The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Biden’s optimism collides with mounting political challenges
WASHINGTON — Democrats are going to hold onto the House after November’s midterm elections. They will pick up as many as four seats in the Senate, expanding their majority and overcoming internal dissent that has stifled their agenda.
As the challenges confronting President Joe Biden intensify, his predictions of a rosy political future for the Democratic Party are growing bolder. The assessments, delivered in speeches, fundraisers and conversations with friends and allies, seem at odds with a country that he acknowledged this week was “really, really down,” burdened by a pandemic, surging gas prices and spiking inflation.
Biden’s hopeful outlook tracks with a sense of optimism that has coursed through his nearly five-decade career and was at the center of his 2020 presidential campaign, which he said was built around restoring the “soul of America.” In a lengthy Oval Office interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, Biden said part of his job as president is to “be confident.”
“Because I am confident,“he said. “We are better positioned than any country in the world to own the second quarter of the 21st century. That’s not hyperbole. That’s a fact.”
While presidents often try to emphasize the positive, there is a risk in this moment that Biden contributes to a dissonance between Washington and people across the country who are confronting economic pain.
Few of Biden’s closest political advisers are as bullish about the party’s prospects as the president. In interviews with people in and close to the White House, there is a broad sense that Democrats will lose control of Congress and that many of the party’s leading candidates in downballot races and contests for governor will be defeated, with Biden unable to offer much help.
The seeming disconnect between Biden’s view and the political reality has some worried the White House has not fully grasped how bad this election year may be for Democrats.
“I don’t expect any president to go out and say, ‘You know what, ‘We’re going to lose the next election,’” said Will Marshall, president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute, which is in regular contact with the White House’s policy team. What might serve Biden well instead, Marshall said, would be “a sober sense of, ‘Look, we’re probably in for a rough night in November and our strategy should be to remind the country what’s at stake.’”
The White House is hardly ignoring the problem.
After years in which Democrats have operated in political silos, there is a greater focus on marshaling resources. Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s 2020 campaign manager who now serves as one of his deputy chiefs of staff, runs the political team from the West Wing along with Emmy Ruiz, a longtime Texas-based Democratic political consultant.
The president’s political message is being honed by Mike Donilon, a longtime Biden aide who is a protector of Biden’s public image, and veteran party strategist Anita Dunn, who is returning to the White House for a second stint.
Biden turned to Dunn during an especially low political moment in February 2020, giving her broad control of his then-cash strapped presidential campaign as it appeared on the brink of collapse after a disastrous fourth-place showing in the Iowa caucus.
Barely a week later, Biden left New Hampshire before its primary polls had even closed, ultimately finishing fifth. But he took second in Nevada, won South Carolina handily and saw the Democratic establishment rally around him at breakneck speed in mere days after that. O’Malley Dillon then joined the campaign and oversaw Biden’s general election victory.
A similar reversal of political fortune may be necessary now.
But where White House officials last year harbored hopes that voters could be convinced of Biden’s accomplishments and reverse their dismal outlook on the national direction, aides now acknowledge that such an uphill battle is no longer worth fighting. Instead, they have pushed the president to be more open about his frustrations — particularly on inflation — to show voters that he shares their concerns and to cast Republicans and their policies as obstacles to addressing these issues.
Though he has increasingly expressed anger about inflation, Biden has publicly betrayed few concerns about his party’s fortunes this fall. opting instead for relentless positivity.
“I think there are at least four seats that are up for grabs that we could pick up in the Senate,” the president told a gathering of donors in Maryland. “And we’re going to keep the House.”
Biden meant Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with potential longer shots in North Carolina or Florida possibly representing No. 4. Some aides admit that assessment is too optimistic. They say the president is simply seeking to fire up his base with such predictions.
The party’s chances of maintaining House control may be bleaker. Still, Tim Persico, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is charged with defending the party’s majority, said Biden remains an asset.
“We love when the president is speaking to the country,” Persico said. “There’ll always be frustrations. I totally get that. But I think he’s his own best messenger.”
Biden has traveled more since last fall, promoting a $1 trillion public works package that became law in November, including visiting competitive territory in Minnesota, Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan and New Hampshire. During a trip to Rep. Cindy Axne’s Iowa swing district, the president declared, “My name is Joe Biden. I work for Congresswoman Axne.”
But Bernie Sanders, the last challenger eliminated as Biden clinched the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, is making his own Iowa trip this weekend to rally striking workers at construction and agriculture equipment plants.
The 80-year-old Vermont senator has not ruled out a third presidential bid in 2024 should Biden not seek reelection. That has revived questions about whether Biden, 79, might opt not to run — speculation that has persisted despite the White House gearing up for the midterms and beyond.
Asked if Biden was running again in 2024, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president has responded to such queries repeatedly and “his answer has been pretty simple, which is, yes, he’s running for reelection.”
The more immediate question of Biden’s midterm appeal could be even trickier. He campaigned for Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia last November, after winning the state easily in 2020. McAuliffe lost by 2 percentage points, a potentially bad omen for the 16 governorships Democrats are defending this fall.
“We know there are going to be national headwinds, there always are,“Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia, said recently. But she insisted she would be happy to campaign with Biden or top members of his administration: “I welcome anyone willing to lift Georgia up, to come to Georgia and help me get it done.”
That was a departure from Democrat Beto O’Rourke, running for governor in Texas, who told reporters, “I’m not interested in any national politician — anyone outside of Texas — coming into this state to help decide the outcome of this race.”
Biden political advisers say a possible Supreme Court ruling overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, as well as recent shootings spurring debate over gun violence, could give Democrats two issues that could energize voters. But they acknowledge that one or both might help party candidates clinch already close races — not remake the political landscape nationwide.
In the meantime, Biden’s overall approval rating hit a new low of 39 percent last month. Even among his own party, just 33 percent of respondents said the country is headed in the right direction, down from 49 percent in April. The president’s approval rating among Democrats stood at 73 percent, falling from last year, when Biden’s Democratic approval rating never slipped below 82 percent.
The White House also notes that the president and his party are in far better shape now than before the 2010 midterms, when a tea party wave saw Republicans win back Congress. Since taking office, Biden’s political team has invested significantly in the DNC and state parties, and all sides are cooperating.