After a series of election losses on Wednesday, Democrats are preparing for a disastrous election cycle in the 2022 midterms.  On the eve of Glenn Younkin’s resounding victory in Virginia, House Republicans added 13 seats to their target list for the 2022 midterms.  While Republicans are showing confidence for the midterms, Democrats have taken on a more defensive posture.  The Democratic Governors association is hinting at pulling financial support for the Florida gubernatorial race next year, believing that the state is out of reach for Democrats.  This paradigm shift comes on the heels of significant losses at the state level for Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey, where Republicans regained the Virginia House of Delegates and won all contested seats in the New Jersey House race.

 

Democrats are in a precarious position going in to the 2022 midterms, where they will have to hold multiple Senate seats in tossup states that went for Biden by a small margin.  Democrats abysmal performance in Virginia and New Jersey can in large part be attributed to President Biden’s plummeting approval ratings.  In April of this year, only 39% of Americans disapproved of Biden’s job performance, in a poll released last week, 52% of Americans now disapprove of his performance, according to an NBC poll.  Many Americans no longer trust the President to navigate the country through the pandemic, a recent economic downturn, and a variety of other issues.  “The promise of the Biden presidency — knowledge, competence and stability in tough times — have all been called into question,” Said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt.