The White House has mishandled the economy, and the solution is a victory by Republicans in elections this November, says real estate titan Sam Zell.

“We have to get our economy back in line,” he told CNBC. “We have to focus on creating jobs. So far the programs of this administration seem to be focused on a lot of ideological issues and not on jobs.”

Non-farm payrolls rose 431,000 in May, but only 41,000 of those jobs were in the private sector.

“The people who create jobs don’t have any confidence in the current administration and the current actions being taken,” Zell said. “When you reduce the confidence of the guys and gals taking the risk, you have very slow activity.”

Zell sees the November congressional elections as the most important since the Reagan-Carter contest of 1980. The coming election is all about balance, he maintains.

“What we’ve seen over the last 1 ½ years is Congress and the president all of the same party. Therefore we haven’t had appropriate checks and balances,” Zell said.

“The November election gives the electorate an opportunity to re-create those checks.”

Zell isn’t the only one worried about jobs.

“We’re in a soft patch in the economy, and employers are reluctant to hire,” Richard DeKaser, chief economist at Woodley Park Research, told Bloomberg.

“It suggests non-government payrolls will be quite soft, well below what’s necessary to ensure a stable economic recovery.”