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Democrats are growing increasingly frustrated by what they say is a flat-footed White House that is slow to catch up on solving a seemingly never-ending cascade of problems in the face of an unrelenting news cycle.

They point to the recent baby formula shortage as the latest example of how President Biden has failed to get ahead of the story, allowing Republicans to set the narrative as yet another failure for the White House. But they also highlighted Bidens lag on other issues at the top of voters minds: inflation and gas prices.

Democrats were also miffed when the White House was caught off guard when a federal judge in Florida lifted the mask mandate on airlines in April and also when a leaked draft of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was made public, even though both were events that surprised Washington more broadly not just the White House.

Its really simple: Be the fing president!, said one Democratic strategist frustrated by the administration. I realize its tough and youre drinking out of a fire hose every single day, but there are things you can do to control the public perception and they havent done any of that.

Democratic strategist Christy Setzer said the White House has shown some naivete in recent months in trying to control the message.

It may come down to not understanding what theyre up against both the media environment and todays GOP, Setzer said. Biden did speak out on guns, on baby formula, on inflation but the traditional tactics arent breaking through, and it doesnt seem as though theyre taking in that information, re-trenching, and trying new approaches when its falling flat.

The White House routinely defends Biden and the administrations response to the baby formula shortage, highlighting his invoking of the Defense Production Act to have baby formula flown into the U.S. at least five times in recent weeks.

The President has led with urgency and solutions needed to deliver for American families due to Abbotts recall,a White House official said.

Speaking to reporters during a briefing last week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre acknowledged that Biden is juggling multiple crises at one time.

Bidens polling numbers began to fall last August, around the time he withdrew the last military forces out of Afghanistan after 20 years of war. The chaotic and deadly U.S. exit, marked by the Talibans swift and sudden takeover of Kabul, was labeled by both Democrats and Republicans as poorly executed. It was compounded by a terrorist bombing that took the lives of 13 American service members.

Biden hasnt recovered since.

Most polls have Bidens approval rating stuck in the low 40s. A Reuters-Ipsos poll released last week showed that Bidens approval rating had jumped up 6 points to 42 percent from a record low the previous week.

After Biden delivered his prime-time address calling for congressional action on an assault weapons ban and other reforms following the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Democrats who praised the tone and tenor of the speech criticized the timing.

It should have been done sooner, one strategist said. It felt like it was too late by the time hed delivered the speech. The moment was already passing.

Biden did deliver a speech the night of the shooting after returning from the White House from a multiday trip to Asia, but it was less focused on pushing for specific legislative actions and more about pleading with the public to find an end to mass shootings devastating the country.

The Biden White House is no stranger to crises. The president came into office with the primary goal of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, a response that has broadly been commended by health experts, particularly when it came to effectively distributing the vaccine to the general public.

Larry Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University, said the White Houses recent hiring of Ashish Jha as Bidens new COVID-19 coordinator was a really smart move and credited him with his ability to speak to the public.

But other problems have piled up on Bidens desk since his first day in office, many of them as difficult as inflation and gun violence, over which the president has limited control.

The nationwide baby formula shortage stemming from the February closure of an Abbott Nutrition factory is the latest acute crisis to test the White House. In response, Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act to boost domestic production of formula and authorize military flights to transport formula from overseas.

But Biden himself took attention off those moves when he acknowledged last week in an exchange with reporters that he wasnt aware of the severity of the baby formula shortage until early April weeks after the Abbott plant in Michigan was shuttered due to safety concerns and after Americans were already facing empty store shelves.

My jaw really dropped, said William Galston, chairman of the governance studies program at the Brookings Institution. It was someones job to warn him, and not some low-level flunky.

The first Democratic strategist said Bidens admission that he only found out about the baby formula shortage in April seems like bad staff work.

You should be able to see whats coming down the pike, the strategist said.

Still, the White House highlights that officials at the Food and Drug Administration and elsewhere have been working since the plant closed in February to address the issue.

A memo released by the White House earlier this week showed that in-stock rates for formula started to decline in early March from about 90 percent and now stand at about 74 percent. The memo also said infant formula sales have actually increased this year compared to last year, rising about 24 percent than average sales in 2021.

