By Kate Brumback, Nathan Ellgren, and Jocelyn Noveck | The Associated Press

January 27, 2022

ATLANTA (AP) — Early in the pandemic, Ryan Wilson was careful to take precautions — wearing a mask, not really socializing, doing more of his shopping online.

The 38-year-old father and seafood butcher from Casselberry, Florida, says he relaxed a bit after getting vaccinated last year. He had a few friends over and saw his parents more, while making sure to still mask up at places like the grocery store. The recent virus surge hasn’t caused him to change his behavior much, because he’s vaccinated and has read that the variant causes less severe illness.

And, like many, Wilson has come to believe COVID-19 is probably never fully going away.

“It’ll become endemic and we’ll be stuck with it forever,” he says. “It’s frustrating, but what can you do about it?”

Many Americans agree that they’re going to “be stuck with it forever” — or, at the least, for a long time. A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that few — just 15% — say they’ll consider the pandemic over only when COVID-19 is largely eliminated. By contrast, 83% say they’ll feel the pandemic is over when it’s largely a mild illness.

The poll shows that 59% of Americans think it’s essential that they personally be vaccinated against COVID-19 to feel safe participating in public activities.

But, underscoring what authorities call alarmingly low COVID-19 vaccination rates in U.S. children ages 5 to 11, just 37% of parents consider it essential that their children are vaccinated before they return to normal. And although boosters provide significantly better protection against COVID-19, especially the omicron variant, than a two-shot course of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, just 47% of Americans think it’s essential that they get one.

Wilson, in Florida, said that while he is vaccinated, he doesn’t plan to have his 5-year-old daughter vaccinated because he’s heard the odds of healthy children suffering anything more than cold symptoms are low.

In Minneapolis, 36-year-old public health researcher Colin Planalp got his 6-year-old son vaccinated as soon as he could. “Kids can get really sick from COVID,” he says, faulting health authorities for not making that more clear to the public.

Although kids tend to fare better than adults, experts say they still can suffer from serious illness and long-term health impacts from the virus.

The poll shows more Americans are taking precautionary measures against the virus than before the omicron surge.

Overall, 64% now say they are always or often avoiding large groups and 65% are wearing face masks around others, both up from 57% in December. Sixty percent say they are regularly avoiding nonessential travel, up from 53% one month ago. That level of precaution is the highest since last spring, before millions of Americans were fully vaccinated.

Early in the pandemic, Planalp and his wife worked at home for months on end, and kept their young son home. But when they got vaccinated they allowed themselves to go out more, to visit family out of state, even to work part-time in the office.

Then the delta variant hit, and they ratcheted up their precautions. With omicron, they upped them even more.

“I’ve switched to wearing N95 masks because I’m no longer confident in the regular cloth masks, and I hardly go out at all anymore,” Planalp says. “We’ve canceled travel plans. My son has been out of school for more than a week now and hopefully he’ll get to go back in a week. But who really knows?”

Planalp, too, doesn’t think the virus is going anywhere — and isn’t sure it will get milder, either: “We’re not going to be done with this. It’s going to change over time and we just can’t predict exactly how it’s going to change.”

Vaccinated Americans remain much more likely to practice precautions. Seventy-three percent of vaccinated Americans say they frequently wear a mask around others, compared with 37% of unvaccinated Americans.

David Close, 50, who is unvaccinated, says he never changed any of his behavior. “It’s been over for me,” he says. “I never really went into any type of pandemic fear.”

Close, who moved from Tampa, Florida, to Vonore, Tennessee, in May, says he, his wife and their two kids all had COVID-19 in October. He thinks his wife became infected at work, but they didn’t take precautions to keep her isolated from the rest of the family.

“I got into bed every night and laid in bed and fell asleep next to her because that’s what I’ve always done,” he says.

Close had a fever of about 103 or 104 for about 24 hours and was back up and feeling great within 36 hours, he says. He lost his taste and smell for about 10 days.

“I can always make it through an illness,” he says. “I’m not fearful of things like that.”

