This week’s episodeThe Brief focused on dissecting lessons learned from last week’s elections, Biden’s falling approval ratings, and what Democrats can do to ensure they’re prepared for 2022 elections. Featured guests included Drew Linzer, director and chief scientist at Civiqs, and Daily Kos political director David Nir.

Coming off of a difficult election week in which Democrats lost the Virginia gubernatorial race and had a close call in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, the race to analyze what went wrong is at full tilt. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas believes it could have something to do with turnout from the Democratic base. As he said, “We don’t have enough information to indicate whether those constituencies [that include people of color and suburban white voters] actually did turn out and vote at the same rate in 2020,” though he suspects they did not. Democrats will need strong turnout from their base to do well in 2022.

Daily Kos senior political writer Kerry Eleveld pushed back on this idea a little, explaining that “the idea that we’re going to be able to recreate Biden’s numbers in next year’s midterms [is not realistic] … I don’t know if it’s fair to compare a presidential election that included Donald Trump and turnout in that election … I don’t know that we can judge whether or not we had terrible turnout in an election where we at least improved by 200,000 more votes.”

Nir said that these results were to be expected and cautioned against jumping to too many conclusions about what they say about the strength of each party’s platform:

The reason it’s frustrating is … political scientists, researchers of all kinds don’t have a really good idea of what happens. They call it thermostatic opinion … going up and down. No one is quite sure why this happens. There are some vague theories, we can always imagine the grass always being greener. But it is simply a reality, and you ask, ‘What does it mean for 2022?’ And I say, ‘We can’t be naive, it’s not a good thing. But it’s also not a surprise. It’s not just in Virginia. We can look at midterms … there have been very few exceptions where the party in power has gained seats—that party almost always loses seats.’ So I don’t think Virginia told us anything we didn’t already know.

Eleveld asked Nir if he thought the outcome was any worse than usual.

“I do not think that it was any worse than usual, and I want to point to one particular result, which is that a third state had a statewide election [last] Tuesday. Pennsylvania had a race for the state Supreme Court … and Republicans won that race, but they won it by 1.5 points,” Nir said. “So the swing was really, really small in Pennsylvania … the Pennsylvania results tell me that things weren’t good, but they weren’t nightmarishly terrible.”

The group then turned to discuss the downward trend in Biden’s approval ratings.

Linzer noted that Biden’s low numbers should be an area of particular concern for Democrats, since if the president’s lackluster approval ratings continue, it could spell disaster for next year:

Civiqs specifically polled registered voters recently to find out what they are satisfied with or dissatisfied with in their daily lives, with the idea to take the focus off of politicians and spotlight what everyday Americans are experiencing and feeling and thinking. In all, Linzer said, the poll included 16 aspects of American life—everything from gas prices to access to health care, race relations, and the state of our democracy. A few interesting patterns emerged:

“I wonder how much of that is Republicans’ ability to weaponize the economy?” Moulitsas wondered, noting how many conservatives are in a frenzy about oil prices even though they are currently similar to what they were when Trump was in office. “How much is that Republicans being better able to tap into consumer angst … or [is it just that] the party in power [gets] more blame? Is there something inherently better about conservatives’ ability to tap into economic anxiety?”

Nir offered a perspective on the importance of the progressive movement and its messaging to push back against false narratives coming from the right:

Americans’ dissatisfaction manifests in attitudes around race, the state of democracy in America right now, and how people are unhappy about that, Linzer added. “Your freedom to live your life how you want—a majority of Americans are dissatisfied … There is something about the cultural mindset right now. Maybe it’s about race, freedom, education, I’m not sure what it is. But people are feeling it, and it’s coming out in some of their more pessimistic views of politics right now.”

Nir also voiced concerns about the right’s use of critical race theory as a boogeyman to stoke fear and racial tensions among their base, pointing out that Democrats have yet to figure out a strong way to push back against the misinformation surrounding CRT: “I think what’s been so frustrating for Democratic activists is this term ‘critical race theory’ … The right is very good at coming up with code, and they’ve used this code word as something it doesn’t mean. It’s a more sophisticated code for ‘Let’s go, Brandon.’ … Democrats need to figure out something deeper than that to figure out why this particular weaponizing of racial fears is working so well.”

Eleveld noted that it was important to focus not only on critical race theory, as there was also a lot of anger about kids not being able to receive in-person instruction during the school year over the past 18 months. Moulitsas agreed, noting that critical race theory remains a dog-whistle issue.

Linzer noted that the fall in Biden’s approval ratings indicate a more general dissatisfaction with his approach:

So people under 35 who voted for Biden initially supported him and are now unhappy, or at least indifferent, not willing to commit to saying they’re unhappy but just unsatisfied, and voters of color. My understanding of public opinion is that they expected more … more and more of them are not approving of the job that Biden is doing. The way to put a positive spin on this is that since the trend is gradual, Biden and congressional Democrats can change course, put focus on what peoples’ needs are right now.

Nir agreed, adding that “we need to focus on making sure our regular base voters turn out” and that Democrats’ messaging needs to extend beyond Trump, especially since one of the criticisms of Terry McAuliffe was that he was too focused on tying his GOP opponent, Glenn Youngkin, to the former president.

Looking toward potential solutions, Moulitsas asked Linzer and Nir for their thoughts on what Democrats can do to turn things around and retain control of Congress next year.

“Look at who supported Biden and Democrats last January and do things that those people want!” Linzer said.

Nir thinks Democrats need to go on the offensive: “Democrats just suck at keeping people angry and engaged over the issues that they should be. I would just like to see more relentless messaging like I said—go on the attack on COVID, but just go on the attack in general, and when they do pass Build Back Better, then they just have to relentlessly, relentlessly sell it.”

Before closing the show, Eleveld asked, “There’s plenty of misreporting and everybody’s got a narrative they’re trying to sell … what do you think is a thing that is either misunderstood or not focused on enough?”

Linzer thinks that there is an obvious, clear-cut solution that Democrats are not focusing on enough:

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