To the president and those closest to him, these troubles are the product of an unexpectedly taxing summer and an impatient public that read Biden’s campaign and early governing message as a promise that normalcy would soon return. “It was almost a harmonious convergence of the Afghan issues, the COVID issues, and the economy: The public determined that all three were going badly at the same time, and they felt kicked in the gut by that,” said Celinda Lake, one of Biden’s campaign pollsters. “They did not appreciate how hard it was going to be to get out of Afghanistan, they thought we were done with COVID, and they thought the economy was going to be miraculously smooth 24 hours after getting out of COVID.”

And his legislative crunch — while no shock after he watched Republicans block Obama’s top-line agenda for six years after he passed the Affordable Care Act, with significantly bigger Democratic majorities — has been exacerbated by a solidifying conventional wisdom that Republicans are well-positioned to win back the House and Senate in next fall’s midterm elections, which would almost certainly seal off Biden’s opening for legislative action to combat the pandemic, climate change, racial and economic inequality, or any of his other stated priorities. As that election grows closer, vulnerable Democrats may become even less comfortable siding with the White House on its grandest plans, and the president’s party may also only have one more shot at passing big-ticket items on a party-line “reconciliation” vote thanks to the Senate rules. Hence the White House’s insistence on passing as much of his $3.5 trillion plan on top of his infrastructure bill as possible, as soon as possible…

But a close look also suggests his early figures may have been elevated by honeymoon-style backing that was never going to last: In March, he’d gained some backing from moderate Republicans and rural voters. So while his downward trajectory with minorities is a real cause for concern among the realists in the White House, the sheer scale of his overall dip is less of one — especially as far as his agenda is concerned. It’s hard to make the case that the tortured state of Democrats’ Capitol Hill back-and-forth over Biden’s infrastructure and “Build Back Better” plans has much to do with his political standing at all.