Studies show that even for people who have had it already, vaccination provides additional protection against COVID-19, which has so far killed more than 850,000 Americans.

In Minersville, Utah, Jamie Costello, 57, a math teacher and mother of eight, has not been vaccinated — not because she opposes vaccines, but because she has had severe reactions to flu shots, and has recovered from COVID-19. Like many Americans, Costello feels COVID is something that will come to feel as familiar as the flu.

“It’s a very fast-mutating virus,” she says. “We’re just going to eventually have to say, well, it’s the flu and COVID season, instead of just the flu season. It’s just there, and we have to get as back to normal as we can.”

___

Noveck reported from New York and Ellgren reported from Washington.

___

The AP-NORC poll of 1,161 adults was conducted Jan. 13-18 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

By Hannah Fingerhut and Annie Ma | The Associated Press

April 14, 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are deeply divided over how much children in K-12 schools should be taught about racism and sexuality, according to a new poll released as Republicans across the country aim to make parental involvement in education a central campaign theme this election year.

Overall, Americans lean slightly toward expanding — not cutting back — discussions of racism and sexuality, but roughly 4 in 10 say the current approach is about right, including similar percentages across party lines. Still, the poll from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows stark differences between Republicans and Democrats who want to see schools make adjustments.

About 4 in 10 Republicans say teachers in local public schools discuss issues related to sexuality too much, while only about 1 in 10 say too little. Among Democrats, those numbers are reversed.

The findings reflect a sharply politicized national debate that has consumed local school boards and, increasingly, state capitols. Republicans see the fight over school curriculum as a winning culture war issue that will motivate their voters in the midterm elections.

In the meantime, a flurry of new state laws has been introduced, meant to curtail teaching about racism and sexuality and to establish a “parents’ bill of rights” that would champion curriculum transparency and allow parents to file complaints against teachers.

The push for legislation grew out of an elevated focus on K-12 schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, when angry parents crowded school board meetings to voice opposition to school closures, mask mandates and other restrictive measures intended to prevent the spread of illness.

“All that that’s happening these days kind of goes against the longer history of school boards being relatively low salience government institutions and, in a lot of cases, they are nonpartisan offices,” said Adam Zelizer, a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School researching school board legislation.

What distinguishes this moment, Zelizer said, is the “grassroots anger” in response to school policies and the national, coordinated effort to recruit partisan candidates for school boards and local offices.

What started as parents’ concern about virtual learning and mask wearing has morphed into something larger, said Republican pollster Robert Blizzard, describing parents as thinking: “OK, now that we have the schools open, what are these kids learning in school?”

The poll shows 50% of Americans say parents have too little influence on curriculum, while 20% say they have too much and 27% say it’s about right. About half also say teachers have too little influence.

Kendra Schultz said she and her husband have decided their 1-year-old daughter will be homeschooled, at least initially, because of what friends have told them about their experiences with schools in Columbia, Missouri.

Most recently, she said, one 4-year-old’s pre-K class talked about gender pronouns. Schultz offered that and mask requirements as examples of how the public school system “doesn’t align with what we believe or how we would like to see our children educated.”

“I’m just like, you’re a little kid, you should be learning your ABCs and your numbers and things like that,” said Schultz, a 30-year-old conservative. “That’s just not something that me and my husband would be interested in having teachers share with our children.”

In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in March signed into law a bill barring instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. Opponents, including the White House, have dubbed it the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

The poll shows Americans are slightly more likely to say the focus on sex and sexuality in local schools is too little rather than too much, 31% to 23%, but 40% say it’s about right. The poll didn’t ask about specific grade levels.

Blizzard, who has been working with a group called N2 America to help GOP candidates in suburbs, said the schools issue resonates with the Republican base and can motivate voters.

In the Virginia governor’s race last year, Republican Glenn Youngkin won after campaigning on boosting parental involvement in schools and banning critical race theory, an academic framework about systemic racism that has become a catch-all phrase for teaching about race in U.S. history. His Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, had said in a debate that parents shouldn’t tell schools what to teach.

The poll also shows Americans have mixed views about schools’ focus on racism in the U.S.

