SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

BIDEN HURTING IN ANOTHER SWING STATE – FROM THE HILL:   President Biden’s approval rating is at 38 percent in the battleground state of North Carolina, while about a quarter of respondents think the country is on the right track, according to a new poll.  The survey, conducted by High Point University, found that 38 percent of North Carolinians polled approve of the way Biden is handling his job as president, compared to 48 percent who disapprove. Fourteen percent of respondents said they do not know or refused to respond.  A majority of North Carolinians also said they believe things in the country have gotten off track: 60 percent of respondents said the U.S. is on the wrong track, with only 28 percent saying the country is headed in the right direction.  The low polling numbers come as Biden is grappling with a series of crises: fallout from the U.S.’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, the rapid spread of the highly infectious delta variant, legislative headaches on Capitol Hill as lawmakers work to pass key parts of his agenda, and a surge of Haitian migrants seeking entry into the U.S. in Texas.  North Carolina voters were nearly split in the 2020 presidential election. Then-President Trump won by just 1.3 percent, which was equivalent to nearly 75,000 votes, according to The New York Times.  Fifty-seven percent of respondents in the new poll said they disapproved of Biden’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan, with only 25 percent approving.  It's only a poll, a snapshot in time, but it reflects the dramatic decline in Biden's approval that we're seeing throughout the country.  If the president's approval falls into the thirties, he's in grim trouble, with the political obituary writers sharpening their pencils, or whatever they use. 

September 28, 2021