Hey, what's up Playbookers? I'm Rulgu-Manavalin. It's Thursday. Question for you.

What's the first work that comes to mind about how things are going in the country? Hold that thought.

It's your Politico Playbook Daily Briefing.

The enormous gap between the excitement in Washington about the return of the White House Correspondents Association weekend and the ongoing anxiety of voters.

It is hard this week as we watched focus groups of voters conducted by longtime Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

On Tuesday night, Lake talked to a group of high information Democrats scattered around the country over a Zoom call while we watched

on mute. This appeared to be one of the more financially well-off focus groups we've seen this year,

but like the others, these voters were defined by their disgust. When asked the first word that

popped into their mind about how things are going on in the country, here's what they said,

quote, frustrated, disbelief, aggravated, discouraged, unsure, worrying, resigned, frightened.

The only positive words offered were better and okay.

One Biden voter who thought things would improve after Donald Trump said he now knew that may never happen.

Quote, they're just going to be sucking things out there all the time, so I'm resigned to the fact that that's going to be life.

When asked if they personally have experienced ticker shock, when going out to buy something,

every single participant raised their hands.

Their views of Biden were lukewarm.

On the positive side, they viewed him as, quote, decent, unifying, and one said that

they personally like him.

On the negative side, they said he was, quote, unrealistic, hasn't really

delivered on his promises, needs to be stronger, gives in too easily, and his old, slow, and

speaks a lot. Lake asked the group a revealing question. What animal do they think of when they

think of Democrats and Republicans? The Democrats were described as sheep, cats, weasels,

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