Charkia Lang-James, a mother of three who lives near Mobile, Alabama, said that she believes schools should be teaching the truest, fullest version of history, especially on issues that touch on race and racism.

“The truth should be taught, whether it looks good or bad,” she said. “All of the truth.”

Lang-James, who is Black and identifies as a political independent, said as an adult, she learned that many things she had been taught in school were lacking in depth and accuracy.

“We learned about Christopher Columbus, and how he discovered America,” she said. “But how can he discover something that was already there? … I feel like it’s just not the whole history.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said parents and teachers alike are frustrated after pandemic disruptions and should partner to help kids recover. The efforts to predetermine curriculum and restrict teaching are getting in the way, she said.

“The people who are proposing them, they’ve been pretty clear … they just want to sow doubt and distrust because they want to end public education as we know it,” Weingarten said.

Parents of school-age children aren’t more likely than other adults to say parents have too little influence in schools. But there is a wide partisan gap, with 65% of Republicans saying that, compared with 38% of Democrats.

Michael Henry, a father of three in Dacula, Georgia, says he’s wrestled over what the right level of involvement is. It didn’t sit right with him, for example, that his 6-year-old was taught about Columbus in an entirely positive light. He says he’s reflected on “some of the lies” and “glorifications of history” in his own public school education and thinks race needs to be talked about more.

But ultimately, school curriculum is “outside my area of expertise,” said Henry, 31, an actuary who is also the acting president of the Gwinnett County Young Democrats.

“I have to do a lot of studying and work to be able to make informed decisions, and I don’t feel like parents generally have that kind of skill set” for curriculum, he said. “I think professionals should mostly be determining what the curriculum should be.”

Henry worries that new restrictions are “adding extra hassle for teachers, who already have a lot on their plate, to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.”

___

AP Education Writer Collin Binkley in Boston contributed to this report.

___

Ma, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, writes about education and equity for AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/anniema15

___

The AP-NORC poll of 1,082 adults was conducted March 17-21 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

By Dave Kolpack | The Associated Press

April 20, 2022

FARGO, N.D. (AP) — A majority of people in the United States continue to support a mask requirement for people traveling on airplanes and other shared transportation, a poll finds. A ruling by a federal judge has put the government’s transportation mask mandate on hold.

The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that despite opposition to that requirement that included verbal abuse and physical violence against flight attendants, 56% of those surveyed favor requiring people on planes, trains and public transportation to wear masks, compared with 24% opposed and 20% who say they are neither in favor nor opposed.

Interviews for the poll were conducted last Thursday to Monday, shortly before a federal judge in Florida struck down the national mask mandate on airplanes and mass transit. Airlines and airports immediately scrapped their requirements that passengers wear face coverings, and the Transportation Security Administration stopped enforcing the mask requirement.

But the Justice Department said Wednesday it was filing an appeal seeking to overturn the judge’s order. That notice came minutes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked Justice to appeal the decision, saying “an order requiring masking in the indoor transportation corridor remains necessary for the public health.”

The poll shows a wide partisan divide on the issue. Among Democrats, 80% favor and just 5% oppose the requirement. Among Republicans, 45% are opposed compared with 33% in favor, with 22% saying neither.

Vicki Pettus, who recently moved from Frankfort, Kentucky, to Clearwater, Florida, to be near her grandchildren, said she enjoys the view of Old Tampa Bay but doesn’t like the “very lackadaisical attitude” by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, about masking. She said she will continue to wear her mask to protect against the coronavirus, including around her 55-and-older home community and on the plane when she travels to Kentucky in a few weeks.

“Especially in a plane where that air is recirculating,” said Pettus, 71, an independent who leans toward the Democratic Party. “I think people are really dumb not to wear their mask. But, hey, that’s their decision, and if they want to get sick that’s fine. I’m not going to.”

But Kriste Lee, who works in sales in South Florida, can’t wait to fly mask-free the next time she travels next month.

“I really wish I was on a plane when they made that announcement,” said Lee, 47. “I would have been dancing up and down the aisle.”

