Wall Street Journal Poll: 70 Percent of Americans Back Ban on Russian Oil Even if Energy Prices Rise

This has got to be a form of the rally 'round the flag effect. The national average is about $4.00 per gallon, but I dare anyone to come live in work in Los Angeles. We'll see how long that rally lasts.

At WSJ,

A wide majority of Americans, 79%, said they favored a ban on Russian oil imports even if the prohibition increased energy prices in the U.S., according to data from a new Wall Street Journal poll. Just 13% said they opposed it.

President Biden on Tuesday halted the purchase of Russian crude oil, certain petroleum products, liquefied natural gas and coal—the latest economic impediment the White House has placed on Moscow in an attempt to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The new Journal poll showed broad support for the energy ban across political breakdowns. The ban had support from 77% of Republicans and 72% of voters who said they would support former President Trump if he ran again in 2024. Among Democrats, 88% said they favored the moratorium on Russian oil imports, including 94% of Democratic men...

Biden Gets Boost in Public Approval After State of the Union Address

From Marist, "NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll: Bounce for Biden Following State of the Union, March 2022":

Biden Enjoys Boost in His Job Approval Ratings Following the State of the Union... A Majority Approve of Biden’s Handling of Conflict in Ukraine... Overwhelming Support Exists for Economic Sanctions.

Following a State of the Union address which underscored President Joe Biden’s commitment to promoting democracy across the world, the president enjoys a bounce in his handling of the crisis in Ukraine. His standing among the American people has also improved on the issues of the economy and the coronavirus pandemic. While Biden’s bounce is predominantly among his Democratic base, he also enjoys moderate gains among independents. Of note, rare, bipartisan consensus exists on the issue of sanctions levied against Russia. Most Americans, regardless of party, support these sanctions, and nearly seven in ten favor them even if it means higher energy prices domestically.

RTWT.

Joe Biden Heading into the State of the Union Address: Fifty-Six Percent of Americans Say President's First Year a Failure

I'm not watching. Nothing he says will help politically. He's torn the country apart. 

Polling surveys are simply shapshots in time. Things change, but if the election were held today it'd be a tsunami. The number of House Democrats retiring (or just bailing out) is near a 30-year high. 

November's going to be a bloodbath, from school board, state legislatures, governors, to Members of Congress --- it won't be pretty. 

Here's the brutal poll out form Marist last week, "NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll: The Biden Administration Heading into the State of the Union Address":

President Joe Biden will deliver his first State of the Union address on Tuesday to a nation whose focus has shifted away from the COVID-19 pandemic and who is sending a message that they want Biden to focus on other issues, especially inflation. Americans’ concerns about their own personal finances and the overall direction of the country provide a stark backdrop for Biden who will face the nation with dismal reviews of his first year in office and his lowest job approval rating...

Majorities of Americans think Biden’s first year in office has been a failure (56%), he is not fulfilling campaign promises (54%), and he is doing more to divide the nation (52%) than to unite it. Americans are more than four times as likely to consider Biden’s first year to be a major failure (36%) than a major success (8%)...

Americans are generally not optimistic about the future of their personal finances, although 36% expect their financial situation to get better in the coming year, up from 30% in July 2021...

51% of Americans think people in their community are economically worse off than they were a year ago. 30% say they are better off, and 7% don’t think there has been much change. 12% are unsure.

With inflation and personal family finances top of mind, perceptions of President Biden’s first year in office are bleak. Majorities of Americans consider his time in office to be a failure, think Biden has missed the mark in fulfilling campaign promises, and believe he is a divisive force in the nation.

On Biden's divisiveness, see Newsweek, "More Americans Say Biden Is Dividing the Country Rather Than Unifying It, Poll Finds."

Joe Biden's Failure in Ukraine

Pamela Geller features the Epoch Times, "Washington’s Policy Failure in Ukraine":

The Biden administration seems to have thought it could scare the Russians away from Ukraine, so refused, on principle, to negotiate. The Russians weren’t scared off, and we and our allies (not to mention the Ukrainians) are without much of a policy.

A superpower shouldn’t make threats that won’t be backed up. The United States and NATO—who don’t agree on very much—do agree that no one will use military force to defend Ukraine. That means all the threats are economic and political.

This is necessary, because America’s ability to defend Eastern Europe militarily is, to say the least, questionable. We have few ground forces, no in-depth defenses against Russian missiles and rockets, and little assurance that NATO can fight even if it chooses to. The expansion of NATO in the 1990s came when most of our allies had disarmed as part of the “peace dividend” after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The United States did some serious disarming as well, and the result is that no NATO member outside of the United States can really defend its own territory, let alone someone else’s. And keep in mind that Ukraine isn’t a NATO member.

In addition, U.S. forces are weaker today because of long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, throwing away trillions of dollars and leaving a lot of our forces unable to be summoned to a fight. Readiness levels remain appallingly poor despite some improvements during the prior administration. In addition, the Pentagon continues to ignore important defense systems, including tactical and strategic air defenses; we have sent our soldiers to war with no air cover against missile and drone attacks. War stocks, too, which take years to replenish, are at bare minimum levels or below.

Objective conditions leave any U.S. leader with an almost empty military hand.

The right move, the clever move, would have been serious arms control negotiations with Moscow when Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded them. Putin handed the administration a clear opportunity, because it appears the Russians are afraid of NATO. It appears—it may not be true—but if they are afraid of NATO, we could work out deals to protect European security and Russian security, something the Russians not only say they want, but also put their “want” in the form of demands.

The same possibility for negotiations had applied to Ukraine. The Russians argued that the Ukrainians should negotiate the terms provided for by the Minsk Protocols. Washington, however, applied no pressure on Kyiv, although it’s a signatory along with the two Donbas “republics.” The core issue there was limited autonomy for those “republics,” which the Russians have now recognized as independent and to which they have sent “peacekeepers.”

Certainly, it would have been difficult, but Ukraine would have held onto the “republics” and taken away the Russian excuse to threaten Ukrainian independence. But the Ukrainians really were convinced, wrongly, that support from Washington would get them back the lost areas with no compromise and chase the Russians away. Washington should never have been allowed that fantasy.

There’s a reason that Ukraine isn’t in NATO—and that adding it isn’t on the NATO agenda...

 

Russia's Invasion Could Unleash Forces the Kremlin Can't Control

The Ukrainians a determined, fierce, and awfully brave. 

Just a few minutes ago on CNN, William Taylor, a former ambassador to Ukraine, argued that the Ukrainians will never allow a Russian-back puppet regime in Kiev. People will take to the streets. Strings will be cut and puppet squashed.

And now, at Foreign Affairs, see Douglas London, "The Coming Ukrainian Insurgency":

Russian forces have struck targets across Ukraine and seized key facilities and swaths of territory. The Ukrainian military is no match for this Russian juggernaut. Although some reports suggest Ukrainian troops have rebuffed attacks in certain parts of the country, it seems more likely that Russian President Vladimir Putin will decide just how far Russia goes into Ukraine. As a retired Russian-speaking CIA operations officer who served in Central Asia and managed agency counterinsurgency operations, I did not think Putin would have attacked Ukraine unless he had already devised a reliable end game, given the costs of an intractable conflict. But Putin’s best-laid plans might easily unravel in the face of popular Ukrainian national resistance and an insurgency.

If Russia limits its offensive to the east and south of Ukraine, a sovereign Ukrainian government will not stop fighting. It will enjoy reliable military and economic support from abroad and the backing of a united population. But if Russia pushes on to occupy much of the country and install a Kremlin-appointed puppet regime in Kyiv, a more protracted and thorny conflagration will begin. Putin will face a long, bloody insurgency that could spread across multiple borders, perhaps even reaching into Belarus to challenge Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Putin’s stalwart ally. Widening unrest could destabilize other countries in Russia’s orbit, such as Kazakhstan, and even spill into Russia itself. When conflicts begin, unpredictable and unimaginable outcomes can become all too real. Putin may not be prepared for the insurgency—or insurgencies—to come.

WINNER’S REMORSE

Many a great power has waged war against a weaker one, only to get bogged down as a result of its failure to have a well-considered end game. This lack of foresight has been especially palpable in troubled occupations. It was one thing for the United States to invade Vietnam in 1965, Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003; likewise for the Soviet Union to enter Afghanistan in 1979. It was an altogether more difficult task to persevere in those countries in the face of stubborn insurgencies.

Russia can likely seize as much of Ukraine’s territory as it chooses. But plans to pacify Ukraine will require far more than the reserve forces Putin has suggested might occupy the territory as “peacekeepers” after initial combat objectives are met. Thanks to Putin’s aggression, anti-Russian fervor and homegrown nationalism have surged in Ukraine. Ukrainians have spent the last eight years planning, training, and equipping themselves for resisting a Russian occupation. Ukraine understands that no U.S. or NATO forces will come to its rescue on the battlefield. Its strategy doesn’t depend on turning back a Russian invasion, but rather in bleeding Moscow so as to make occupation untenable.

Any future insurgency will benefit from Ukraine’s geography. The country is bordered by four NATO states: Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Belarus, a Russian ally, is itself bordered by Poland on the west and another NATO member—Lithuania—on the north. These long borders offer the United States and NATO an enduring way to support Ukrainian resistance and a long-term insurgency and to stoke unrest in Belarus should the United States and its allies choose to covertly aid opposition to Lukashenko’s regime...

RTWT.

 

Biden’s Public Approval Tanking as Russia Prepares to Take Kiev

At the Federalist, "Biden’s Approval Sinks Further As Russia-Ukraine Crisis Heightens."

A freakin' 56 percent majority thinks the Biden presidency has been a failure.

The president's at 39 percent approving for his handing of the Ukraine crisis. 

Brutal. 

The full results are here, "NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll: The Biden Administration Heading into the State of the Union Address, February 2022" (via Memeorandum). 

Monmouth Poll: Republicans and Republican-Leaning Independents Now Make Up the Majority of the Country

At AoSHQ, "Let's Go Brandon."

Consumer Prices Rise 7 percent, Fastest Pace Since 1982

Price hikes are not going down, despite what all the leftist Biden shills on TV tell you. (Or Biden's media cronies at the Washington Post. Gawd, that newspaper is a jock.)

At NYT, "Consumer prices popped again in December as policymakers await an elusive peak":

Inflation closed out 2021 on a high note, troubling news for the Biden White House and for economic policymakers as rapid price gains erode consumer confidence and cast a shadow of uncertainty over the economy’s future.

The Consumer Price Index climbed 7 percent in the year through December, and 5.5 percent after stripping out volatile prices such as food and fuel. The last time the main inflation index eclipsed 7 percent was 1982.

Policymakers have spent months waiting for inflation to fade, hoping supply chain problems might ease, allowing companies to catch up with booming consumer demand. Instead, continued waves of virus have locked down factories, and shipping routes have struggled to work through extended backlogs as consumers continue to buy goods from overseas at a rapid clip. What will happen next might be the biggest economic policy question of 2022...

More at Memeorandum. 

Voting Rights Groups Skipping Biden's Speech Over Inaction

This is quite funny.

At Yahoo, "Voting Rights Groups Skipping Biden's Speech in Georgia Over Inaction."

And on Twitter:

Stacy Abrams is skipping Biden's speech in Georgia due to a scheduling conflict.

The scheduling conflict:

'The NYT editorial today makes it sounds like the burning of the Reichstag...'

From Tana Geneva, on Twitter.

She's talking about this absurd piece at the New York Times, "Every Day Is Jan. 6 Now."

SOURCE: "New polling on January 6 is a MAJOR BUZZKILL to Brian Stelter and many other journos."

'Dark Winter' at the White House: Just 41 Percent Approve the Way Joe Biden's Handling Job as President (VIDEO)

What a surprise. I mean, with all the Franklin Roosevelt-style leadership Biden's been providing, who would've guessed?

Look, Americans should be worried about this president's dark matter at least as much as his prophesied dark winter. (*Eye-roll.*)

At PBS, "Biden’s approval dips to new low as independents sour on his leadership":

As President Joe Biden heads into the end of the year, he’s facing a sour reality: The number of Americans who approve of his performance has hit a new low. Just 41 percent of Americans approve of the job he has been doing as president, according to a new PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll. Support among independents alone dropped eight points in a week.

Overall, more than half – 55 percent – of Americans disapprove of Biden’s performance, including 44 percent who strongly disapprove. His disapproval ratings have jumped 20 points since he took office, reaching a record high this month. The number who strongly disapprove jumped 6 points since a Marist poll conducted just one week earlier...

Ouch! (*Cringe emoji here.*)

Taliban Covert Operatives Seized Kabul, Other Afghan Cities From Within

Foreign policy is rarely the driving factor in voter choice, but Afghanistan needs to stay in the news, and G.O.P. candidates need to run campaign spots reminding voters of Biden's debacle in Kabul. 

Democrats are quite vulnerable on this issue, and with 11 months until the 2022 midterms, Biden's currently underwater in every single battleground state.

In any case, the Wall Street Journal continues its excellent coverage, here, "Success of Kabul’s undercover network, loyal to the Haqqanis, changed balance of power within Taliban after U.S. withdrawal":

KABUL—Undercover Taliban agents—often clean-shaven, dressed in jeans and sporting sunglasses—spent years infiltrating Afghan government ministries, universities, businesses and aid organizations.

Then, as U.S. forces were completing their withdrawal in August, these operatives stepped out of the shadows in Kabul and other big cities across Afghanistan, surprising their neighbors and colleagues. Pulling their weapons from hiding, they helped the Taliban rapidly seize control from the inside.

The pivotal role played by these clandestine cells is becoming apparent only now, three months after the U.S. pullout. At the time, Afghan cities fell one after another like dominoes with little resistance from the American-backed government’s troops. Kabul collapsed in a matter of hours, with hardly a shot fired.

“We had agents in every organization and department,” boasted Mawlawi Mohammad Salim Saad, a senior Taliban leader who directed suicide-bombing operations and assassinations inside the Afghan capital before its fall. “The units we had already present in Kabul took control of the strategic locations.”

Mr. Saad’s men belong to the so-called Badri force of the Haqqani network, a part of the Taliban that is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. because of its links to al Qaeda. Sitting before a bank of closed-circuit TV monitors in the Kabul airport security command center, which he now oversees, he said, “We had people even in the office that I am occupying today.”

The 20-year war in Afghanistan was often seen as a fight between bands of Taliban insurgents—bearded men operating from mountain hide-outs—and Afghan and U.S. forces struggling to control rural terrain. The endgame, however, was won by a large underground network of urban operatives.

On Aug. 15, after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled Kabul, it was these men who seized the capital city while the Taliban’s more conventional forces remained outside.

Mohammad Rahim Omari, a midlevel commander in the Badri force, was working undercover at his family’s gasoline-trading business in Kabul before he was called into action that day. He said he and 12 others were dispatched to an Afghan intelligence service compound in the east of the city, where they disarmed the officers on duty and stopped them from destroying computers and files.

Other cells fanned out to seize other government and military installations and reached Kabul airport, where the U.S. was mounting a massive evacuation effort. They took control of the airport’s perimeter until better-armed Taliban troops arrived from the countryside in the morning. One agent, Mullah Rahim, was even dispatched to secure the Afghan Institute of Archaeology and its treasures from potential looters.

Mr. Omari said the Badri force had compartmentalized cells working on different tasks—armed fighters, fundraisers and those involved with propaganda and recruitment.

“Now these three types of mujahedeen have reunited,” he said. Mr. Omari himself is now deputy police chief in Kabul’s 12th District.

Their success has helped boost the influence of the Haqqanis within the overall Taliban movement. Badri was founded by Badruddin Haqqani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in 2012. It now is under the ultimate command of his brother, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is in charge of Afghanistan’s internal security as its new interior minister.

Named after the Battle of Badr that was won by Prophet Muhammad in 624, the Badri force includes several subgroups. The best known is its special-operations unit, Badri 313, whose fighters in high-end helmets and body armor were deployed next to U.S. Marines at the Kabul airport in the two weeks between the fall of Kabul and the completion of the American airlift.

Kamran, who didn’t want his surname to be used, was tasked with taking over his alma mater, Kabul University, and the Ministry of Higher Education.

A 30-year-old from Wardak province west of Kabul, he said he became a Taliban recruiter when he was pursuing a master’s degree in Arabic at the university in 2017. He estimates that, over the years, he persuaded some 500 people, mostly students, to join the insurgency. To maintain his cover, he shaved his chin, wore sunglasses and dressed in suits or jeans.

“Many of our friends who had beards were targeted,” he recalled. “I was above suspicion. While many of our low-ranking friends were arrested, I wasn’t. Even though I was their leader.”

Many of his acquaintances—former classmates, teachers and guards—first realized he was a member of the Taliban when he showed up with a gun on Aug. 15, he said. “Many employees of the ministry and the entire staff of the university knew me. They were surprised to see me,” said Kamran, whose new job is head of security for Kabul’s several universities.

Kamran has since adopted the Taliban’s trademark look: a black turban, a white shalwar kameez and a long beard. As for his suits and jeans, they are gathering dust in his closet. “Those aren’t our traditional outfits,” he said. “I don’t think I will have to wear them again.” Similar Taliban cells operated in other major Afghan cities. In Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest metropolis, university lecturer Ahmad Wali Haqmal said he repeatedly asked Taliban leaders for permission to join the armed struggle against the U.S.-backed government after he completed his bachelor’s degree in Shariah law.

“I was ready to take the AK-47 and go because no Afghan can tolerate the invasion of their country,” he recalled. “But then our elders told us no, don’t come here, stay over there, work in the universities because these are also our people and the media and the world are deceiving them about us.”

The Taliban sent Mr. Haqmal to India to earn a master’s degree in human rights from Aligarh Muslim University, he said. When he returned to Kandahar, he was focused on recruitment and propaganda for the Taliban. After the fall of Kabul, he became the chief spokesman for the Taliban-run finance ministry.

Fereshta Abbasi, an Afghan lawyer, said she had long been suspicious about a man who worked alongside her at a fortified compound, Camp Baron near the Kabul airport, that hosted offices for development projects funded by the U.S. and other Western countries.

But it wasn’t until the day after the fall of Kabul—when the man appeared on television clutching a Kalashnikov rifle—that she discovered he was in fact a Taliban commander. “I was shocked,” said Ms. Abbasi, who is now based in London. The commander, Assad Massoud Kohistani, said in an interview with CNN that women should cover their faces...

 

Democrats Should Go Into Shock.

