Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

Popular Policies Don’t Elect Presidents

The pandemic relief bill is doing well in polls, but that won’t help Democrats in 2022 or 2024 if the economy falters or the virus surges.

March 5, 2021 at 12:30 PM UTC

By Jonathan Bernstein

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

It’s the pandemic, stupid.
Photographer: Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg

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With the Senate poised to pass a massive pandemic relief bill, the House of Representatives passing several other bills in the opening weeks of the session, and President Joe Biden going full steam ahead on various executive actions, a lot of commentary has focused this week on the impact of passing popular bills on the next election.