I am going to take them in reverse order of importance.

Afghanistan, I don't think this was a big vote swinger, but it smacks of incompetence. Tried to do the right thing but botched it big time. Execution matters, it is not good enough to try to do the right thing, you must do it well.

Inflation not only did the wrong things but had no narrative to justify doing the wrong thing and did them too late. Obvious window dressing and election year political spending. The Fed is trying to cut interest rates, and the Executive and Congress are pumping money into the economy. The administration did nothing to reduce inflation. How can you call a bill that is full of spending the "Inflation Reduction Act".

Immigration, this is the really big one. The one that could have made a difference. It is a very hard problem, there was nothing to really point to to show that the administration was making progress on the problem. Execution, when you are in power, you have a burden of showing that you can fix the problem, you can't just talk. You have had 4 years to make progress, you need to show progress. Failure to execute on a workable plan is ammo for your opposition.

Incumbents get re-elected when they can show what a good job they are doing.

In the 4 years Biden was in office almost nothing that got better was the result of some action that the administration took.

There was not really anything good done that they could take credit for.

Trump is going to do worse but that is a poor platform for an election.

TEK