I agree as to your thoughts that it’ll be at least partly a referendum on trump (assuming he stays in office that long).
But … as I said a few posts ago, do not misread the room. The Overton window is right where it was last week.
It will also be a referendum on how the Ds do in the next 2 years. Pissing away political capital and momentum on quixotic moral causes will hurt. Delivering serious financial relief to the middle class and down will help. Especially if delivered through regulated wage growth, not handouts directly from the government.
And of course the public reception to all that will be filtered through the RW propaganda machine. I’m sitting in a diner right now having late breakfast and Fox Business is on the TV. Screaming about the socialism soon to envelop the entire USA and ushering in the Great Depression II. Rest assured they will beat that drum daily for the next 2 years.
As @DrDeth rightly pointed out, the severity & speed of inflation was a lot of what folks were voting against, and the RW fantasy machine could only minimize it and /or blame it on the Ds to a very limited degree.
If the administration can fix the war which is a prereq to fixing short term inflation, they have a chance to redeem themselves between now and 2028 and convert it back into a more normally competitive race.