I'd be shocked if Republicans don't take at least 50 seats next November. I expect this year will match or even exceed the victory totals from 2014, when the G.O.P. picked up 63 seats in the House.

Here's Thomas Edsall, at the New York Times, "Democrats Shouldn’t Panic. They Should Go Into Shock":

The rise of inflation, supply chain shortages, a surge in illegal border crossings, the persistence of Covid, mayhem in Afghanistan and the uproar over “critical race theory” — all of these developments, individually and collectively, have taken their toll on President Biden and Democratic candidates, so much so that Democrats are now the underdogs going into 2022 and possibly 2024.

Gary Langer, director of polling at ABC News, put it this way in an essay published on the network’s website:

As things stand, if the midterm elections were today, 51 percent of registered voters say they’d support the Republican candidate in their congressional district, 41 percent say the Democrat. That’s the biggest lead for Republicans in the 110 ABC/Post polls that have asked this question since November 1981.

These and other trends have provoked a deepening pessimism about Democratic prospects in 2022 and anxiety about the 2024 presidential election.

Robert Y. Shapiro, a political scientist at Columbia, holds similar views, but suggests that the flood tide of political trouble may be beyond Democratic control:

Biden and the Democrats have had almost all bad news: the pandemic is still going; the economy has not picked up in terms of perceptions of the expected increases in employment and economic growth not on fire; perceptions of what happened in Afghanistan; what has happened on the southern border; high crime rates, all amplified in news reports. It is all perception, and the latest is the increase in inflation and gas prices that people see/feel. The critical race theory controversy and perceptions of Democrats being too woke and extreme. The bad news is overwhelming.

Bill McInturff, a founding partner of Public Opinion Strategies, provided me with data from the October WSJ/NBC poll asking voters which party can better manage a wide range of issues. On three key issues — controlling inflation (45R-21D), dealing with crime (43R-21D) and dealing with the economy (45R-27D) — the Republican advantage was the highest in surveys dating back to the 1990s.

“Washington Democrats are spending months fighting over legislation,” McInturff wrote by email,

but, during this time, voters tell us prices are soaring, the cost of living is tied for the top issue in the country, and there is a sharp increase in economic pessimism. It is these economic factors that are driving negative impressions about the direction of the country to unusually high levels, and this is hurting Democrats everywhere. No administration is going to thrive in that economic environment.

In his analysis of the Nov. 6-10 Washington Post/ABC News Poll, Langer made the case that

While a year is a lifetime in politics, the Democratic Party’s difficulties are deep; they include soaring economic discontent, a president who’s fallen 12 percentage points underwater in job approval and a broad sense that the party is out of touch with the concerns of most Americans — 62 percent say so.

The numbers are even worse for Democrats in the eight states expected to have the closest Senate elections, according to Langer — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Not only is Biden’s overall job approval rating in those states 33 percent, 10 points lower than it is in the rest of the country, but registered voters in those eight states say they are more likely to vote for Republican House candidates than for Democrats by 23 points (at 58 percent to 35 percent).

On Nov. 3, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball updated the ratings for three incumbent Democratic senators — Mark Kelly of Arizona, Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada — from “lean Democratic” to “tossup.”

An examination of Gallup survey results on the question “As of today, do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?” reflects the damage suffered by the Democrats. From January through August, Democrats held a substantial 7.9 point advantage (48.2 percent to 41.3 percent). In September, however, Gallup reported a 2-point (47-45) Republican edge that grew to a 5-point (47-42) edge by October.

In terms of election outcomes, Republican are once again capitalizing on their domination of the congressional redistricting process to disenfranchise Democratic voters despite strong public support for reforms designed to eliminate or constrain partisan gerrymandering. On Monday, The Times reported that the Republican Party “has added enough safe House districts to capture control of the chamber based on its redistricting edge alone.” The current partisan split in the House is 221 Democratic seats and 213 Republican seats, with one vacancy.

There is perhaps one potential political opportunity for Democrats — should the Supreme Court overturn or undermine Roe v. Wade, mobilizing supporters of reproductive rights across the country.

In the meantime, uneasiness prevails. Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor of government at Harvard, noted in an email that

Biden had two drops in approval ratings, one from June to August of about 6 points, and another from September to October of another 6 points. The first was a response to Afghanistan. The second was a response to Covid and weak employment growth over the summer.

Passing the infrastructure bill should help “with the sense that the administration wasn’t doing enough for the economy,” Ansolabehere continued, but “the hit from Afghanistan is going to be harder to reverse, as it was a judgment about the administration’s handling of foreign affairs.”

Micah English, a graduate student in political science at Yale who studies race, class and gender dynamics, argued in an email that Democratic leaders have, at least until now, mismanaged the task of effectively communicating their agenda and goals.