The continued public support overall for mandating masks on transportation comes even as worries about COVID-19 are among their lowest points of the past two years. Just 20% now say they’re very or extremely worried that they or a family member will be infected. That’s down slightly since 25% said the same just a month ago and from 36% in December and January as the omicron variant was raging. Another 33% now say they are somewhat worried, while 48% say they’re not worried at all.

Count Betty Harp, of Leitchfield, Kentucky, as among the “very worried” and not because she’s turning 84 next month. She said she takes care of her large house and yard by herself, does a lot of canning and is in “fantastic health for my age.” But she’s lost a lot of friends and family to the virus, which has killed nearly 1 million people in the United States.

“I know COVID is still here. It’s still around,” said Harp, who described herself as a Republican-leaning independent. “I think we should all be wearing masks for a little while longer.”

In another AP-NORC poll conducted last month, 44% of those surveyed still said they were often or always wearing face masks outside their homes, though that was down significantly from 65% who said that at the beginning of the year.

The latest poll also shows about half the people favor requiring masks for workers who interact with the public, compared with about 3 in 10 opposed. Support is similar for requiring people at crowded public events such as concerts, sporting events and movies to wear masks.

On these, too, there are significant partisan divides. Seventy-two percent of Democrats favor requiring people attending crowded public events to wear masks, while among Republicans, 25% are in favor and 49% are opposed. The numbers are similar for requiring masks for public-facing workers.

Lee, who said she doesn’t “do politics,” wondered aloud why people are complaining about the judge’s ruling and said nobody is stopping anyone from wearing masks if they want to.

“We all have our beliefs and obviously different views,” said Lee, who is unvaccinated. “Mine are definitely different from the people who are angry and upset.”

Employed people are divided on whether those working in person at their own workplaces should be required to wear masks. Thirty-four percent say they’re in favor of that requirement, 33% are opposed and 33% are neither in favor nor opposed. Among workers who are Democrats, 48% are in favor and 18% are opposed. Among workers who are Republicans, 53% are opposed and 18% are in favor.

Mike Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said messaging over the mask mandate would have been more effective if it required N95 or KN95 respirators, which are more effective at preventing transmission of the virus.

“But you have actually created a real challenge with yourself with the public who are now being selective if not outright angry about these mandates,” said Osterholm, who added that he will continue to wear his N95 mask on planes.

___

The AP-NORC poll of 1,085 adults was conducted April 14-18 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

By Nomaan Merchant and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

April 21, 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — Many people in the U.S. still question whether President Joe Biden is showing enough strength in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine, even as most approve of steps Biden is already taking and few want U.S. troops to get involved in the conflict.

A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows 54% of Americans think Biden has been “not tough enough” in his response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Thirty-six percent think his approach has been about right, while 8% say he’s been too tough.

But as the war has dragged on, Americans’ desire to get involved has waned somewhat. Thirty-two percent of Americans say the U.S. should have a major role in the conflict. That’s ticked back down from 40% last month, though that remains slightly higher than the 26% who said so in February. An additional 49% say the U.S. should have a minor role.

The results underscore the conundrum for the White House. As images of Russian attacks on civilians and hospitals are shared around the world, there’s pressure to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin and help millions of Ukrainians under attack in their home country or fleeing for safety. But Biden must also manage the threat of escalation with Putin, who has raised the alert level on using Russia’s nuclear weapons, and prevent the U.S. from getting involved in a much larger conflict.

“Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons,” CIA Director William Burns said in a recent speech at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Burns added that “so far we haven’t seen a lot of practical evidence” of Russian nuclear escalation.

The White House has authorized more than $2 billion in weapons and led Western sanctions that have crushed the Russian economy. Biden announced Thursday an additional $800 million in military aid for Ukraine. Biden has ruled out sending U.S. troops — a decision supported by a majority of Americans.

The U.S. has also held back some weapons and defensive systems sought by Ukraine and placed early limits on intelligence sharing that have been loosened throughout the conflict.