The administration, however, has garnered some praise, particularly for its handling of Russias war in Ukraine, the way in which officials have used intelligence, and the fact that Biden has unified allies behind a common approach to punishing the Kremlin.

Galston, a former domestic policy aide in the Clinton White House, noted that the Biden administration has been consistently ahead of the curve when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine, something he said has served Biden well.

Part of competence and good management is setting up a system that to the greatest extent possible its never perfect to the greatest extent possible enables you to get ahead of events, Galston said. The name of the game is to avoid unforced errors.

The first Democratic strategist suggested Biden needs to stop trying to put out 20 fires.

Pick four or five and do them really well, the strategist said. Dive in on baby formula, dive in on gas prices.

To be sure, the White House is trying to get ahead of other challenges, including the impending Supreme Court ruling expected to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that said abortion rights were protected by the Constitution.

The White House has been holding listening sessions with state lawmakers, advocacy organizations and other stakeholders to better understand abortion laws on the ground ahead of the decision, which is expected later this month.

And in a sign that the baby formula shortage is likely to ease, Abbott reopened its plant in Michigan over the weekend.

Rodell Mollineau, the Democratic strategist who served as an aide to the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said there arent quick fix solutions to many of the issues Biden faces.

But Mollineau said Biden should be doing what he does best to help drive his message. Mollineau advised that Biden should be hitting the road more to speak directly to the public, something the president has tried to do more of since the start of the year.

The more hes out there, the more hes talking to people, the more hes visiting real Americans and sharing in their pain and frustration and being Scranton Joe, the better off it is, Mollineau said. Itll remind people again why they voted for him in the first place. It plays to his strengths.

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Democrats frustrated by flat-footed White House - The Hill

It was hard to get the band back together, said Adam Eisgrau, a Feinstein staff aide who helped draft the ban.

One of the things we were able to do in 94 was to create consensus against the Rambo-ification of what would otherwise be a standard hunting gun, he said. At the time, law enforcement was feeling totally outgunned. And we let people know that we didnt think all guns were evil or that people who use guns are evil. But by 2004, things had changed, positions had hardened.

In the end, Ms. Feinsteins attempts to ram through a bill to reauthorize the ban failed. Over the next four years, the senator and several other legislators, including Representative Carolyn McCarthy, a New York Democrat whose son and husband were shot on a commuter train, introduced similar measures. None got out of committee.

Democratic candidates, like President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Mr. Biden, have put renewing the ban on their presidential to-do lists. But Democrats, even when they controlled the White House, the Senate and the House from 2009 to 2011, did not act.

The sense of urgency that impelled action in 1994 began to intensify in 2012 with the increasing frequency and human toll of mass shootings facilitated, in most cases, by weapons that were once banned Sandy Hook, Aurora, Orlando, Sutherland Springs, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Parkland, El Paso, Boulder, Buffalo, Uvalde and many others that have attracted less media attention.

A few years ago, the family of the inventor of the AR-15 said he would have been horrified to know that its design was being used to slaughter children and other innocent lives instead of being used as a military weapon on the battlefields, Mr. Biden said last week during a prime-time address on gun violence, proposing a new ban.

A few days later, Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican responsible for negotiating new gun measures for his party, rejected a renewal of the ban in any form.

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Democrats Failed to Extend Assault Weapons Ban in 2004. They Regret It. - The New York Times

The party-switchers are just a small portion of the overall electorate. Even if all 3,600 former Democrats planned to vote for Coram, they would make up less than 1 percent of registered voters. For comparison, Boebert won her first primary by nearly 10,000 votes in 2020.

But the former Democrats aren't the only factor. Theyll be joining a population of nearly a quarter-million unaffiliated voters in the district, all of whom are free to vote in either the Democratic or Republican Primary.

The national attention on Boeberts race could help to draw some of those hundreds of thousands of votes into the contest and the outcome may well depend on whom they support.

