Let the Democrat Freak-Out Begin: Biden Returns from Europe to a National Mood Completely Upended Since He Left

President Biden returns from Europe, is greeted in Washington, D.C. to a changed national mood that's been completely upended since he left

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Texas Insider Report) — Before departing the country six days ago for a series of international climate control and environmental meetings with various world leaders, President Joe Biden told House Democrats, “I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that the House & Senate majorities – and my presidency – will be determined by what happens in the next week.” Biden embraced the Virginia governor's race as a referendum on his presidency, and aqctively campaigned in the state.
 
Democrats had hoped that former President Trump could serve as a boogeyman; That any unpopularity would serve as a call to action for Democrats, even as President Biden himself is unpopular.

Bud Biden, not Trump, is the President now, and how voters feel about him is paramount.

Youngkin’s surge begin in August, when Biden’s messy exit from Afghanistan started to drag down his approval ratings and put questions of incompetency in the minds of many Americans. By the fall, Biden had even disappeared from the McAuliffe campaign’s mailers going into swing areas across the state.

According to exit polls, current Presidint Joe Biden is virtually as unpopular today in Virginia as is former President Donald Trump, and Tuesday night served as a warning to Democrats that their anti-Trump strategies may not work as anticipated in elections to come.

If Tuesday's election results – from Virginia to Seattle, in Minneapolis, and from San Antonio to Buffalo, N.Y are any indication, there may be some bigger and more massive voter sentiments sweeping the country for Republicans to tap into, and which Democrats will surely fear as 2022's Mid-Term Elections now move Front & Center.
 

• You can see this well in the CNN Virginia Exit Polls, where Biden had a 45% approval rating to 54% disapproval rating. This mirrors Biden's rapid decline to a 43% Approval Rating nationally.
  • Republican Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin won those who disapproved of Biden by an almost unbelievable 91%-to-9% margin.
• This is similar to how Virginia voters who disapproved of President Trump voted in 2017.
  • Democrat Ralph Norham won among those who disapproved of Trump's job in 2017 by an also-lopsided 87%-to-11% margin.

In Virginia, exit polls also showed that 84% of voters at least "liked" either Biden or Trump.
 

• Those who approved of Biden and had an unfavorable view of Trump went 96% to 4% to Democrat McAuliffe.
• Those who held a favorable view of Trump and disapproved of Biden went 98% to 1% for Republican Youngkin.
• The key to victory was the significant 16% chunk of Virginia Voters who liked neither Trump or Biden.
  • Youngkin won these voters by a 2-to-1 margin – 68% to 32%.

It was the un-opiniated 16% who determined the election. Had these voters broken evenly, McAuliffe could have won the race by a small margin.

The Republican, Youngkin, ran a campaign that was a throwback to pre-Trump Republicanism – and Democrat McAuliff ran a campaign indicative of the party's traditional "Republicans are racists" song. Youngkin's campaign resonated with, or appealed to working-class white voters, and when combined with his down-home conservatism that focused on education, (read McAuliffe's "Critical Race Theory" and "parents shouldn't be involved in their children's classrooms" mis-steps,) as well as his low taxes and government efficiency messages, the two-track strategy worked.

Youngkin's TV ads and rallies moved undecided voters to his side in the homstretch, and even his simplistic comments about having a human answer the phone at the DMV was an effective, big applause line too.
 

• Where Trump lost the Virginia suburbs 45%-53%,Youngkin won them by 53%-47%.
• In fact, according to exit polls in rural Virginia and among non-college-educated whites, Youngkin racked up an even bigger margin than did Trump when he won rural Virginia 52%-to-46% in 2020.
  • Youngkin won here 64%-36%.
• Trump won non-college whites 62%-38% in 2020's Presidential Election,
  • Youngkin won those voters by a whopping 76%-24%.

The off-year Virginia gubernatorial election has a nearly perfect record in recent decades of serving as the first "voter backlash" measurement tool to compare against the party in power. But Youngkin’s victory – after Biden’s 10% win in the state a year ago, and when the prevailing wisdom had become that Virginia was no longer a swing state, but a blue state – shows that the backlash is indeed fierce, and growing with speed all across the country.

How will Congressional Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer respond to the shellacking? 

Tuesday’s results weren’t even official before the Democrat progressives and moderates feud pulled out the long knives.
 
History strongly suggests that the midterm elections quite often deliver a big blow to the incumbent president. But the more immediate danger for Biden is his precarious legislative agenda.

Finally on Tuesday, Biden’s "approval" rating was the lowest of his young presidency, at 42.8%.