“The Democratic Party has a messaging problem that they don’t seem to have any plans to rectify,” she wrote:

The Republicans message right now is essentially “Democrats and Biden are only concerned about teaching your children critical race theory instead of focusing on the economy!” The Democrats have no unified countermessage, and until they do, they are likely to continue to suffer major losses in the midterms and beyond.

This failure, English continued, has resulted in an inability to capitalize on what should have been good news:

The Democrats have proposed legislation that contains incredibly popular policies, but if they continue to fail to communicate the benefits of this legislation to the wider public, it won’t do them any good in the midterms. Additionally, as the 2020 election demonstrated, the Democrats cannot continue to rely on the prospect of changing demographics to deliver them electoral victories.

One theme that appeared repeatedly in the comments I received in response to my questions is that even as Biden has succeeded in winning passage of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, he has struggled to maintain an aura of mastery.

Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at Tufts, argued in an email that

what a lot of swing voters expected from Biden was competent leadership during a time of crisis. And many perhaps expected that a return to normal leadership would immediately solve the unprecedented problems facing the country. Of course, that was never a realistic expectation.

The crucial factors underlying Biden’s declining favorability rating, Schaffner continued, are “several things calling into question Biden’s effectiveness — the Afghanistan withdrawal, the continued impact of Covid, the struggling economy and the difficult time Democrats have had in passing their major legislative initiatives.”

I asked a range of political scientists for their projections on how the 2022 elections for control of the House are likely to turn out. Their views were preponderantly negative for Democratic prospects.

Matt Grossmann of Michigan State wrote: “Based on simple midterm loss averages, the Democrats are expected to lose 4 points of vote share and be down to ~45 percent of seats on ~48 percent of votes in 2022.” Those numbers translate into roughly a 24-seat loss, reducing Democrats to 197 seats. “There is not much under Democrats’ control that is likely to make a big difference in the extent of their losses,” Grossmann added. “They can try to avoid retirements and primary challenges in swing districts and avoid salient unpopular policies.”

Robert M. Stein of Rice University is even less optimistic:

In South Texas, Florida and parts of Arizona immigration policy is hurting Democrats with traditional-base voters. This is especially true with Hispanics in Texas border counties, where Trump did well in 2020 and Abbott (incumbent Republican governor) is making significant gains by appealing to the concerns of Hispanics over jobs and immigration.

Stein adds:

My guess is that Republicans are poised to take the House back in 2022 with gains above the average for midterm elections. Since 1946, the average seat gain for the party not in the White House is 27 seats. The best the Democrats can do is hold at the average, but given the Republican’s advantage with redistricting, my guess is that the Republicans gain 40+ seats.

Martin Wattenberg of the University of California-Irvine wrote that “it would take a major event like 9/11 to keep the Democrats from losing the House.” He was more cautious about control of the Senate, which “really depends on the quality of the candidates. Republicans have had the misfortune of nominating candidates like Christine (“I am not a witch”) O’Donnell who have lost eminently winnable races due to their own foibles. It remains to be seen if they will nominate such candidates in 2022.”

Wattenberg cited data from the General Social Survey showing a sharp rise in the percentage of Democrats describing themselves as liberal or slightly liberal, up from 47 percent in 2016 to 62 percent this year: “The left-wing movement of the Democrats is probably going to hurt with the 2022 electorate that will likely be skewed toward older, more conservative voters.”

Still more.

G.O.P. Gains in Governor's Race

 From Monmouth University, "Enthusiasm gap and shift in voter priorities boost Youngkin."

Biden Has Lost Support Across All Groups of Americans — But Especially Independents and Hispanics

 At FiveThirtyEight, "Over his first nine months in office, President Biden has lost support among Americans of all stripes — men and women, Black voters and white voters, Zoomers and Baby Boomers."

Iowa Poll: Nearly Two-Thirds Can't Stand Biden

Makes sense.

He's an absolute disaster.

At the Des Moines Register, "Iowa Poll: 62% of Iowans disapprove of the job Joe Biden is doing as president":

Fewer than one third of Iowans approve of the job Joe Biden is doing as president, a steep drop from earlier this year.

Thirty-one percent of Iowans approve of how Biden is handling his job, while 62% disapprove and 7% are not sure, according to the latest Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll.

That’s a 12 percentage point drop in approval from June, the last time the question was asked. Biden's disapproval numbers jumped by 10 points during the same period. In June, 43% approved and 52% disapproved.

Biden’s job approval has not been in net positive territory in Iowa since March, when 47% of Iowans approved of his performance and 44% disapproved.

"This is a bad poll for Joe Biden, and it's playing out in everything that he touches right now,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer. The partisan breakdown of the poll shows Biden has nearly no support from Republicans. Just 4% of Republicans say they approve of his job performance as president, while 95% disapprove. Among Democrats, that number is largely reversed, with 86% approving and 7% disapproving. A majority of political independents disapprove, at 62%, while 29% approve.