For unaffiliated voters who really are neutral between the parties, and there are some of those, they may simply decide the Republican Party is the more interesting contest right now, said Masket, professor of political science and the director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver. For primaries that is something that could have an effect.

Boebert has grabbed nationwide attention over the last two years for carrying guns, making viral Twitter posts and heckling President Joe Biden over the deaths of service members in Afghanistan during the State of the Union.

That high profile has helped bring in donations and won the loyalty of many in the districts Republican base. But Coram is counting on a folksy centrist message to win over those unaffiliated voters.

They are unaffiliated because they are sick and tired of the antics of the far right, and the far left, he said in an interview. His campaign stressed that he is focused on winning over undecided voters, not convincing Democrats to meddle in the primary.

In some ways, Coram is an ideal candidate, given his political experience and party connections, Masket said. But he added the candidate hasnt stacked up the kinds of money and endorsements that often push challengers to victory.

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Thousands of Democrats are changing their voter registration in Lauren Boebert's district ahead of the primary - Colorado Public Radio

ATLANTA One look at the results of Georgias primary election last week led many Republicans to believe it was the product of Democratic meddling. Former President Donald J. Trumps recruited challengers lost in grand fashion in his most sought-after races: David Perdue was routed by Gov. Brian Kemp by more than 50 percentage points, while Representative Jody Hice fell to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger by nearly 20.

Mr. Trump and his allies pointed to so-called Democratic crossover voters as the cause of their shellackings. In Georgias open primary system, Democrats and Republicans can vote in the other partys primary if they wish, and more than 37,000 people cast early ballots in this years Republican primary election after voting in the Democratic primary in 2020.

Some Democrats, for their part, staked a claim to these voters, arguing that they had crossed over to strategically support candidates who reject Mr. Trumps falsehoods about the 2020 election. Most of the crossover voters, the Democrats said, would return to the party in November.

But a closer look at these voters paints a more complicated picture. Just 7 percent of those who voted early during last months Republican primary cast ballots for Democrats in that partys 2020 primary election, according to the data firm L2. And 70 percent of this years crossover voters who cast early ballots in the G.O.P. primary had participated in both Democratic and Republican primaries over the last decade.

These voters, data suggests, are less Republican traitors or stalwart Democrats aiming to stop Trump loyalists than they are highly sought-after and unpredictable swing voters.

I didnt want any of the Trumpsters becoming a candidate, said Frances Cooper, 43, who voted in Columbia County, two hours east of Atlanta.

A self-described moderate, Ms. Cooper said that she had voted in both Democratic and Republican primaries in the past, and that she could often vote either way. This time, she said, Mr. Kemp had been pretty good, and was the best of our options. She was undecided about the November general election for governor, but if anything leaning toward Kemp.

Voters like Ms. Cooper base their choices in every election on multiple variables: their political leanings, how competitive one partys primary might be or the overall environment in any given election year, among others. Some Democratic voters in deep-red counties opted for a Republican ballot because they believed it would be a more effective vote. Others, frustrated with leadership in Washington, voted according to their misgivings.

Many unknowns still remain. The current data on crossover voters includes only those who cast ballots during Georgias three-week early voting period, when the most politically engaged people tend to vote. In addition to traditional swing voters or disaffected Democrats, a portion of those who crossed over were indeed probably Democratic voters switching strategically to the Republican primary to spite the former president.

Yet the crossover voters who cast early ballots in last months Republican primary are not demographically representative of Georgias multiracial Democratic base, which also includes a growing number of young voters. Fifty-five percent of these early crossover voters were above the age of 65, and 85 percent were white, according to voter registration data. Less than 3 percent were between the ages of 18 and 29.

It is unclear whether a majority of these voters will return to support Democrats this November, as some in the party expect, or whether they will vote again for Republicans in large numbers.

I think theres a real danger on the part of Democrats in Georgia to just assume that they arent going to lose some of those voters from 2020, said Erik Iverson, a Republican pollster who works with Georgia campaigns.

No race has attracted more debate about crossover voting than the Republican primary for secretary of state, in which Mr. Raffensperger, the incumbent, who had rejected attempts to subvert the 2020 election, defeated Mr. Hice, a Trump-endorsed challenger.

