As the midterms come to a close, the establishment politics of the two most recent Democratic presidents will meet the disruptive force of the last Republican one, with control of Congress at stake.
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Former President Donald J. Trump will rally Republicans on Saturday in southwest Pennsylvania, while President Biden and former President Barack Obama will speak to Democrats in Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA — The two parties’ strongest messengers — a fraternity of recent presidents — are set to descend on the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania to open the last weekend of this year’s midterms, hoping to rally their voters in a proxy battle that could define both parties well beyond the election.
The moment represents both a clash from the past and a fight over the future. While the issues are distinctly 2022 — crime, high inflation and the unraveling of federal abortion rights — voters are again being asked to choose between the establishment politics of President Biden and former President Barack Obama, and the chaotic, disruptive force of former President Donald J. Trump.
To press their case, Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama will reunite in a familiar place, sharing a stage in Philadelphia — an event that brings back echoes of the enormous 2016 rally at Independence Mall where the party’s top leaders joined Bruce Springsteen and Madonna to try to push Hillary Clinton over the finish line.
But Mrs. Clinton, of course, fell short in Pennsylvania against Mr. Trump, who held three rallies in the state in the final four days of the 2016 race. This year, he will close the last weekend of midterm campaigning with an event in the southwest corner of the state, where he is expected to draw thousands of Republicans to the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport tarmac in Latrobe.
As the three men storm through the Keystone State, Republican candidates across the country are pressing their advantage in House races and trying to pick off the one Senate seat that would flip control of the chamber. Democrats, who have struggled to overcome history and a sluggish economy, are defending their records and arguing that their opponents would pursue an extreme agenda on issues like abortion, voting rights and benefits including Social Security and Medicare.
ImageLt. Gov. John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidates for Senate and governor in Pennsylvania, appeared together at a rally on Wednesday in State College. Mr. Fetterman’s race could determine Senate control.Credit…Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
The ability of Democrats to stave off deep defeats in Congress and statehouses will depend on whether they can reanimate the coalition of college-educated suburbanites, Black voters, young voters and a small slice of moderates who propelled Mr. Biden to the White House. Together, those voters lifted Democrats into power throughout the Trump era, heading to the polls in record numbers to send a message that they rejected the divisive language and inflammatory style of his administration.
For Republicans, the question is whether Mr. Trump’s army of devoted voters comes out to support candidates who have modeled themselves in his image — even when he is not on the ticket.
So far, turnout has kept pace with the record levels of 2018, the first midterm election after Mr. Trump took over the nation’s political consciousness. But strategists on both sides acknowledge that the extraordinary circumstances of this year’s elections, the first since the pandemic began to wane, leave them unsure about who, exactly, will vote.
“We know that for better or worse, ever since Trump came into the scene in 2016, voters are supercharged,” said Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster and strategist and the president of Impact Research. “But how much of the Trump core shows up is an open question.”
The State of the 2022 Midterm Elections
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.
- Biden’s Speech: In a prime-time address, President Biden denounced Republicans who deny the legitimacy of elections, warning that the country’s democratic traditions are on the line.
- State Supreme Court Races: The traditionally overlooked contests have emerged this year as crucial battlefields in the struggle over the course of American democracy.
- Democrats’ Mounting Anxiety: Top Democratic officials are openly second-guessing their party’s pitch and tactics, saying Democrats have failed to unite around one central message.
- Social Security and Medicare: Republicans, eyeing a midterms victory, are floating changes to the safety net programs. Democrats have seized on the proposals to galvanize voters.
Pennsylvania has emerged as a central focus of both parties, with a narrow Senate race between Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican, that could decide control of the chamber. In the House, where Republicans need to flip just five seats nationwide to gain power, the party could flip three from Democrats in Pennsylvania alone. And in 2024, Pennsylvania is likely to reprise its crucial role in determining presidential elections.
The state, where television viewers have been targeted with $115 million in political advertising over the past month, captures some of the country’s main tensions, with college-educated liberals concentrated in urban and suburban areas squaring off against blue-collar workers with shifting party loyalties.
“Inside the confines of the commonwealth, you can find every political tribe in America represented in a big way,” said David Urban, a Republican strategist and a veteran of Pennsylvania politics.
The state has about 420,000 Republicans — about as many as in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada combined — who voted for the first time in 2016, did not cast a ballot in 2018, and then showed up to the polls again in 2020, according to Republican National Committee data. Only about 6 percent of those Pennsylvanians have cast ballots so far this year.
ImageSupporters of Dr. Mehmet Oz arriving for a rally on Wednesday in South Abington Township, Pa. Mr. Trump pushed Dr. Oz to run, and a loss would raise questions about whether the former president could win Pennsylvania in 2024.Credit…Hilary Swift for The New York Times
But the R.N.C. data shows that 98 percent of those voters preferred to vote on Election Day, underscoring the importance — and the inherent risk — of Republicans’ increased reliance on the final day of voting.
