59% of respondents disapprove of Biden for Afghanistan 0:51
(CNN) -
The most important indicator for both parties of what the 2022 midterm elections will look like is what people think of President Joe Biden.
Which, ugh, if you're a Democratic candidate looking to try and win a race in an undecided district or state, wait until November.
The latest bad news on that front came Thursday in a new NPR / PBS NewsHour / Marist poll.
Biden's approval in the poll slipped to 43%, a drop of 6 points in a single month.
His disapproval, unsurprisingly, shot up 7 points to 51%.
Those numbers for Biden - and for Democrats - are bad.
Obviously.
But there is another number buried in that question that should concern you even more.
And it is this: 41% of people said they
strongly
disapprove
of
the work Biden is doing, while only 19%
strongly
approve
of
how he is handling his job as president.
ANALYSIS |
Biden turns to nation-building at home, but the political threats he left in Afghanistan could come back to haunt him
What that number suggests is that there is a huge passion gap between the rank and file of the two parties.
Among Democrats like Biden, some even love him.
But Republicans HATE him, with 82% saying they strongly disapprove of how he's doing the job.
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That kind of energy disparity between the rank and file of the two parties is, if history is any guide, a recipe for disaster for Democratic candidates for Congress.
This from Jeffrey Jones of Gallup is illustrative on that point:
"In the history of Gallup polls, presidents with job approval ratings below 50% have seen their party lose 37 House seats, on average, in midterm elections. That compares with an average loss of 14 seats when presidents had approval ratings above 50%. "
OPINION |
The repulsive Texas abortion law is pure Republican hypocrisy
Recent history affirms that trend.
With its approval ratings hovering around 40% (at best), then-President Donald Trump's Republican Party took a beating in the 2018 midterm elections. Republicans lost 40 House seats, and their majority.
The Point: The best news for Biden and his party is that it's September 2021, not September 2022. If his job approval numbers a year from now are close to where they are today, Democrats will likely face a wave to come. to crash into them on Election Day.
Democrats