Though Mr. Raffensperger won by almost 20 points, he escaped being forced into a runoff election by finishing with 52.3 percent of the vote, or 2.3 percent above the majority threshold that would have prompted a runoff.

Operatives on both sides of the aisle have speculated that crossover voting was a chief reason that Mr. Raffensperger avoided a runoff. But drawing such a conclusion ignores the many reasons for crossover voting in Georgia, and probably overestimates the number of true Democrats voting for Mr. Raffensperger.

That would be an awful lot of crossover voting, said Scott H. Ainsworth, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, adding that Mr. Raffenspergers nearly 30,000-vote margin to avoid a runoff had most likely been spurred by more than just meandering former Democratic primary voters.

Still, that hasnt dissuaded some from pointing to crossover voters as a root cause of Mr. Raffenspergers success.

Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a Republican who founded the group Country First, which supports pro-democracy G.O.P. candidates, cited the Georgia secretary of states victory as proof of his organizations effectiveness.

Why are these midterms so important? This years races could tip the balance of power in Congress to Republicans, hobbling President Bidens agenda for the second half of his term. They will also test former President Donald J. Trumps role as a G.O.P. kingmaker. Heres what to know:

What are the midterm elections? Midterms take place two years after a presidential election, at the midpoint of a presidential term hence the name. This year, a lot of seats are up for grabs, including all 435 House seats, 35 of the 100 Senate seats and 36 of 50 governorships.

What do the midterms mean for Biden? With slim majorities in Congress, Democrats have struggled to pass Mr. Bidens agenda. Republican control of the House or Senate would make the presidents legislative goals a near-impossibility.

What are the races to watch? Only a handful of seats will determine if Democrats maintain control of the House over Republicans, and a single state could shift power in the 50-50 Senate. Here are 10 races to watch in the Houseand Senate, as well as several key governors contests.

When are the key races taking place? The primary gauntletis already underway. Closely watched racesin Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia wereheld in May, with more taking place through the summer. Primaries run until September before the general election on Nov. 8.

Go deeper. What is redistrictingand how does it affect the midterm elections? How does polling work? How do you register to vote? Weve got more answers to your pressing midterm questions here.

I have no doubt we made the impact, Mr. Kinzinger said. His group distributed mailers, sent text messages and ran television ads in support of Mr. Raffensperger. The groups message to Georgia Democrats, who had largely noncompetitive races for governor and Senate, was to vote in the Republican primary instead. Mr. Kinzinger said the efforts helped Mr. Raffensperger avoid a runoff.

The organization has tried to lift candidates in states including Texas and North Carolina, where it successfully helped to oust Representative Madison Cawthorn. The group has plans to support candidates in Michigan and to defend Republican incumbents like Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

Sometimes, the motivation for Democrats or Republicans to cross over into the other partys primary goes deeper than statewide contests. For example, if voters are drawn into a noncompetitive district, they will sometimes vote in the other partys primary if it will essentially determine the general election winner.

Take Clarke County in Georgia. Home to Athens, a Democratic-leaning city, the county is wholly contained in the 10th Congressional District, a decidedly Republican seat held by Mr. Hice (he did not run for re-election because he was running for secretary of state). In Clarke County, roughly 900 voters who cast early ballots in the Republican primary had voted in the Democratic primary in 2020, one of the largest county totals of crossover voters outside the Atlanta area.

Those voters, however, may not have been focused on the statewide races but on the closely contested primary election to replace Mr. Hice. Whoever prevailed in the multicandidate Republican primary was likely to win in November in a district that Mr. Hice carried by 25 points in 2020.

Theres a lot of Democrats in Athens and Clarke County who will have no meaningful voice in their choice for Congress unless they vote in the primary, said Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University. There are probably some Democratic voters who were just voting quite rationally in the sense that they wanted their voice heard in a House race, and that is their only meaningful opportunity to do so.

Nate Cohn contributed reporting.

