As we’ve previously reported, the writing has been on the wall for Democrats for some time now, with President Joe Biden’s approval ratings approaching basement levels (freefalling after the Afghanistan debacle) and the Democrat-controlled Congress’ approval ratings among voters being even worse.

For example, earlier this week, Gallup Polling released numbers from a new poll that showed a devastating decline in support for Congress from Democrats – support that went from 55 percent in September to 33 percent in October. To repeat, that was 22 percent drop. Among Democrats. For the Democrat-controlled Congress.

Needless to say, if a new president cannot shore up his base of support in time for midterm elections, that’s a recipe for disaster with heavy losses for his party a strong possibility in the House and maybe even the Senate, too.

With all of that and more in mind, pollsters, political experts, and the like have been busy analyzing the latest tea leaves coming out of the closely-watched Virginia governor’s race, which has just seen Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin surpass Democrat nominee Terry McAuliffe in a big way – with Youngkin now up eight points among likely voters, an astonishing turnaround after being down five points against McAuliffe in the same poll Fox News poll taken two and a half weeks ago.

Among those analyzing the latest data is NBC News editor/reporter Benjy Sarlin, who tweeted out some inconvenient comparisons this morning that should be pretty sobering for Democrats at this point in Biden’s presidency so far:

Also just throwing out there, when Scott Brown won in frigging Massachusetts Obama’s approval was dropping, but still around 50 in Gallup. Biden scraping low 40s is the kind of environment you start to expect bad things in general. https://t.co/EMIJqpqngA

— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) October 29, 2021

How bad is it for Biden right now? “Reaaaaaal bad,” suggests Sarlin:

In general, I don’t think people are quite absorbing how bad Biden’s numbers are at the moment. State polls keep looking even worse than national. Most presidents struggle in their first 2 years, lots of ways he can claw back, but it’s just objectively reaaaaaal bad now.

— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) October 29, 2021

The reasons why are obvious – and of course, the numbers are subject to change depending on the political landscape a year out:

As of July, there were lots of happy headlines about bipartisan infrastructure, economy, and especially COVID decline. Since then, it’s sausage making, Delta and inflation fears, Afghanistan and border. It’s not really a deep mystery why Biden’s in trouble or how it could change.

— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) October 29, 2021

As I said yesterday, it could be that if and when the “Build Back Better” bills get passed, support for the Democrat Congress among Democrats will rebound, but even so, the die has been cast as even Democrats are now seeing that Joe Biden for all his promises of unity and bipartisanship and getting things done or whatever has proven to be an ineffective “leader” in bringing the warring factions even in his own party together.

And as I also noted, there’s the issue of independent voters who are running away from Joe Biden as the failures pile up, something that also appears to be playing out in the Virginia governor’s race.

Time will tell, of course, but in my view, if the economy isn’t humming back along as it had started to under former President Trump in the closing months of his presidency even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, nothing else will matter. Joe Biden will be toast and his party will pay the price at all levels of government. Kitchen table issues matter to the American people more than anything else, and even more so now as food, gas, and pretty much everything else gets more expensive thanks to Joe Biden.

In summary, unless Joe and Co. can right the ship, a catastrophe is on the horizon for Democrats in 2022 thanks in large part to Joe Biden, a man who even his supporters are starting to realize is not the rescuer in chief he wanted voters to believe him to be.

Related: This May Be The Defining Video of Joe Biden’s Presidency