CNN, ABC, NBC panels warn Democrats on midterm messaging as Biden's approval remains 'underwater'

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CNN, ABC and NBC hosts and panelists warned Democrats about their midterm messaging heading into November as President Biden's approval remains "underwater" during Sunday's news shows. 

During ABC's "This Week," former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former DNC Chair Donna Brazile were discussing new polling by the Washington Post and ABC News that found Democrats and Republicans were essentially evenly divided in the generic election. The poll found that 47% of voters said they would vote Republican and 46% said they would vote Democrat. Republicans are winning on the economy and immigration, whereas Democrats are winning on abortion and climate change. 

Christie said abortion would become less of a motivating factor as the midterms get closer. 

"The further you get away from the Dobbs decision and closer to the midterms, the less of a motivating factor abortion is. Obviously from the numbers the more motivating the economy is," he said. "We better pay heed to history. When you have a bad economy, that’s what people vote on. They don’t vote on anything else. That’s what affects them and their families every day." 

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Brazile pushed back on Christie and said we shouldn't "doom the economy when people are going back to work" and added the "economy is not in the tank."

She also praised the president earlier and said Biden had been doing a "fabulous job" in lowering gas prices and making sure "our supply chain is moving forward."

"He just stopped the rail strike, which really would have crippled the economy. So we know we have a big job to do in motivating people to vote, but most importantly, Joe Biden is playing the long game. That’s why I'm still with Joe Biden, I’m ridin’ with Biden," she said. 

Host George Stephanopoulos also pointed out during that the new Washington Post/ABC poll also showed that former President Trump would beat Biden in 2024. 

"And if the 2024 race is again between Biden and Trump, 48 percent of registered voters say they would support Trump while 46 percent would support Biden, a difference within the poll’s margin of error," the Washington Post report on the poll's findings said. 

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A CNN panel discussed Biden's low approval rating during Sunday's episode of "Inside Politics," as the midterm elections near and as Democrats face historical headwinds in November. 

The New York Times' Jonathan Martin said Democratic leadership would be more inclined to speak out against or in favor of Biden possibly running for re-election in 2024 after the midterms.  

"When Dean Phillips from Minnesota, the congressman said that Biden shouldn’t run again he got blow back at home and certainly online. Because there's this idea that if you criticize the leader of the party you're criticizing the party, and you're helping the other side, which is so different from politics elsewhere in the world," he said. "Its just this sort of penalty, this perceived penalty for criticizing the leader of the party that I think helps Biden and constrains the possibility of a challenge. What I wonder is if after the midterms, is there a permission to start saying, look he's 80, 81-years-old guys, let's get serious about this. And if that ice cracks, is that then the change?"

Molly Ball, Time Magazine's national political correspondent, said earlier in the discussion that chatter about Biden and 2024 was going to increase after the midterms. 

"The midterms are going to be a referendum on Biden to some extent. And if they go better for the Democrats than people had been expecting, that's going to make Biden look better, that's going to give him a better case to make for his party that he should stay on the ticket. And if they don’t go well that's going to be bad for him," she said. 

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While discussing midterm messaging coming from both parties, former White House press secretary and NBC News contributor Jen Psaki told the"Meet the Press" panel that Democrats know "they will lose" if the midterms are a referendum on the president. 

"Look, I think that Democrats, if the election is about who is the most extreme, as we saw, you know, Kevin McCarthy touch on there with Marjorie Taylor Greene, I’ll say her name, sitting over his left side, then they're going to win. If it is a referendum on the president, they will lose, and they know that," Psaki said.

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., announced the GOP's "Commitment to America" plan on Friday, which includes policies focused on combating inflation and illegal immigration.

Biden said the plan was "a series of policy goals with little or no detail."