You’ve got to hand it ol’ Joe. We’re now mere weeks away from the midterm elections, the Republican Party has regained momentum and the lead in generic ballot polling, and he’s still trying to seal the deal with voters based on the same tried-and-failed abortion pitch he and other Democrats have been trying since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year.
On Tuesday, Biden promised to introduce legislation that would codify abortion rights. But here’s the rub: Democrats have to maintain control of Congress.
“In these midterm elections it is so critical to elect more Democratic Senators to the United States Senate and more Democrats to keep control of the House of Representatives,” Biden said Tuesday during a Democratic National Committee event in Washington, D.C. “If we do that, here’s the promise I make to you and the American people: The first bill I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v. Wade.”
Not only will it be the “first bill” he’ll send to Congress, he promises to make the bill extra special by signing it on the anniversary that Roe v. Wade was decided back in 1973.
“Vote! You’ve got to get out the vote,” Biden added. “We can do this if we vote.”
This is not the first time Biden used the possibility of codifying Roe v. Wade as a midterm election pitch for Democrats. In fact, he’s been doing so ever since the Supreme Court released its ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“Congress must act,” Biden said. “Let me be very clear and not ambiguous: the only way we can secure a woman’s right to choose is for Congress to restore the protection of Roe v. Wade as federal law. No executive action from the president can do that. And if Congress, as it appears, lacks the vote to do that now, voters need to make their voices heard.”
He’s been making variations on this pitch ever since, yet Republicans remain favored to win back the House and have become more competitive in various Senate elections that had previously looked unfavorable to them. Does Biden really think this messaging will suddenly work? At this point, he’s just pounding sand.
Left-wing outrage over the Supreme Court decision has subsided, and economic concerns remain the key issues influencing the voters’ decisions at the ballot. The abortion pitch is too little too late at this point and isn’t swaying the voters, who, polls have shown, are far more concerned with economic issues.
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“I’m wishing the election were in August,” Matt Bennett of the left-wing group Third Way told Politico. “I think we peaked a little early.”
“Look, man, I’ve been at this for 30 years, and it is always the period in late September and early October when an election starts to tilt and move,” said Mark Longabaugh, a progressive ad maker who worked on Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign told the liberal news outlet. “So, we’re at that moment, and I don’t think you can look at these numbers across the country and say anything but it looks like it’s moving in Republicans’ direction.”
Joe Biden’s “vote for Democrats so we can codify abortion” pitch comes days after he insisted that the economy is “strong as hell.” So not only is he wasting his time with abortion messaging, but he’s also proven himself to be completely out of touch with the realities of his economy, which is plagued by historic inflation, record-high gas prices, and recession.
