One might be tempted, almost, to feel sorry for Joe Biden. Whatever one’s own individual analysis of the President’s mental acuity (generally underestimated by Republicans and overestimated by Democrats) he is certainly acutely aware of the fact that midterm elections are, for the most part, a referendum on the sitting President’s performance. His – and that of the party for which he is de facto leader – has not been particularly exemplary. One can hardly fault him for grasping at whatever straw is available, and the only one he can seem to find is abortion. Accordingly, the Democrats have thrown everything they have into that particular well.

James Carville came up with the shibboleth “the economy, stupid” as the centerpiece of his messaging for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, which hung on the wall at Clinton HQ. A touch of the reductionism inherent in political campaigns, sure, but Carville is no dummy and it has a ring of truth to it – voters, by and large, vote on those things which have an immediate impact on their lives. Barring the occurrence of other existential issues, like rampant street crime or the enemy battering the gates, the economy is the issue that most energizes the electoral muscle, especially if it is not doing especially well. This time around, not only is the economy not doing especially well, but there are plenty of other lingering issues contending for top place on the continuum of public concern.

A single week’s worth of newspaper headlines catalogue a litany of workaday miseries. One, from right-wing mouthpiece National Public Radio, reads: “You can run, but you can’t hide: Inflation is busting budgets, and killing joy too.” Goodness. The article centers on the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Statistics, released last Thursday, which delivers in cold figures what everyone who has gone to the grocery store or gas station in the last week knows – consumer prices on virtually everything reached a new 40-year high in September, and moreover that most of that inflation manifests itself in individual households: rent, for instance, went up 7.2%, grocery prices by 13%, and electricity prices by 15.5%.

Speaking of energy prices, another headline, which managed to slip somewhat under the radar, reads “U.S. home heating bills expected to surge this winter.” That story informs us that the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a report last week forecasting that American households will spend more this winter (October through March) on all heating fuels – 28% more for natural gas, 27% more for heating oil, 10% more for electricity and 5% for propane. I wrote in this space a couple weeks ago about how Democratic-backed energy and climate policies were driving up energy costs. The mad rush to switch overnight to renewables, the luddite phobia surrounding nuclear energy, the mania over electrifying everything – they all work to strain the electrical grid, adding demand onto a system from which supply is being choked. Pile on to that the deliberate lack of pipeline capacity, the Jones Act (which limits shipping of LNG from Gulf ports to northeast markets) and the restrictions and superfluous regulations layered on the domestic fossil fuel industry and there remains no mystery as to why energy prices are soaring just in time for short days and 20-degree temperatures.

Do we even need to list the headlines illuminating the crime problem? No, except to point out that it is such common knowledge that Colorado leads the nation in car thefts (2,845 vehicles were stolen, just in the Denver Metro area, in the three-month span from July to September alone), that a local TV station felt compelled to run a story a couple of days ago listing for the public the top-10 vehicle models stolen in the metro area (apparently the KIA Sportage is a favorite of the Denver criminal class).

And, lest we forget, there is a dangerous world beyond our borders, and any given day’s newspaper is a chamber of horrors in describing that world, from Ukraine, to Iran, to China and elsewhere. And in the meantime, the Heritage Foundation’s 2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength rates the U.S. military as “weak” for the first time, particularly in terms of naval and air power.

Carville’s crude maxim was a practical application of a reflection of voter’s priorities, and right now polls, anecdote and the realities of day-to-day life indicate their priorities differ markedly from that of the current ruling party.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.