As if Democrats needed anything else to convince themselves that Tuesday’s midterm elections are at great risk, US President Joe Biden has done offered a frankly grim assessment during a fundraiser last Friday in Chicago.
“If we lose the House of Representatives and the Senate, it’s going to be a terrible two years,” Biden told the small crowd gathered in a hotel lounge where cameras were not allowed.
After two years of Democratic control of Congress, a leadership change in either the House or the Senate, if not both, would usher Biden’s presidency into a new phase. In this sense, Biden has been optimistic in the final days of the campaign, but the reality is that the Democratic majority in Congress may soon be gone, and Biden’s ability to pass his core priorities may disappear.
That said, White House officials have begun to indicate that their losses will not be as dire as they have been in previous midterm elections, including the 2010 election, and say that Democrats have little to fight for. There is opportunity, which is a positive sign for Biden.
Even then, His advisers have privately admitted that they see no viable way for the Democrats to retain their majority in the House of Representatives.Although the president and his high-level team begin the day with the view that the possibility of Democrats retaining a majority in the Senate is real, even if it takes a few days or more to become a reality.
The defections blame game is about to explode in the coming weeks, To separate Biden’s agenda, the White House on Tuesday… and to the President himself, from the list of objectives.
For its part, the White House distributed an Election Day document to aides with more than two dozen individual poll results that they say underscore the popularity of key individual elements of Biden’s agenda.
“Before all the votes are cast, Pundits are calling this midterm election a referendum on the president’s agendaBut nothing could be further from reality,” the document obtained by CNN said in its introduction.
Yet even the president acknowledged that his agenda, regardless of where he ranks in the polls, has not translated to the American public, who have taken a largely negative view of the country’s direction.
,we’ve approved a lot of good thingsBiden said at a fundraiser last week. “They’re so good that people still haven’t realized how good they are”,
The effort to outrun the expected loss comes after months in which frontline Democratic candidates have actively sought to split from Biden, implicating the party leader in mostly Democratic states and districts as the party seeks to salvage its majorities. Scramble for It’s a reality that advisers say Biden doesn’t take personally.
After 36 years in the Senate, Biden has long been of the view that candidates know what is best for their state or district. But as Biden’s approval ratings have begun to rise in recent months, White House officials have balked at the idea that he was the only pressure on Democrats.
The defensive tone of the note released from the White House echoes a message that Biden has repeatedly tried to emphasize in the final days of the campaign, centered on the idea that The election represents a choice between the two parties, not a referendum on Biden or his presidency.
