Biden at COP26: Climate Crisis Threatens "Human Existence" 1:22
(CNN) -
If Democrats want to avoid a much more devastating election night next year than the one they suffered on Tuesday, they must finally defeat the pandemic from which so much economic pain and voter anguish flows.
Republican Glenn Youngkin's victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race and a big change against New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who won re-election, CNN projected Wednesday, in a much closer race than expected, reflect a desperate political environment for Democrats.
They have a lot of problems besides the pandemic. Youngkin's move in his suburban strongholds could spell disaster in the midterm elections if repeated across the country. Democrats have struggled to address many voters' concerns about education and immigration while failing to properly sell or even approve their generational social spending plan to electrify their base. And as Tuesday shows, turning every issue into an argument that Republicans are wallowing in the racism and extremism of former President Donald Trump will not resonate when voters are upset or angry and he is, for at least the next three years, out of office.
The most chronic stage of the COVID-19 nightmare appears to be ending, with new infections and deaths significantly declining.
But President Joe Biden and other Democrats urgently need a fundamental transformation of the political environment in the 12 months left before the midterm elections, and that seems unlikely if the pandemic, and its cascade of economic anxiety, is still here in some form. .
There is nothing more fundamental to the basic life and sentiment of voters than buying food and gasoline.
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Yet if inflation continues to rise, gasoline still averages $ 3.40 a gallon, the economy is still stuttering, and Americans fear for their economic future next November - little of what Democrats say or do. will sink. Under those circumstances, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's prediction on Wednesday that the Republican Party could change 60 House seats next year could come to pass. And in such circumstances, the Senate will almost certainly lean toward the Republicans as well.
But if the country controls the pandemic, inflation is lower, the job market is healthier, and store shelves are full, voters may be in a better mood by November 2022. If the virus is circulating at low levels and There is no need for vaccination mandates and the use of masks, Biden should be able to put in the past controversies that are essential to generate conservative anger and to get Trump's base to the polls.
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A Biden adviser told CNN's Jeremy Diamond after the poor performance in Virginia that while Democrats must show action and cannot just compete against Trump all the time, there is hope within the president's circle that the political environment Treacherous could improve next year. The pandemic is on the wane and there is a growing belief that Congressional Democrats will soon pass both the president's bipartisan infrastructure bill and the social spending plan, the adviser said. Still, with surveys showing that many Americans are unfamiliar with this latest plan's funding mix for health care, education, and climate change mitigation,the party must mount a major public relations campaign once the measures are approved.
Biden promised to 'put an end to this' but the pandemic is not over yet
Exit-man polls in Virginia showed that the economy and education were the top concerns for all voters in the state, above the pandemic.
But even if the worst national health crisis in 100 years is beginning to fade as the political priority issue, its threat is at the center of many of the other influences that shape America's ever-changing political map.
Biden said in March that Americans chose him to fix problems, the most urgent of which was Covid-19.
And towards the end of his 2020 campaign he promised, "I'll get this over with," referring to the pandemic.
Then, as now, the fate of your presidency and party depends on your keeping your word.
Biden returns to Washington for a political nightmare
Many of the current obstacles in the economy can be traced directly to the crisis.
Some Americans have not returned to work or were slow to return because they couldn't get child care when schools were closed.
The summer wave of the delta variant slowed the momentum of recovery after previous infectious waves, and coupled with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan - another problem where Biden's comments did not seem to match reality - helped reduce the President approval ratings.
A supply chain slowdown that has emptied some stores was caused by a shortage of truck drivers that caused the pandemic in the US In Asia, manufacturing is still hampered by COVID-19 lockdowns. The resulting lack of supply at a time of increased demand has raised prices. Everyone will pay more to celebrate Thanksgiving this year, and turkeys cost 25% more than usual, CNN's Christine Romans reported. And, in 2021, there is nothing more American than apple pie that costs 8% more than last year. High gasoline prices are being driven by multiple factors, including the reluctance of oil-producing nations to pump more crude to help the United States.But some loss of capacity in the industry during the pandemic is influencing the situation.
Biden demonstrated addressing the supply chain crisis several weeks ago and secured the 24/7 openness at the Port of Los Angeles to help remove jammed containers from the docks.
But he admitted on a recent CNN forum that he can't do much about gas prices, and his Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently said on CNN that supply chain problems may linger into next year.
Such comments hardly give people the impression that the White House is relentlessly concentrating on this issue every day, even if such an effort could be both a public relations exercise and a decisive intervention that could fix problems.
White House to Launch Supply Chain Crisis Monitoring Dashboard
Youngkin's well-executed campaign in Virginia capitalized on the void, emphasizing economic concerns shared by many in the state and, since Democrats control Washington, put his opponent, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, on the defensive. The incoming Republican commonwealth governor plans to abolish the grocery tax. And even his offensive on education, simmering with implicit messages about race and transgender rights to appeal to Trump voters, garnered more buy-in than it could have been due to great frustration among parents. due to the months of closures driven by the pandemic. Youngkin also spoke out against vaccination mandates for schools and state workers. And the political cost of pandemic leadership,From being the face of restrictions and closures, it may well have hurt Murphy in New Jersey, where there was high turnout in areas opposed to those measures.
'Incredible progress'
After a grim flight back from Europe as the scale of Tuesday night's defeat in Virginia looked on, Biden once again tried to create some optimism that the dark months of the pandemic are now mostly in the past. .
"We have made incredible progress in the last nine months, but we have to move on. The pandemic is not over yet, but we are coming," Biden said as he celebrated regulatory clearance, finally, for vaccines for children ages 5 to 11. years on Wednesday.
"After nearly 18 months of worrying anxiously every time your child sneezed or started coughing, well, now you can protect him from this horrible virus," the president said at the White House.
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The administration is under pressure to quickly and competently manage the deployment of children's vaccines.
While Thanksgiving and Hanukkah will come too soon for the two-dose vaccine to erase memories of last year's dark Christmas season, millions of American children could be fully protected for Christmas.
However, if history is any guide, a breakthrough in the public health offensive against the virus will provoke a new eruption in the partisan confrontation that has prolonged the pandemic. The conservative media will be brimming with misinformation about vaccines and government regulatory trials that say they are safe and effective for children. Various surveys have shown that millions of parents say they will not allow their children to receive vaccines, even though vaccines for other diseases are standard for school attendance from an early age. A backlash would reflect earlier hostility among conservatives over the use of masks, vaccines, and mandates throughout the pandemic,all of which have contributed to successive waves of infection and hundreds of thousands of deaths. The death toll in the United States surpassed 750,000 on Wednesday and many of those who left could still be alive if public health guidelines had been followed.
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The controversy over childhood vaccines would also underscore that the president's greatest obstacle in his quest to end the pandemic, or at least reduce it to an endemic threat rather than an ongoing crisis, is posed by some Americans.
As Tuesday's results show, ruling parties and leaders like Biden end up paying the price for the long and devastating economic and social life by halves during COVID-19.
And somehow, Biden's fate may be in the hands of the same voters who are likely to oppose him next year, those who will likely ignore the government's public health councils.
Voters could look to Republicans for the long term if the consequences of the pandemic persist.
Joe Biden Republicans