Biden's job approval rating is lower than former President Donald Trump's worst showing in the Iowa Poll. The former Republican president's worst job approval was 35% in December 2017. Other recent presidents' worst Iowa Poll results: Barack Obama, 36%, in February 2014, and George W. Bush, 25%, in September 2008.

The poll of 805 Iowa adults was conducted Sept. 12-15 by Selzer & Co. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points...

Still more.

 

Nearly Half of Californians Report Lasting Effect of 9/11

Actually, the number should be higher. 

What is wrong with these people.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Poll: Nearly half of Californians say 9/11 had lasting impact on their lives":

Two decades after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a majority of Californians believe the surveillance laws passed in its aftermath were justified, while the state’s most conservative and most liberal voters are more skeptical, according to a new poll.

The survey from the Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies, in partnership with the Los Angeles Times, found that the events of that day remain a vivid memory for three-quarters of the state’s voters, and nearly half say 9/11 has had a lasting effect on themselves or their families.

“It was a demarcation point in American life,” said Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director. “Here we are 20 years later ... going through long lines at the airport, increased security. It all stems back from that day.”

A sizable number of California voters say they have been improperly treated because of increased safety measures. One in four voters report being harassed during security screenings at airports, for example. There is little difference between how Democrats and Republicans say they have experienced mistreatment, but substantial difference among racial and ethnic backgrounds. Roughly 25% of white, Latino and Asian voters in California say they have been harassed, compared with 39% of Black voters and 51% of American Indian/Native American respondents.

Still, the findings show that the immediacy of 9/11 is beginning to fade from Californians’ collective memory. Although roughly 90% of Californians over 50 say they have a clear recollection of that day — when terrorists hijacked four airplanes to attack targets in the U.S. — the number dwindles to less than 20% among those under 30, who were children or not yet born when the assaults occurred.

Young Californians are far less likely to say the events of Sept. 11 had a lasting effect on themselves or their families. Overall, voters in the state were nearly evenly split; 47% said they or their families experienced an enduring effect from the attacks, and 52% did not.

Voters under 40 are also more wary of the federal laws adopted after the attacks, which gave law enforcement more authority to conduct surveillance of the public. Less than half of those younger Californians say the policies are justified, compared with majorities of voters age 40 and older, with support climbing to 75% among people over 75.

Overall, 56% of the state’s voters back such laws, and 22% say the measures are unjustified with another 22% holding no opinion.

Attitudes do not neatly conform to partisan leanings. Republicans and Democrats support the laws in equal measure (roughly 60%), and half of voters with no party preference say the same.

Voters on the extremes of the ideological spectrum — strong conservatives and strong liberals — are less likely than moderate voters to see the policies as justified. And the share of voters who had no opinion on the laws climbed as their level of education increased; 29% of those with postgraduate degrees said they had no opinion, compared with 9% who did not have a high school degree.

Such a pattern is unusual among the most highly educated respondents, who are more likely to hold defined views, DiCamillo said.

In this case, the merit of surveillance laws “is a more complicated issue,” he said. “It’s not a straightforward yes or no.”

The findings also underscore how some views about the lasting impact of 9/11 defy the trend of hyper-polarization that has crept into nearly every corner of American life. Although party affiliation has some influence on Californians’ perspectives, DiCamillo said it has “kind of a modest influence.”

“It’s there, but lurking in the background,” he said, a vast difference from most topics he polls on, where there’s “just unbelievable partisan differences on viewing the realities of American life.”

Similarly, Democrats and Republicans report comparable attitudes about how fears of a terrorist attack influence their behavior. Twenty-one percent of Democrats and 17% of Republicans say they have skipped going to a theme park, sports stadium or large entertainment venue because of such safety concerns; 1 in 5 voters with no party preference report the same...

Still more.

 

Within the Margin of Error: More Americans Than Ever Before Disapprove of Joe Biden's Performance as President

And this is after a big PBS News poll earlier this week, "More than half of Americans disapprove of Biden right now."

At YouGov:

President Joe Biden is confronting the worst public ratings of his eight-month-old presidency. His approval ratings in the latest Economist/YouGov Poll, overall and on his handling of major issues, have all fallen, dramatically in some cases. That includes the evaluation of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, one area where public support had remained high.

For the first time, more American adults disapprove of how Biden is handling his job. Nearly half the public (49%) disapproves of Biden’s job performance in the poll conducted September 4-7, while only 39% approve—a drop of six points in the last week. Twice before, during the pullout from Afghanistan, as many people disapproved as approved, but this is the first time in his first-year presidency that Biden’s ratings are negative.

