While campaign teams have been contemplating the impact of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on the midterm election for months, the final stretch toward election day draws new intensity and significance to the question.
Almost two years have passed since the contentious 2020 presidential election between Biden and Trump that resulted in claims of voter fraud and a breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress gathered to certify Biden as the new president.
Biden and Trump remain front and center as midterm elections near, Democrats strive to stay in control, and Republicans try to regain a majority in the House and the Senate.
All 435 House seats are up for grabs. Nationwide, 14 Senate seats held by Democrats and 21 filled by Republicans are on the ballot.
There are also pivotal gubernatorial races across the country—including in Michigan, where incumbent Democrat Gretchen Whitmer is facing a challenge from Trump-endorsed Tudor Dixon, and in Wisconsin, where incumbent Democrat Tony Evers is being opposed by Trump-endorsed Tim Michels.
Historically, the party that occupies the White House loses House and Senate seats in midterm elections.
Although an Emerson College poll released on Sept. 23 showed that Biden saw his approval rating increase to 45 percent, a 3-percentage point rise over the previous month, 49 percent disapprove of his performance.
Gas prices are on the rise again, and inflation remains high.
Because of those factors, many Democratic candidates appeared reluctant to join Biden when he visited their states over the summer. The hesitancy increased for some after Biden’s primetime speech on Sept. 1.
At Independence Hall in Philadelphia with U.S. military members in uniform standing around him, the president accused Republicans aligned with Trump of participating in “semi-fascism” and said “MAGA Republicans” have made the Republican Party increasingly “extreme.”
“MAGA forces are determined to take this country backward—backward to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love,” Biden said, noting that they “embrace anger, they thrive on chaos, they live not in light of truth, but in the shadow of lies.”
“Too much in our country is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is the official campaign arm of Senate Democrats. He thinks that Biden’s aggressive stance benefits Democratic candidates running in midterm elections.
Biden’s Impact
Several Republicans believe that Biden’s presence will have a negative impact on Democratic candidates’ campaigns.“I hope Biden keeps going around the country,” Sen. Rick Scott, (R-Fla.) told Fox News. “I hope he goes to every swing state and gives his raving lunatic speech everywhere around the country.”
An online poll of 1,277 voters conducted by I&I/TIPP from Sept. 7 to Sept. 9 shows that 62 percent of Americans believed that Biden’s comments about Trump and his supporters increased division in the country.
Perhaps surprisingly, Democrats—at 73 percent—were more likely to say that Biden’s MAGA comments increased division than either Republicans (50 percent) or independents (57 percent). Blacks and Hispanics (70 percent) exceeded white respondents (58 percent) in seeing the comments as divisive.
An ABC News-Washington Post poll published on Sept. 25 indicated that only 35 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents want Biden to seek a second term in 2024.
Produced by Langer Research Associates, the survey determined that 56 percent of Democrats want the party to find a different presidential nominee.
“If this were a couple of months ago, I think most Democratic candidates in a lot of these swing states would have been loath to be seen with him,” David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron, told reporters earlier this month. “Now, he’s not necessarily a huge asset for a lot of these campaigns, but he’s also not a drag on the ticket.
“I don’t think any of these candidates are going to be seen really openly embracing Biden, but I think they will absolutely be at some of these joint events.”
Biden was scheduled to appear in Florida on Sept. 27 to pitch his proposals to lower health care costs and protect Medicare and Social Security at a Fort Lauderdale gathering before heading to Orlando for a political rally on behalf of Democratic candidates.
With Hurricane Ian churning north through the Gulf of Mexico, the White House postponed Biden’s trip.
Former Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.), the former Republican governor running against incumbent Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, was set to attend the Orlando rally, but several other candidates announced plans to be elsewhere.
Biden’s approval rating among Florida voters is 43 percent, according to a Sept. 8 Insider Advantage FOX 35 Orlando poll.
Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), the former Orlando police chief who’s seeking to unseat two-term U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in the Nov. 8 general election, didn’t plan to attend.
Last week, her campaign cited “commitments in Congress” that require her to be in Washington as the reason for her absence.
Reluctant Candidates
Labor Day is generally viewed as the time when November elections escalate in attention.A few days after his Sept. 1 national address, Biden visited Milwaukee to rally for Democratic candidates.
Evers was there, but Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes was absent. Barnes is running against incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
On the same day, Biden traveled to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where he heaped praise on Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman, telling the audience that he’s a “hell of a guy” and “a powerful voice for working people.”
Fetterman, who’s running against Trump-endorsed Mehmet Oz to replace retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), didn’t attend.
A previously scheduled fundraiser was the reason for his absence, his campaign said.
A day later, on Labor Day, Fetterman joined Biden for an event in the Pittsburgh area and talked to the president about decriminalizing marijuana.
In Ohio, 10-term Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) is campaigning as a centrist Democrat in his race against Trump-endorsed Republican J.D. Vance to replace retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio).
