Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke like a man playing with house money when he took to the national airwaves over the weekend to discuss the coming midterm elections.
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, the longtime Kentucky senator behaved as if the races were all but sewn up for Republicans as he tore into the Biden Administration’s policies and promised to pull the first-term president back to the center should Republicans regain Congress.
“Biden ran as a moderate,” McConnell said, “if I’m the majority leader in the Senate and [House minority leader] Kevin McCarthy is the speaker in the House, we’ll make sure Joe Biden is a moderate.”
The Biden Administration needs to take the shackles off of domestic energy production. World events remind us how important American oil and natural gas production is for our national security and our partners. We can meet our needs and help the Europeans wean off Russian energy. pic.twitter.com/CieX2aRXn7
— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) April 10, 2022
McConnell took the opportunity to enumerate the many pitfalls of President Biden’s first term, pointing to inflation, the abysmal withdrawal from Afghanistan, and more as reasons for optimism about major Republican gains.
“The economy, the precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the domestic energy issue … crime, problems in public education – this administration has really got their hands full, and I think they’re headed toward a pretty good beating in the fall election,” McConnell said.
Modern technology has given way to a litany of polls, and most point to a favorable midterm for Republicans.
Data analysis site FiveThirtyEight created a composite poll that tracks President Biden’s popularity in aggregate up to the date.
As of this writing, this poll indicated that, on balance, 52.2% of Americans disapprove of President Biden while 42.1% approve. These figures produce an almost perfect inverse when compared to Biden’s popularity on his first day in office.
While voters do not vote on president during a midterm, these elections have long been viewed, and will almost certainly be couched by the winning party, as largely a referendum on the person in the Oval Office.
A different poll from FiveThirtyEight shows Americans have a slight preference for Republicans over Democrats in Congress, by a total of 44.7% as compared to 42.5%; and the Right is inching ever so slightly ahead.