The two parties have deployed the presidents carefully. Mr. Biden has largely kept his travel to safe races and bluer areas, avoiding some of the most competitive states, like Arizona, Georgia and Ohio. Both publicly and privately, Democratic candidates and strategists have questioned the wisdom of having him campaign in their states, given his low approval ratings.
ImageMr. Biden walking to Air Force One on Friday in San Diego. He has generally stayed away from the most competitive states in this year’s midterms, but Pennsylvania is an exception.Credit…Tom Brenner for The New York Times
While some party strategists worried that his appearance in Philadelphia could hurt Mr. Fetterman, Mr. Biden has always had a special relationship with the state of his birth. As a senator from Delaware, he was sometimes called the “third senator from Pennsylvania,” and he based his presidential headquarters in Philadelphia. In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, Mr. Biden’s approval in the state matched his national average — 42 percent — and was notably higher than his position in the other three battlegrounds surveyed.
Live Updates: 2022 Midterm Elections
Updated Nov. 4, 2022, 10:05 p.m. ET
- Michigan G.O.P. offers a show of unity at a homestretch rally.
- Nancy Pelosi says her husband’s recovery will ‘be a long haul.’
- The last day of early voting in Georgia saw long lines, an unexpected endorsement and a big retirement.
And Democrats hope that the pairing with Mr. Obama — one of the party’s most effective communicators — could overcome any drag on the ticket from Mr. Biden.
In his appearances, Mr. Biden has tried to rally audiences around his policies, highlighting accomplishments like his forgiveness of student loan debt and a reduction in the cost of hearing aids, and has warned that Republicans could endanger Social Security and Medicare. Yet at times, his delivery has been stumbling, and his remarks have included some misstatements and falsehoods.
He has tried to persuade a skeptical public that the economy is doing better than it may feel at the grocery store or the gas pump. A recent survey by CNN indicated that three-quarters of likely voters believed the economy was in recession, even though it grew last quarter.
“The American people are beginning to see the benefits of an economy that works for them,” Mr. Biden said Thursday in New Mexico as he stumped for Democrats, while conceding that “a lot of Americans are still in trouble.”
Some Democrats say that message has made the party’s political climb even harder. Stanley B. Greenberg, a veteran Democratic pollster, said the party’s candidates, unlike the White House, had largely focused on concerns over higher prices — the primary worry for many voters.
“The biggest problem is, the White House has tried to make the case that this is a good economy,” Mr. Greenberg said.
Mr. Obama is far more in demand, a role reversal from the midterm races in 2010 and 2014, when, as president, he was unpopular and struggling to sell the Affordable Care Act to a skeptical public. In those years, Mr. Biden was the Democratic crowd-pleaser, particularly in white, working-class districts where Mr. Obama had trouble winning support.
ImageMr. Obama rallied with Democrats in Georgia late last month. He has been far more in demand than Mr. Biden, a reversal of their roles in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections.Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times
Mr. Trump, for his part, has invested a huge amount of political capital in Pennsylvania this year.
He personally pushed for Dr. Oz to run for Senate, which ignited a nasty, three-way primary. If Dr. Oz loses on Tuesday, it would raise further questions about Mr. Trump’s ability to win the state in 2024 after he lost it in 2020.
The former president’s closing message this year has focused on his portrayal of an America in decline, with Democrats as the leading cause.
“We have to basically, in a nutshell, save our country,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday in Iowa.
In Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., has targeted voters in the final days of the race with short digital ads, sent via text and web-embedded digital ads, that feature clips of Dr. Oz and Mr. Trump together at rallies in the state, according to videos reviewed by The New York Times.
The super PAC has sent similar videos of Trump-endorsed candidates to voters in Arizona, Ohio, Michigan and Nevada.
For Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, the stakes could extend well beyond this year’s fight for control of Congress.
Already, both men have taken early steps toward announcing another run for president in 2024.
Mr. Trump has relentlessly teased supporters about a third White House campaign, and is expected to formally announce another bid soon after the midterms.
Mr. Biden has suggested that he would be more likely to run if Mr. Trump enters the race, with people close to the president saying they believe he is the Democrat best positioned to defeat his former opponent. Still, Mr. Biden, who will turn 80 this month, has shown signs of political weakness, even among his base.
But whether significant midterm losses for Democrats would weaken Mr. Biden’s argument for a re-election bid remains an open question. Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster and a longtime ally of the president, said the midterm outcome would not affect his decision.
“He is running,” she said. “Did Obama not run? Did George Bush Sr. not run? No. They all run. They all have bad first midterms, and they all run.”
At an early voting site near downtown Atlanta, the heart of Georgia’s Democratic stronghold, April Ledbetter, 43, a recording studio owner and a lifelong Democrat, said she worried that Mr. Biden’s low approval rating in the state was hurting Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor.
“I feel like he’s probably impacting Abrams’s chance of getting elected,” Ms. Ledbetter said. “I kind of hope he doesn’t run again. I hope that somebody else steps in, because I’m not sure that he’d really be able to do it again.”
Lisa Lerer reported from Philadelphia, and Michael C. Bender from Washington. Katie Glueck contributed reporting from Philadelphia, and Maya King from Atlanta.
Source: nytimes.com
