Joe Biden says he wants to be intimately involved in the midterm elections in 2022, wanting to lend a hand in the effort for his party to keep control of both the House and Senate.
But Democrats — especially those in districts won by Donald Trump in 2020 — may want to pretend they never heard of Joe Biden and will probably downplay their membership in the Democratic Party.
Biden’s numbers are in the Mariana Trench and probably won’t improve substantially in the next eight months.
Obviously, Biden won’t go where he’s not wanted. But Biden’s problem is that winning those districts will spell the difference between a Democratic win or loss in the midterms. The margin for error is so slim for the Democrats — they can’t afford to lose any Senate seats and can only lose five seats in the House — that an appearance by Biden in the wrong place could lose the Democrats the whole ball of wax.
Several Democrats familiar with the thinking of vulnerable House memberssaid these members are worried about the president’s poll numbers, and there is little appetite among them to have his arm around them during a photo op, according to one senior aide to a vulnerable Democratic member.
Yet there are Democrats who are not inclined tomake a clean break with Biden. Some hope his numbers will reboundamong Democrats and others who supported him in 2020,wagering that the pandemic will fade and views of the economy will improve. In just the past week, covid infections fell, a report showed robust job growth and Biden announced a raid that led to the death of the leader of the Islamic State.
Although this is a familiar dilemma for vulnerable members in both parties over the years, the Democrats are also dealing with a growing feeling that the president is not up to the task of governing. Even members of his own party have expressed doubts about Biden’s abilities.
Related: Biden’s Bad Poll Numbers Could Get Worse
But vulnerable Democrats are stuck with Biden, and while they may not embrace him, they risk Republicans tying them to the president anyway.
Other Democrats said voters would see through any attempt to run away from the head of their own party and voiced hope that Biden’s personal appeal can be an asset even if his job approval rating, now mired in the low 40s in public polls, isn’t helping. The best antidote, these Democrats said, is for Biden to promote his accomplishments more aggressively.
“Over the course of the spring and the summer, we’d love to see President Biden at 47 or 49 or 50 percent — and that will make all the difference in those elections,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who oversees fundraising for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “He’s still a very likable, understandable human being. The people loved or hated Donald Trump, but they don’t hate Joe Biden.”
It’s obvious they don’t let Mr. Beyer out much. If he had bothered to go home to Virginia during the successful gubernatorial campaign of underdog Republican Glenn Youngkin, he would have heard plenty to disabuse himself of the notion that nobody “hates” Joe Biden.
And I suppose “Let’s go Brandon” really is about NASCAR driver Brandon Brown?
The bottom line — as it always has been — is that Biden will be welcome in districts where he still has residual popularity and where his appearance could benefit the Democratic candidate. And he will not be welcome in districts where his name is toxic.
Will districts where he’s welcome outnumber places where he isn’t welcome or not?
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