Well, who isn’t? Inflation has hit a 40-year high, we’re edging up to another wage-price spiral, another war is brewing in eastern Europe, and we’re entering Year 3 of pandemic life. Anyone not perceiving political and cultural gloom at this moment might need their head examined.

Even so, the second successive focus-group test covered by the New York Times shows the risks for Democrats in perhaps one of the most significant demographics. Suburban women may not dislike Joe Biden, but they are very unimpressed by his handling of the presidency:

This focus group of 10 women is a grain of sand on the beach that is the American electorate. But they open a window into a widespread gloom that helps explain why some voters doubt that the Biden administration can fulfill its promise to restore their lives to normal. These women are consumed by the problems that the federal government has said it’s trying to solve, but they seem to believe that the government lacks the power to fix them.

Democrats and some media outlets — including the New York Times itself — has tried to run 24/7/365 on the January 6 riot, an obvious attempt to deflect attention from Biden’s collapse. The implicit argument here is après nous, le déluge. Democrats are already shrieking about existential threats to democracy in allowing Republicans to control Congress, along with, er, canning Jeff Zucker for sleeping with his subordinate and turning CNN into a propaganda outlet for Andrew Cuomo.

That message ain’t working, these women make clear:

Democrats need support from suburban women if they want to keep their House and Senate majorities in November. The women in the focus group didn’t necessarily dislike Biden. They supported the infrastructure law and opposed measures that restrict voting access. They applauded Biden for his hot-mic moment — the one when he muttered a disparaging remark about a Fox News reporter. They disliked Trump, and they were disgusted with those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Despite all of that, they weren’t eager to vote for Democrats in the midterm elections in November.

“I can’t really have any hope for 2022 coming up,” said a woman from Tennessee who works for a professional wrestling company. “So they’re not giving me any sort of ambition to feel like I have any sort of trust in the government to fix things or at least get the ball going in the right direction.”

The Donald Trump messaging isn’t working, and neither is the insurrection messaging. That is a testament to the level of “gloom” seen in this focus-group test by liberal advocacy groups. The Times’ own focus group run by Frank Luntz comprised of independents found themselves rather gloomy as well. Despite claims from Biden that he’d “outperformed” expectations in his first year, those voters unanimously had an entirely different assessment. And they’re also rejecting the January 6 argument just as completely:

How do independent voters feel about President Biden and America after his first year in office? Let’s put it this way: His weak approval ratings might go up if he pulled a Trump and just declared that America was moving on from the pandemic and he was going all in against inflation and high gas prices. Never mind about voting rights or avoiding another Jan. 6. It’s the economy, Joe.

So it seemed listening to a new Times Opinion focus group with 14 independent voters, who are far more worried about their finances than about Covid’s impact, as the transcript of the conversation below shows. Asked what they held Mr. Biden responsible for and what they would tell him if they had the chance, the independents emphasized energy prices, the economy and the importance of being a moderate, as well as a desire to avoid Covid mandates and lockdowns. The virus might not be done with America, but several of these independents are done with the virus. …

Frank Luntz: Raise your hands if you agree with that statement, that this is the lowest point in your lifetime.

[Six of 14 raise their hands.]

That sounds pretty gloomy indeed. And not just gloomy, but rationally gloomy to boot. The economy stinks at the moment, with inflation wiping out wage gains and diluting fixed incomes, while weakening buying power overall. Interest-rate hikes coming from the Fed might calm inflation but will likely cool real economic growth too, perhaps all the way over into recession. Meanwhile, thanks to the botching of test production and the hysteria-feeding of Biden’s administration over Omicron, Americans still feel reluctant to rejoin their normal social engagements.

The gloom is real, and it goes far beyond these focus group demos. This is how far it goes in the general electorate:

The GOP +3.9 in the generic congressional ballot will result in a shock-wave midterm election, likely handing Democrats a historic loss of both chambers, if it persists to Election Day. Democrats know it too, and they have no answer for it other than futile distractions from what really drives voters: economy, security, and education. This  NYT focus-group reporting is really more about Democratic gloom.