Earlier this year, Ryan didn’t join Biden during two of the president’s visits to Ohio. The congressman did appear at the Intel semiconductor manufacturing plant groundbreaking ceremony in early September when Biden delivered remarks.
A day before he joined Biden at the Intel groundbreaking, Ryan suggested that Biden shouldn’t run for reelection in 2024, saying that it’s time for “generational change” in leadership for both parties.
“The environment politically across the country is poisonous, and people, I think, want some change,” Ryan told WFMJ in Youngstown. “It’s important for us, in both parties, these leaders who have been around for a while, I think it’s time for some generational change.”
Ryan challenged Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for the position of minority leader in 2016. When he ran for president in 2020, Ryan said Biden was “declining” and that the party needed a candidate who could be aggressive against Trump.
In TV commercials and campaign stops, Ryan is touting a centrist platform as he tries to get support from moderate Republicans and independents in a state that Trump won by 8 points in 2016 and 2020.
Congressional voting records show that Ryan has voted with Biden and Pelosi 100 percent of the time, a point that Vance is emphasizing.
David Carlucci, a former New York state senator and a Democratic political strategist, thinks that Biden’s passage of recent legislation and his increasing approval rating will help Democratic candidates.
Republican candidates have reasons for concern because of Trump’s continued influence on the party, Carlucci said.
“Republicans have strayed so far to the right in their primaries that they now face a long journey to make it back to the center, and that is a challenge because Trump continues to be front and center in headlines for controversial reasons,” he told The Epoch Times.
Trump’s Impact
Trump’s positive impact on candidates that he endorsed in primaries was evident.Of the 176 candidates that the former president endorsed in primaries, 159 won and 17 lost. Sixty of those candidates were unopposed. Eight of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in January 2021 lost, including Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney.
Trump waited until the final days before the primary to endorse some candidates, such as Dixon.
The former president’s backing was especially significant for Vance and Oz.
Trump’s stamp of approval didn’t help David Perdue, who was trounced by incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp in Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial primary, or Katie Arrington, who lost to Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) in South Carolina’s Republican primary.
Whether Trump’s backing in the general election is an asset or a liability is a question of debate—even among conservative Republicans.
Oz and Vance are involved in tight races. Herschel Walker (Georgia), Blake Masters (Arizona), and Adam Laxalt (Nevada) are in the midst of closely contested Senate campaigns.
Trump-backed gubernatorial candidates, including Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Kari Lake in Arizona, Michels in Wisconsin, and Dixon in Michigan, face stiff challenges.
Some Republican candidates are minimizing mentions of Trump’s backing in the general election. The former president recently held Save America rallies in Pennsylvania and Ohio to stump for Oz and Vance.
Aside from those rallies, Oz and Vance have focused their post-primary campaigns on specific issues.
In Pennsylvania, Oz is criticizing Fetterman’s absence from the campaign trail and is questioning his opponent’s health in the aftermath of his stroke. Vance frequently reminds voters that Ryan is campaigning as a centrist but has voted with Biden and Pelosi 100 percent of the time.
Trump has said that election fraud is one of the most important issues in the midterms, but multiple polls indicate that voters are more concerned about the economy.
Some Republican candidates are taking note.
Oz told reporters in September that he would have voted to certify the 2020 presidential election.
Michels, who defeated Ted Cruz-endorsed Rebecca Kleefisch in the Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial primary, erased mention of Trump’s endorsement from his campaign website home page but then brought it back, saying that the removal was an unintended mistake.
“The optimal scenario for Republicans is for Trump to remain at arm’s length—supportive, but not in ways that overshadow the candidate or the contrast,” Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist and a former top aide at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told The New York Times.
“A big part of the problem is that these nominees emerged from messy fields where the party has been slow to unify. But to fix what ails, what these GOP candidates need isn’t a Trump rally, it’s a MAGA money bomb.”
Late last week, some of Trump’s top political advisers announced that they’re introducing a new Super PAC called MAGA Inc. that’s designed to financially support Trump-endorsed candidates in the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich will head the new committee.
“President Trump is committed to saving America, and Make America Great Again, Inc. will ensure that is achieved at the ballot box in November and beyond,” Budowich said in a statement. “His rallies, which serve as the most powerful political weapon in American politics, bring out new voters and invaluable media attention.”
Save America, which is Trump’s organization, can transfer fundraising money to MAGA Inc.
While Save America is limited by federal law with how much it can spend on political races, MAGA Inc. has fewer restrictions.
While Biden’s low approval rating and high inflation and gas prices will affect Democratic candidates in midterm elections, Trump’s continued prominent presence at a time when he’s engulfed in investigations will be pivotal for Republican candidates, believes Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
“Odds are, even if the GOP gets the single net seat it needs to take control, Republicans would have done at least two to three seats better with the establishment candidates,” Sabato told reporters.
