Before arguing about whose fault it was (if any), important to start with the basic fact that public discontent is primarily about high inflation combined with expiration of various income supports causing real income to decline in the middle of Biden's term, -6% in 2022 by my calculation on Fred.
Fred can't save exact settings, but this is the link to create this yourself. It was unfortunate that the relatively modest (by historical standards) inflation hit pretty much exactly at the time when special government support programs expired.
fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC...
I wish the child tax credit was made permanent originally, and wish it was extended permanently in 2022. I wish SNAP was expanded too. Dems had 50 votes and came 1 vote short (Manchin). Given the state of West Virginia, there's no lesson except they need more Senate seats in any way possible.
People indeed experienced economic hardship. It's also true that change in economic circumstances (even inflation-adjusted) has been going solidly in the right direction in the last year or more.
And it's also long been true that swing voters don't distinguish which party is **really** at fault.
Political scientists have long found that presidential voting is correlated with real personal income growth in the election year (GDP as well but a weaker correlation).
You could draw lots of different political conclusions based on this whole background. But first you need to understand it.
