“House Republicans hope to ride Joe Biden’s messy Afghanistan withdrawal to victory in the midterms. It won’t be that easy. With the GOP already in a strong position to retake the House next year, the president’s first major foreign-policy crisis could give the party an additional boost as it tries to chip away at his popularity. But several factors threaten to undermine Republican efforts to make Biden’s blunder stick – the most powerful being the nearly 15 months between now and the next election. Absent an all-consuming global conflagration, voters tend to cast their ballots based on domestic rather than foreign priorities, most notably economic issues” Politico reports.

“While the longevity of the Afghanistan turmoil remains to be seen, particularly given the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Republicans believe that the bipartisan criticism of the president’s withdrawal planning will turn the current chaos there into a legacy-defining failure for Biden. ‘This is not going away,’ said Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. ‘This has been a disaster… The imagery of what’s going on right now is gonna stick with the public.’ Beyond the calendar, Republicans have other messaging bumps to overcome as they try to keep Biden’s Afghanistan problems top of mind. Those include the small but vocal minority of Republicans who have stoked fears about thousands of Afghan allies being resettled across the U.S., undermining the party’s attempts at a more welcoming message. Then there’s the handful of GOP Donald Trump critics who, as they hit the Biden administration, are also pinning some blame back on the former president, who negotiated a similar withdrawal timeline with the Taliban.”