The poll and follow-up interviews with respondents indicate many Americans, responding to images of Ukrainians being killed and Russian forces allegedly committing war crimes, want to see more action to stop Putin. A majority — 57% — say they believe Putin has directed his troops to commit war crimes. Just 6% say he has not, while 36% say they aren’t sure.

“I know that we’re not directly responsible,” said Rachel Renfro, a 35-year-old from Nashville, Tennessee. “But we’ve always been the kind of people that insert ourselves into these kinds of situations, and I don’t understand why we’re not doing that now to a bigger degree.”

Renfro wants to see the U.S. accept more refugees and provide more aid to Ukraine. Sending troops should be “an absolute last resort,” she said.

Most Americans are in favor of the U.S. sanctioning Russia for the invasion, providing weapons to Ukraine and accepting refugees from Ukraine into the U.S. More Americans also support than oppose deploying U.S. troops to Eastern Europe to support U.S. NATO allies in response to Russia’s invasion, and about two-thirds say NATO membership is good for the U.S.

But public support stops short of deploying U.S. troops to Ukraine to fight against Russian forces. Only 22% say they favor deploying U.S. troops to Ukraine to fight against Russian forces, while 55% are opposed; 23% say they are neither in favor nor opposed.

Michael Gonzalez, a 31-year-old from Fort Collins, Colorado, said Biden’s response was “about right,” citing wide-ranging sanctions on Russian banks, oligarchs, and government officials and their families.

“In a perfect world, I wish we can go out there with the troops,” said Gonzalez, whose father served in the Cuban military and whose stepfather worked as a private contractor during the U.S. war in Afghanistan. “I feel like we shouldn’t be policing the world and going everywhere. I wish we could help them, but we’ve been fighting for a while.”

Biden faces other significant political challenges heading into the midterms with inflation at a four-decade high and soaring energy prices exacerbated by the war. The poll suggests the balance in the tradeoff between sanctions on Russia and the U.S. economy might be shifting. By a narrow margin, Americans say the nation’s bigger priority is sanctioning Russia as effectively as possible over limiting damage to the U.S. economy, 51% to 45%. Last month, more said they prioritized sanctioning Russia over limiting damage to the economy, 55% to 42%.

Anthony Cordesman, emeritus chair in strategy at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted that Americans broadly support many actions the White House is already taking. Building up Ukraine’s air defense or sending more tanks and airplanes also requires setting up logistics, including radar and maintenance capabilities, that take far longer than many people would expect, Cordesman said.

The White House making that case to people who want more action carries its own risk.

“If you start communicating the limits to what we can do in detail, you may or may not reassure the American people, but you’re providing Russia with a lot of information that you scarcely want to communicate,” Cordesman said.

___

The AP-NORC poll of 1,085 adults was conducted April 14-18 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

By Will Weissert and Zeke Miller | The Associated Press

April 21, 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has an election-year message for frustrated voters: At least he’s trying.

For those who think he isn’t doing enough to help Ukraine fend off the Russian invasion, Biden announced $800 million in new military support on Thursday. To ease the pain of high gas prices, he’s tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and reopened onshore sales of oil and natural gas leases on public land. And to address historic inflation, Biden has tried to smooth out supply chain-crimping bottlenecks at the nation’s ports.

The president hopes the moves, which are being announced in near-daily rollouts and in a stepped up travel schedule, will present a contrast with Republicans — who, he argues, spend more time complaining about problems than proposing solutions.

“I mean this sincerely — name me something the national Republican Party is for,” Biden said at a recent Democratic National Committee meeting.

But it’s not clear he’s attracting much support. A new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds just 45% of Americans approve and 54% disapprove of how Biden is handling the presidency. The approval rate in the poll taken from April 14-18 is about the same as last month, but down from the president’s 63% approval rating a year ago.

There are bright spots for Biden. Applications for unemployment benefits have fallen to the lowest levels in decades and wages are rising. The economy is growing after the pandemic-induced doldrums.

Still, with crime rates rising in some parts of the country and inflation at its highest levels since 1981, these don’t feel like boom times to many. Seventy percent of Americans call the nation’s economy poor. Further, just 33% say they approve and 66% say they disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, with about a third of Democrats, along with almost all Republicans, disapproving.

