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Washington/New York: When the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, took office in Philadelphia on Saturday, he had a guest, his former boss, the star of the Democratic Party, the 44th President Barack Obama.
“It’s nice to be home. It’s nice to be with my family. That includes someone we all love, Barack Obama – a great president, a historic president, and I’m proud to say, a dear friend, Biden said, acknowledging his early Pennsylvania childhood and his wife’s roots in the state.
Obama, who is known to be more popular than the current president, shot back at Biden, calling him an “outstanding” president.
The two presidents are backing Democratic nominee Josh Shapiro for governor in a key battleground state and Senate John Fettman, who has seen his lead slip to a Republican challenger in recent weeks. Biden and Obama talk about the challenges Republicans pose to democracy, Social Security, Medicare and individual liberty; and outline the Democrats’ positions and achievements.
But at the other end of the state, on the same day, a third White House occupant also emerged: Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, backed Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano and the party in Pennsylvania Senate candidate, Mohammad Oz.
Trump used the moment to make his presidential ambitions clear, showing his supporters would be happy “in a very, very, very short time” in what was widely interpreted as Trump announcing his candidacy for the next presidential election the prelude. 2024. But on Saturday, Trump said his focus was on the Pennsylvania game.
Tuesday’s fight
On Tuesday, voters across the United States will elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives, 35 members of the Senate, 36 governors, 30 attorney generals and 27 secretaries of state, in addition to a range of candidates in other state and local races.
The outlook for Republicans has risen sharply in recent weeks, with polls showing they are all poised to win control of the House of Representatives. The race for the Senate was tight, with only six states remaining in the race. The Senate is currently tied 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ vote giving Democrats a majority, but a flip of even one seat would put that majority in jeopardy.
In Pennsylvania, a Republican senator retired, opening room for Democrats to bid for the seat. But while Feltman had an edge at first, a recent stroke has raised doubts about his health, and Oz’s swipe at Democrats on crime has dented the Republican candidate’s own prospects. improve.
In addition to Pennsylvania, Georgia, Democratic Sen. Rafael Warnock is defending his seat against a challenge from Republican Herschel Walker, the former football star embroiled in a string of personal scandals; Nevada; Arizona; and New Hampshire, where Republicans have launched an offensive against Democratic incumbents; Wisconsin are other battleground states where Democrats hope to make progress and gain Republican seats.
How Races Evolved
The Republican momentum in the Senate race more broadly reflects how the midterm fight has evolved over the course of the year.
At the beginning of the summer, they started with a clear advantage. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 has given the Grand Old Party momentum on national security issues, as reflected in the party’s victory in Virginia’s gubernatorial race last year. The fight between progressives and Democrats has held legislation in the U.S. Congress hostage. Inflation is starting to become a major concern for voters amid an injection of liquidity into the economy as pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions continue.
On top of that, Republicans have chosen key culture war issues, particularly their view of education as a “parental control” issue, and have launched a campaign against race and sex pedagogy in schools. The belief that Biden is too old for the job and seemingly out of control of his own party only adds to the GOP effort.
By late summer, however, the momentum appeared to turn in favor of Democrats.
On the national security front, Biden and his team began campaigning around the transatlantic coalition they built against Russia’s war in Ukraine. The president has also managed to get a lot of legislation through Congress. That includes legislation on climate; domestic manufacturing, especially semiconductors; lowering prescription drug prices and other social benefits; and an infrastructure investment bill he pushed through Congress last year.
But for Democrats, the most notable support came from the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion, which overturned Roe v. Wade, which made abortion a constitutional right and made it a state subject. With polls repeatedly showing that a majority of voters oppose a ban on abortion, Democrats are looking to capitalize on anger at the extremism that led Trump’s judicial nominee to overturn abortion rights. Democrats are also encouraged by the fact that many Republican Senate candidates are Trump-backed candidates who are seen as extreme and potentially alienating suburban voters. A string of high-profile cases of gun violence also appears to have shifted public sentiment in favor of tougher gun control measures, a theme that resonates more with the Democratic platform.
But as the election looms, Republicans appear to be on their feet again. One of the most important issues for voters is the economy, and the cost of living and inflation are particularly big issues for them. Voters told pollsters they thought Republicans were better equipped to handle the issues than Democrats, despite Biden’s deployment of policy tools, including the release of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to lower natural gas prices.
The government’s efforts to blame Vladimir Putin for inflation don’t appear to have enough buyers, and its efforts to partially forgive student loans haven’t won any additional support the party had hoped. The worse news is that abortion does not appear to be as much a mobilization issue as the party had hoped.
Beyond that, Republicans are focusing on crime and immigration, which voters blame on a Biden administration as crime and illegal immigration are widely seen as rising. They also returned to the issue of “parental controls” in education, back again to what Republicans call teaching around “critical race theory” and what they claim encourages children to explore sexuality. While critical race theory isn’t taught as Republicans suggest, Democrats have struggled to disprove the narrative about race education.
Republican push
The momentum has allowed Republicans to push in two unexpected ways.
First, the party is making inroads into what has traditionally been a bastion of the Democratic Party. Nowhere is this more evident than in the race for governor of New York, a traditionally blue state that is seeing the Republican candidate narrow the gap with Democratic incumbent Kathy Hocher. Biden will travel to New York later Sunday to run for Hocher, while Bill Clinton, a resident of the state, the 42nd President, will run for her on Saturday.
Second, Republicans are also seeking to win districts traditionally seen as aligned with Democrats, especially Hispanics. Since Trump’s 2016 election, the nature of both parties’ voting bases has shifted dramatically, with Republicans continuing to build on substantial encroachment among white working-class voters, another voter more aligned with Democrats among Democrats Voters go.
All of this also comes against a backdrop of plummeting Biden approval ratings and anger at the incumbent president. Despite the president’s repeated attempts to present the election not as a referendum but as the democratic choice Americans want, midterm elections are often seen as referendums on incumbent leaders. Traditionally, the party that holds the presidency has struggled to keep the House and Senate. That could lead to less activism among Democratic voters than Republican voters, which in turn could be reflected in voter turnout on Tuesday.
Democrats are battling this somewhat confrontational political climate as a dynamic Republican leadership finally pushes to take control of the House and potentially win the Senate. Here’s what has Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton fighting for their party’s survival in neighboring states, Pennsylvania and New York two days before the election and ensuring the Biden presidency retains some leverage in the mountains for the remaining two years of his term.
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