MSNBC’s national political correspondent Steve Kornacki analyzed recent polling during "Deadline White House," to give viewers a better sense of how the midterm elections appear to be shaping up.
While the generic ballot has the midterms looking more competitive, Kornacki said the “big picture indicator” about how the midterms go is the president’s job approval rating, which currently stands at 42.7 percent. “This is not good news,” for Democrats, he noted.
At this same point, Biden is on par with where former Presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton stood and they saw “brutal midterms.”
“The only exception in modern times, George W. Bush, a year after 9/11,” Kornacki explained. “You see what this meant. For Trump, he lost the House in ’18. For Obama, his party lost the House in ’10. For Bill Clinton, his party lost the House in ‘94. Biden’s approval rating is right in that range. That’s the bad news for Democrats.”
MSNBC’s Kornacki on What Biden’s Job Approval Means for Democrats in the Midterms: ‘This Is Not Good News’ pic.twitter.com/I0XBFybCMh
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Still, Kornacki said the generic ballot question, which is when voters are asked which party they would like to see control Congress, has "complicated" forecasts.
"Republicans now actually have the lead on average on this question, it's by 1 point," he said. "Democrats actually were ahead until the last week or two, but if you look in the past in the most recent wave elections in midterms ... the party that won those waves was up by more than a point at this juncture in the race, so the generic ballot, closer than we've seen in wave elections of recent times. Biden's approval rating looks bad for Democrats, the generic ballot has them more competitive though. That's what's causing a little bit of the uncertainty here."