The drop in Biden’s approval rating is most severe among Democrats. Around nine in ten of them had approved of Biden’s performance for nearly all of his first year in office. This week, Biden’s approval rating among Democrats dropped nine points to 77% from 86% last week...

I can't wait for next year's midterms.

 

Americans Stretch Across Political Divides to Welcome Afghan Refugees

This is fine with me, though, of course, not for most Trump supporters. 

As always, my concern is that jihadi terrorists will be admitted to the country along with Afghans who helped the U.S., and along with the tens of thousands of regular Afghans fleeing totalitarian terrorism. 

At NYT, "'Even the most right-leaning isolationists' are coming forward to help those fleeing Afghanistan, a pastor said. A mass mobilization is underway":

Wow.

Just one poll, but “Welcoming Afghan translators to the US” looks like the most popular and bipartisan policy idea I’ve seen in a long, long time pic.twitter.com/o09sWjrnXE

— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) August 22, 2021

PHOENIX — The hundreds of parishioners at Desert Springs Bible Church, a sprawling megachurch in the northern suburbs of Phoenix, are divided over mask mandates, the presidential election and what to do about migrants on the border. But they are unified on one issue: the need for the United States to take in thousands of Afghan evacuees, and they are passing the plate to make it happen.

“Even the most right-leaning isolationists within our sphere recognize the level of responsibility that America has to people who sacrificed for the nation’s interest,” said Caleb Campbell, the evangelical church’s lead pastor.

Last weekend, the church inaugurated a campaign to raise money for the dozens of Afghan families who are expected to start streaming into greater Phoenix in the next several weeks. Already, thousands of dollars have flowed into the church’s “benevolence fund.”

“This is a galvanizing moment,” said Mr. Campbell, 39.

Throughout the United States, Americans across the political spectrum are stepping forward to welcome Afghans who aided the U.S. war effort in one of the largest mass mobilizations of volunteers since the end of the Vietnam War.

In rural Minnesota, an agricultural specialist has been working on visa applications and providing temporary housing for the newcomers, and she has set up an area for halal meat processing on her farm. In California, a group of veterans has sent a welcoming committee to the Sacramento airport to greet every arriving family. In Arkansas, volunteers are signing up to buy groceries, do airport pickups and host families in their homes.

“Thousands of people just fled their homeland with maybe one set of spare clothes,” said Jessica Ginger, 39, of Bentonville, Ark. “They need housing and support, and I can offer both.”

Donations are pouring into nonprofits that assist refugees, even though in most places few Afghans have arrived yet. At Mission Community Church in the conservative bedroom community of Gilbert outside Phoenix, parishioners have been collecting socks, underwear, shoes and laundry supplies.

Mars Adema, 40, said she had tried over the past year to convince the church’s ministries to care for immigrants, only to hear that “this is just not our focus.”

“With Afghanistan, something completely shifted,” Ms. Adema said.

In a nation that is polarized on issues from abortion to the coronavirus pandemic, Afghan refugees have cleaved a special place for many Americans, especially those who worked for U.S. forces and NGOs, or who otherwise aided the U.S. effort to free Afghanistan from the Taliban.

The moment stands in contrast to the last four years when the country, led by a president who restricted immigration and enacted a ban on travel from several majority-Muslim countries, was split over whether to welcome or shun people seeking safe haven. And with much of the electorate still deeply divided over immigration, the durability of the present welcome mat remains unknown.

Polls show Republicans are still more hesitant than Democrats to receive Afghans, and some conservative politicians have warned that the rush to resettle so many risks allowing extremists to slip through the screening process. Influential commentators, like Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host, have said the refugees would dilute American culture and harm the Republican Party. Last week, he warned that the Biden administration was “flooding swing districts with refugees that they know will become loyal Democratic voters.”

But a broad array of veterans and lawmakers have long regarded Afghans who helped the United States as military partners, and have long pushed to remove the red tape that has kept them in the country under constant threat from the Taliban. Images of babies being lifted over barbed-wire fences to American soldiers, people clinging to departing planes and a deadly terrorist attack against thousands massed at the airport, desperate to leave, have moved thousands of Americans to join their effort.

“For a nation that has been so divided, it feels good for people to align on a good cause,” said Mike Sullivan, director of the Welcome to America Project in Phoenix. “This country probably hasn’t seen anything like this since Vietnam.”

Federal officials said this week that at least 50,000 Afghans who assisted the United States government or who might be targeted by the Taliban are expected to be admitted into the United States in the coming month, though the full number and the time frame of their arrival remains a work in progress. More than 31,000 Afghans have arrived already, though about half were still being processed on military bases, according to internal government documents...

 

Politico: Biden's Aides Can't Bear to Watch Him Bumble Through Reporters' Questions

Heh.

At AoSHQ, "Oh they noticed, did they?"