Biden’s Achievements May Not Matter Much This Year

It’s tempting to draw a simple connection between Democrats’ recent burst of policymaking and their concurrent rise in the polls. But voters don’t necessarily think that way — and there’s no guarantee this bounce will endure until Election Day.

Voters often claim to be frustrated by a “do-nothing” Washington, so they should presumably be pleased when their leaders do something. And a Democrat-aligned super PAC recently unveiled a battleground-state ad campaign touting the party’s recent accomplishments, suggesting that some party strategists hope legislative credit-claiming will be a persuasive electoral message. Finally, there’s a strong inherent appeal in the belief that incumbents will be rewarded by a satisfied electorate for delivering on the commitments they made during their campaigns.

In other words: It’s natural to treat the enactment of new policy as, by definition, a governing success.

History shows otherwise. Some of the most historically productive sessions of Congress have been followed by significant electoral losses for the president’s party: In 2010,  after enacting the Affordable Care Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, Democrats lost 63 House seats and seven Senate seats. Republicans lost 27 House seats in 1982 after the first round of Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts and military buildup. Even after the popular creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, in the next year’s midterms the ruling Democrats lost 47 seats in the House and three in the Senate.

In some cases, such as the ACA, the legislation was controversial enough to provoke a national backlash. In others, Americans simply had other things on their minds by the time of the next election, such as the economic recession of 1982 and urban riots in 1966.

Even when voters applaud policy change, their memories often fade and attention quickly turns to other concerns. Polls showed that the bipartisan infrastructure bill enjoyed broad approval when Biden signed it last November. But one survey conducted this past June found that only about one-quarter of respondents even recalled that the bill had become law.

So even if the recent rebound in the Democratic Party’s popularity reflects an appreciative response to its policymaking flurry — rather than the steady decline in gasoline prices since midsummer or the fading of Covid-related disruptions — it’s an open question whether it will last.

Disaffection tends to be a much more energizing and durable sentiment in politics than gratitude. Ruling parties are vulnerable to significant seat losses in congressional…