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A Georgia Mystery: How Many Democrats Voted in the G.O.P. Primary? - The New York Times

BOSTON The state's Democratic Party huddles this weekend to nominate candidates in wide-open races for governor, attorney general and other statewide offices ahead of this fall's elections.

Topping the Democratic party's ticket is a wide-open governor's race between Attorney General Maura Healey and state Sen. Sonia Chang-Daz, D-Jamaica Plain, who are both vying for the nomination at the two-day convention in Worcester, which kicks off Friday night.

Healey, the perceived front runner in the race, is widely expected to win a majority of the delegates but political observers will be watching to see if Daz can garner the 15% vote needed to get on the Sept. 6 primary ballot.

Democrats are heading into the convention optimistic about holding on to the several statewide offices and retaking the governor's office for the first time in eight years, with Republican Gov. Charlie Baker not seeking a third term.

"We can't take anything for granted, given that we've only had one Democratic governor in the last 30 years," said Phil Johnston, a former chairman of the state Democratic Party and delegate who is backing Healey. "We need to work extra hard to make sure that we win, but I'm very optimistic that we will win."

The race for lieutenant governor remains less certain, with a crowded field of Democrats vying for enough votes to win a spot on the ballot.

Five hopefuls are running for the second-in-command job, including Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll and Bret Bero, a Boston businessman making his first run for elected office.

Several lawmakers Sens. Adam Hinds, D-Pittsfield, Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow, and Tami Gouveia, D-Acton are also seeking the party's nomination.

Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run separately, and winners are matched on the general election ballot. So far, neither of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates have hinted at which of the five candidates they would favor for a running mate.

Further down the ticket, state Sen. Diana DiZoglio, D-Methuen, and Chris Dempsey, a transit advocate, are seeking the party's nomination to run for state auditor following Democrat Suzanne Bump's decision not to seek another four-year term.

Meanwhile, three Democrats Boston City Councilor Andrea Campbell, Quentin Palfrey, a former Assistant Attorney General, and attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan are running for Attorney General with Healey seeking the top elected office.

Tanisha Sullivan, president of the Boston chapter of the NAACP, is seeking the party's nomination against incumbent Secretary of State Bill Galvin, who is seeking an unprecedented eighth term in office. Galvin, who has held the office since 1995, is one of the longest serving secretaries' of state.

State Treasurer Deb Goldberg, a Democrat who is seeking a third-term, is the only statewide candidate who is unopposed at this weekend's convention.

The candidates have spent months making the rounds at city and town party committee meetings to talk about their reasons for running and drum up support from local delegates ahead of the convention.

Besides nominating candidates, the gathering will also be an opportunity for Democrats to voice their concerns about major issues ahead of the midterm elections, including abortion access and gun control.

Democratic Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren are among the list of speakers set to address delegates on Saturday.

The state Republican Party held its convention two weeks ago, where former state representative Geoff Diehl and Wrentham business owner Chris Doughty, and their chosen running mates, garnered enough votes to make the GOP primary ballot.

Republican delegates overwhelmingly endorsed Donald Trump-backed Diehl for governor and his running mate, former state Rep. Leah Cole Allen, for lieutenant governor. Diehl won the support of 71% of the delegates, while Doughty outstripped expectations by coming away with 29% of the vote while his running mate, former state Rep. Kate Campanale, won 30% of the vote.

There's also an element of suspense in potential outcomes from this weekend's Democratic Party convention. While some delegates have voiced their support for candidates, others have said they are waiting until the convention to decide.

One statewide race where party delegates appear to be undecided is the wide-open race for state auditor between DiZoglio and Dempsey.

Republican Anthony Amore, the lone GOP candidate in the race, suggested that undecided delegates should wait until the primary to pull a GOP ballot and vote for him.

"Even Democrats should be concerned about one-party rule on Beacon Hill, and many are comfortable with having a moderate Republican in office to keep checks and balances in place," he said Thursday. "A majority of Democrats support Governor Baker, and he thinks they should elect me too."

Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Groups newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@northofboston.com.

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Democrats to huddle for state convention in Worcester - The Daily News of Newburyport