Democrats keep doing surprisingly well in special elections. The party’s most vulnerable Senate incumbents are running ahead of their rivals in key battleground states. One of Democrats’ signature issues — reproductive rights — has repeatedly proved a winning message.
And yet Joe Biden is struggling to pull even with Donald Trump.
It’s another ominous sign for the president: Even as other Democrats are running strong, the party’s down-ballot successes aren’t translating into momentum at the top of the ticket. Biden trails Trump in many of the states he needs to win to keep the White House. His job approval is underwater. And the coalition of voters that ushered him into office four years ago is fraying.
“Democrats are enthusiastic about trying to win the Senate and trying to win the House,” said Neil Oxman, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist.
And they’re “not enthusiastic about Biden’s reelection,” Oxman said. “Period.”
And his approach is increasingly flawed, as he has backed an apparent genocide which sounds absolutely like something Trump would do. I keep hearing soooo many whataboutisms when mentioning this, about how Trump would be worse, about how questioning this could put Trump back in office if it causes people to not vote for Biden, etc. But that’s the issue, as Biden was elected largely because he was seen as a pretty nice guy who was pretty decently prepared for the role, and specifically would try to fix the problems Trump created. And to be fair, he has fixed a ton of them and has overall decent track record of recovery for the country. However, it’s pretty clear he’s trying to bow to AIPAC so that they don’t try to tank the democrats in the next election, and in turn it is greatly tarnishing their reputation, more so than I think they’ve realized.