The False Choice of Biden during the First Week of Arizona Senate Debates: Economic Issues, Abortion, and Integrity
Democrats are attracting a large portion of voters who don’t like Biden. Some recent surveys have found Democrats even leading slightly among voters who say they “somewhat” (as opposed to “strongly”) disapprove of Biden’s performance – a remarkable reversal from 2018 and 2010 when the president’s party lost about two-thirds of voters who “somewhat” disapproved of his performance, according to exit polls.
Democrats may have peaked in their ability to shift voters around issues of abortion and rights, according to operatives in both parties. Several recent surveys, including the national Monmouth poll, have found that when voters were asked directly, most said they were more concerned about kitchen table economic issues than questions of fundamental rights and protecting democracy. Among the voters who prioritized core economic concerns, two-thirds preferred Republicans for Congress, according to detailed results provided by Monmouth.
The vice president of Way to Win, a Democratic group that focuses on candidates of color, believes that emphasizing the risks of abortion rights can increase turnout among liberals. But she largely agrees that most of the persuadable voters who might move to Democrats around the abortion issue have already done so and that the party during the campaign’s final stretch must ensure it has a competitive message on the economy and other daily concerns. She says that everyone will always focus on the things that are affecting their everyday life. I think it is a false choice to be thinking about the economy or abortion.
The push and pull between these competing priorities have been vividly displayed over the past week during the first flurry of general election Senate debates in states like Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona. During last week’s televised Arizona encounter, Republican challenger Masters came out of the gate very strong and kept the Democrats on guard by constantly linking him to Biden while the conversation was initially focused on border security. Kelly had regained his steam when the discussion shifted to abortion and election integrity. Masters struggled to explain his support for a near complete ban on abortion during the GOP primary because of the baseless claims of widespread fraud in 2020.
Biden has weak position in battleground states that will decide control of the Senate. CNN polls in Arizona and Nevada last week showed just 41% of likely voters in each approving of his performance. His approval has been put at 39% in Georgia, 39% in Wisconsin, 42% in Pennsylvania and 45% in New Hampshire.
The sheer intractability of our modern political divisions means fewer voters are willing to shift loyalties, no matter how unhappy they are with current conditions. Particularly in Senate races, including the contests in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, Republicans have also been hurt by nominating Trump-aligned candidates that many voters view as unqualified, extreme or both.
According to detailed results provided by Marist, voters who focused primarily on inflation gave Republicans about two-thirds of their votes for Congress, as did almost three-fifths of those who prioritized immigration. But Democrats attracted about three-fourths of those who emphasized abortion or health care, and over three-fifths of those focused on preserving democracy.
Given these disparities, Democrats everywhere are stressing issues relating to rights and values, particularly abortion, but also warning about the threat to democracy posed by Trump and his movement. CNN reported that Democratic candidates have spent $130 million on ads about abortion since June, more than any other party.
Bridgeing the Kitchen Tables and Values Divide: How President Biden walked into Washington during a Western Swing in Portland (Oregon)
The incentives for domestic production that are embedded in the Biden legislative accomplishments will bring about a boom in US employment because they will encourage the creation of jobs at home.
Only a few Democrats are emphasizing potential plant openings this year, so they are mostly still in the future.
“We’ve got an election in a month. Biden said voters have to make a decision. It is Democrats who are trying to bring down the cost of things around the kitchen table.
The founder of Somos Votantes says that if Republicans don’t convince voters that they have answers to the economy, then they won’t vote for Democrats. “The concrete is not set yet,” she said recently after a day of door-to-door canvassing in Phoenix. “There is still a way to move people, connect with people.” The Way to Win message tries to bridge the kitchen tables/ values divide by telling people that Democrats are interested in providing opportunities to help people, while Republicans are focused on taking away rights.
At a Union Hall in Portland, Ore., volunteers with the state’s Democratic Party sat shoulder to shoulder at long tables, dialing voters on their cellphones, when in walked President Biden holding a pink and white box of doughnuts.
This Western swing was Biden’s longest of the campaign, but he was very low key. There were no rallies, just small audience speeches about his accomplishments thus far, and a couple of fundraisers.
Barack Biden, the Blue State Candidate for GOPT Tina Kotek, in Oregon, has a devoted campaign schedule in place
“The history books show that an incumbent president is not a boost to their party in their midterms. If Jesus Christ was an incumbent president, members of his political party would probably try to oust him in the mid-term election.
Biden won the presidential election in Oregon, a very blue state. “God, it was nice winning by 16 points,” Biden told the volunteers, gathered on a Friday night to help Tina Kotek, the Democratic candidate for governor,
Two years later, Democrats are nervous about the tough three-way race for governor. There’s an independent candidate — a former Democrat — who could peel off enough Democratic votes to open the door for the first Republican governor of Oregon in more than a generation.
A couple of days later, Biden went to a Kotek fund-raising event and then stopped at a Baskin-Robbins for some ice cream. There, as he waited for his double scoop of chocolate chip in a waffle cone, Biden said he was confident Kotek would win.
The lighter campaign schedule has been maintained by Biden. His first rally this month, in Florida on Tuesday evening, will be more of a low key affair compared to the 16 he held in October 2010 and the 26 that President Trump held in October.
With less than three weeks left until Election Day, Mr. Biden has a plan in place that will raise money for the Democrats while helping them talk about infrastructure, student debt relief, and investments in computer chip manufacturing. But his decision not to participate, so far at least, in rallies that are normally a staple of campaign season highlights how little the president can do to help his fellow Democrats, even with the megaphone of the Oval Office.
