News Analysis As the 2022 midterms draw nearer, several Democrats are distancing themselves from President Joe Biden, whose popularity has dwindled since taking office. At the beginning of Biden’s presidency, congressional Democrats marched largely in lockstep with the president. But as his first year in office approaches its end, that situation has changed drastically. Still reeling from the public opinion hit incurred by the Afghanistan withdrawal, and faced with ongoing supply chain, inflation, and energy crises, Biden has become far less popular with voters—a fact that has not gone unnoticed by congressional Democrats, who have started to break with Biden more and more frequently. At the end of May, Biden’s approval rating hit a peak of 55 percent according to Rasmussen’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll. This popularity would be short-lived and would fall sharply following Biden’s controversial Afghanistan withdrawal. On Aug. 9, before the Afghanistan fiasco began, Biden’s approval rate …