Washington (AFP) - Speaking in a windswept Atlantic port, Joe Biden touted recent infrastructure improvements making it easier to turn ships around.Half a year from a possible Democratic wreck in midterm elections, can he do the same for his presidency?
"We got it done," Biden said to applause from local supporters in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, recounting how before the government-funded project, cargo ships had to perform "tough parallel parking, man."
The speech in the hardscrabble setting of a harbor maintenance hangar was part of a nationwide travel blitz aimed at regaining domestic political momentum after weeks consumed by the war in Ukraine.
New Hampshire on Tuesday, Oregon on Thursday, Seattle on Friday, Iowa and North Carolina last week: Air Force One is racking up the miles.
The Democrat is in a race against time ahead of November elections, when Republicans still in thrall to Biden's predecessor Donald Trump are widely expected to win control of Congress.
But while Biden has a jet and a bully pulpit, polls show that ever fewer Americans want to listen.
Poll analysis website Fivethirtyeight's average gives Biden 42 percent approval to 51 percent disapproval, the inverse of the approximately 54-35 approval/disapproval numbers he had in his first days as president.
Even discounting a shock Quinnipiac poll showing just 33 percent approval as an outlier, the president and his party are clearly in difficulty.
It's "the worst political environment that I've lived through in 30 years of being a political consultant," said Biden's 2020 campaign pollster, John Anzalone, predicting potentially cataclysmic midterm losses in the House of Representatives, although possibly saving the Senate.
Silver lining?
The 79-year-old president finds himself blamed, well, for everything.
Record numbers of migrants crossing the Mexican border, disputes over whether to use masks against Covid-19, violent crime -- Biden is the lightning rod for an anxious and divided nation.
And while the White House keeps insisting that fundamental indicators reveal a healthy strong economy, the brutal fact is that voters don't care about rosy GDP figures.What they see are the price tags on food, furniture and especially gasoline, with overall inflation running at a 40-year high.
"The clear evidence is that the Biden policies are not working well for most, including for Biden voters.A trend of buyer's remorse is developing among young, independent, women ...and minority voters," wrote Matt Schlapp, a lobbyist close to Trump, on the Fox News website Wednesday.
"At what point is the Biden administration politically unsalvageable?"
While Republicans pile on against Biden and "woke," big-government Democrats, his own supporters are disillusioned with the stalling of huge social spending and environmental ambitions.
A Gallup poll this month found that young voters, who overwhelmingly approved of Biden when he first came into office, have deserted him, with support plummeting from around 60 percent to around 40 percent.
Gallup also found about 20 percentage point drops in support for Biden from Black and Latino voters, two other usually strong constituencies for Democrats.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a major voice on the left of the Democratic party, says "Republican senators and broken institutions have blocked" Biden's attempts at progress.
But only the Democrats can save themselves, she wrote in The New York Times.
"To put it bluntly: if we fail to use the months remaining before the elections to deliver on more of our agenda, Democrats are headed toward big losses in the midterms."
If there is a silver lining for Biden, it's that Republican control of Congress would give him a chance to switch the spotlight onto his opponents.Several previous presidents, including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, took midterm poundings, then recovered to win second terms.
And if Trump seeks a 2024 comeback, there is speculation that the conspiracy theory-peddling Republican is so polarizing that Biden would then suddenly find himself back in demand.
"A lot of us feel that if Trump runs, there's no one else that could beat Trump (other) than Joe Biden," Anzalone told Politico.
