may be too late to hold on to the Democratic voters in the center who helped put Biden in office.
New research from Gallup shows the number of people who identify as Democrats declined over the last year, while the number who identify themselves as Republicans grew, a 14-point party affiliation swing.