Primary elections that begin next month will help show whether Democrats are embracing Biden’s vision of a moderate party that counters the increasingly far-right GOP.

In Ohio, Rep. Tim Ryan is well positioned to win the Democratic nomination for an open Senate seat with a message appealing to centrist, blue collar workers that is in line with Biden’s overall approach. But in the president’s native state of Pennsylvania, moderate Conor Lamb could be in a tight Senate primary against the more progressive John Fetterman.

Biden has suggested that one way to address his political challenges is to get on the road and make the case directly to voters about the impact of his administration’s policies. He has increased his domestic travel lately to promote a $1 trillion, bipartisan infrastructure package that cleared Congress last fall. Biden has visited Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Oregon since last week, and is in Seattle on Friday.

But some top Democrats running for office aren’t clamoring for the president’s help. Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke says he has no interest in national Democratic figures visiting his state as he now runs for governor. Florida Rep. Val Demings, as she campaigns for Senate, was non-comital about Biden’s help, as was Ryan.

“My philosophy is like: I’m running. I’m the candidate. I don’t need any validators,” Ryan said at the Knox County Democratic Party office in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Nearby stood cardboard cutouts of Obama and Hillary Clinton. There wasn’t one of Biden, though there was a campaign sign bearing his name outside.

Asked if appearing with Biden could be damaging, Ryan was unusually blunt.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t.”

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris nevertheless plan on boosting U.S. trips in coming weeks, as well as stepping up their fundraising on behalf of the Democratic Party, according to administration officials and allies. But most of their activity is likely to take place in the late summer and early fall — after primaries are concluded and as voters will have their choice at the ballot box laid out for them.

Some in the administration have pressed for Biden and Democrats to draw a stronger contrast with Republicans, for instance arguing that the president should be more forcefully highlight a new study that Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to introduce redundant inspections on truck travel cost the U.S. economy $9 billion in 10 days.

At a Thursday Democratic fundraiser at a yacht club in Portland, Oregon, Biden predicted that Democrats would add two seats in November to secure a 52-48 Senate majority.

“The far right’s taken over that party,” he said of Republicans. “And it’s not even conservative in a traditional sense of conservatism. It’s mean. It’s ugly.”

But trying to blame the other side amid mounting problems can have its limitations. Democrat Terry McAuliffe attempted to make last year’s Virginia governor’s race a referendum on the dangers of modern day GOP — even branding Republican opponent Glenn Youngkin “Trump in a sweater vest.” McAuliffe lost in a state Biden had carried by 10 points barely a year earlier.

Some who would otherwise be the White House’s fiercest allies say it’ll be up to Biden to energize voters ahead of November — regardless of what Republicans do.

“He’s not an effective communicator,” said Wes Bellamy, founder of Our Black Party, which advocates for issues to strengthen African American communities.

The president “speaks in a tone that doesn’t really resonate with much of his base and I don’t think they do a good enough job of being active on the ground,” Bellamy said.

Adding to the challenge is the fact that, when the president addresses one problem, he may prompt another. Some of what the administration has done to tame prices at the pump, for instance, run counter to Biden’s promises about combating climate change — especially after his signature social spending bill, “Build Back Better,” collapsed in Congress.

“His midterm strategy with respect to the environment is pretty underwhelming and not likely to work,” said Brett Hartl, chief political strategist at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund.

Hartl said Americans, particularly young ones who backed Biden in 2020 thinking he’d help make the country dramatically greener, are now disillusioned with “a really steady trail of defeats on the climate crisis.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki suggested Biden may help Democrats avoid a Republican midterm romp by evoking the phrase “Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.” That’s something Biden said frequently as vice president and while campaigning for the White House in 2020.

“Really, if you look at the other side, they have nothing in the cupboard. They have no plan,” Psaki said during a recent event for “Pod Save America.” “We could be saying that more.”

___

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Mount Vernon, Ohio, and Josh Boak in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report.