And by raising money for party committees rather than individual congressional candidates, Biden is helping candidates without being directly tied to them.
Some Democratic candidates have claimed scheduling conflicts when Biden comes to town, conflicts that preclude joint appearances. Republicans have roundly mocked Biden and his party for this. Smith, author of Any Given Tuesday, said that Democrats are just being smart.
What’s clear is that Biden has watched as his reputation as a Democrat who could venture places others could not has faded. Biden was often dispatched to red states and conservative districts to campaign for Republicans who were vulnerable compared to Obama who was more popular in the area.
But there are places where Biden can help the Democrats on the ballot: places where Democrats have a strong advantage in voter registration. In Colorado, Biden designated an important World War II training site, Camp Hale, as a new national monument. He made sure to give extra love to the senator, who is running in a harder than expected race.
Biden told a story about how he was able to get Michael to come up with the money to build the monument.
Los Angeles Mayor’s Last Kiss: A New Look at the State of the Art During a Campaign Rally and Implications for Social Security and Medicare
In Los Angeles, local officials lined up on a blue tape line on the tarmac to greet the president after he walked down the stairs of Air Force One. Karen Bass, the Democratic congresswoman running for LA mayor, got a well-documented hug with the signature robin’s egg blue plane in the background.
The next day, Biden touted the infrastructure law at a construction site for a new metro line, calling Bass the “soon-to-be Ms. Mayor” in a speech where he delivered the core of his midterm message.
“We’re always getting incoming requests,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling with the president on Air Force One. “Of course. Of course. We have a lot of good things to talk about.”
WASHINGTON — It’s a treat to have a president at a campaign rally. And Democrats in four cities — Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee and Las Vegas — will get that chance this month, in the final days of voting that will decide who controls Congress, governors’ offices and statehouses.
It is a remarkably low-key campaign effort by a president facing what could be among the biggest rebukes of his political life: Republicans are poised to retake control of one or both houses of Congress, an outcome that would reshape politics in Washington and likely end any hope that Democrats have of making progress on abortion rights, gun control, police reform, voting rights or tax fairness.
The senior said it was relevant for the President to choose between cutting Social Security and Medicare in order to keep the debt limit negotiations going.
He has drawn on Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott’s policy proposals and on threats of Republican brinkmanship over the debt ceiling to argue the GOP will hurt the economy and put popular entitlement programs at risk. Biden is going to hold an official event prior to the rally as well as call attention to Republican Social Security and Medicare proposals.
The head of the Republicans campaign arm had put out a policy agenda that would put Medicare, Social Security, and other government programs up for a vote every five years. The state is also home to former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis, both likely 2024 presidential candidates whom Democrats have been eager to cast as the faces of a new, more extreme Republican Party.
A second senior Biden adviser said that his contrast argument with Florida is more relevant than usual in the closing week of the elections.
A senior Biden adviser said there’s a place and time for rallies as Biden prepares for rallies in Florida, New Mexico, California and Pennsylvania.
In an interview with CNN on the eve of Biden’s visit to his state, Crist was effusive about the president’s willingness to campaign alongside him in the final stretch of the midterms, as he hopes to deny DeSantis reelection.
“He’s the most important man in the world,” Crist said. “The fact that he’s coming down to Florida with a week to go until the election says everything you need to know about how important Florida is.”
He hoped that Biden would focus on the topic of abortion rights when the president spoke at the rally for him and Val. Crist said that abortion rights is the most important issue in his race and that Gov. DeSantis’ record on the issue speaks for itself.
During their tour of damage from Hurricane Ian, both the president and the lieutenant governor put aside their political differences to emphasize the importance of an effective response.
The governor kept his eye on Biden as he spoke about his plans during a debate with Crist.
It’s important for Biden to focus on the upcoming polls, but if he were to help the democrat run to oust the Republican, he would offer a glimpse into what a Biden-DeSantis fight could look like in four years. A full four-year term wouldn’t be on the table if he were to win reelection, as he said in a debate last week.
The last question is from DeSantis, who asked what he needed to do to succeed. The same conversation Trump has with himself was said by a senior advisor to the Democratic National Committee.
Biden’s frustrations with the last 15 years of the election: Why he’s not looking like a presidential albatross
According to Biden, more than a dozen campaigns requested him in the final stretch of the race, and that he was in demand on the campaign trail.
That is not true. There have been 15. He told the reporter to count when he suggested he had not held many rallies in the final stretch.
Biden accepts not every candidate will welcome him as a surrogate even though he has low approval ratings. He has told fellow Democrats he respects their political intuition when it comes to their own races and has joked publicly he would “campaign for … or against” his preferred candidates, “whichever will help the most.”
According to people familiar with the conversations, he’s grown frustrated with the coverage suggesting he’s political albatross, and that his policies are popular with voters.
Democrats familiar with the decision-making found Biden not wanted by campaigns in the most competitive races. They stated that rallies are less valuable because of their cost.
Now, it is the former president who appears to be the most sought-after Democrat for the nation’s marquee races. He held rallies in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin over the weekend, and will visit Nevada and Arizona this week.
Biden and Obama will appear together next Saturday to boost the Senate and gubernatorial candidates in Pennsylvania – one place Biden, who was born there, has been welcomed.
On the event side, Biden scaled back battleground state political rallies in favor of political speeches in Washington and official events where he has called attention to his accomplishments – like infrastructure and manufacturing investments – and warned of the Republican alternative.