President Joe Biden’s domestic travel schedule appears to have two clear goals in mind: ginning up support for his infrastructure and economic proposals while boosting Democrats’ electoral chances heading into the 2022 midterm elections.
Several of Biden’s recent out-of-office stops have been to blue-collar areas in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan that voted for former President Donald Trump in past elections. Multiple Democratic strategists told the Washington Examiner this deliberate targeting of “Trump country” voters could prove critical to maintaining majority control of the House and Senate in 2022.
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Randy Jones, a Democratic campaign veteran and co-founder of United Public Affairs, pointed out to the Washington Examiner that Biden’s twofold travel approach is a “winning strategy.”
“When we talk about Trump Country we are speaking about relatively rural Americans with blue collar careers who have felt left behind or left out by Democrats in the recent past,” Jones said in a written statement. “This landmark infrastructure bill will not only bring jobs into these communities, but connectivity through broadband and incentives for investment through improved infrastructure. Coming into the midterms, this administration is talking about jobs, roads and bridges in the places where they are needed most.”
Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, called the strategy “good politics.”
“In just over six months, President Biden and Democrats have tirelessly worked to lead us out of a pandemic, build our economy back with record job growth, put more money in people’s pockets, and make massive investments in our nation’s infrastructure,” he said. “That is why the majority of voters continue to approve of the job President Biden is doing.”
Biden vocalized those appeals and took a non-verbal shot at his predecessor while publicly announcing new proposed “Buy American” rules at a Mack Trucks facility in Lower Macungie Township, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday.
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“Buy American has become a hollow promise,” he claimed. “My administration is going to make Buy American a reality.”
Still, Republicans are skeptical Biden’s overt campaigning will deliver results in the midterm elections.
One senior GOP aide cited a historical trend that finds the sitting president’s party losing an average of 25 seats in midterm elections.
That aide also told the Washington Examiner that “it doesn’t matter how much Biden wants to talk about his grand infrastructure plans. Polling shows voters from both parties are concerned about crime and immigration, and he’s been a disaster on both.”
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National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Lizzie Litzow told the Washington Examiner that “it is more and more evident with every visit” that the Biden administration’s energy policies “are failing Pennsylvanians.”
“Each time Biden visits the Keystone State, he avoids discussing the issues most important to Pennsylvania families, such as fracking and bolstering American energy production, the Democrats’ spending addiction, and the inflation it’s causing. This is because his and Senate Democrats’ actions in Washington are not what Pennsylvanians want to hear,” she said in a statement. “Biden’s and Senate Democrats’ policies sell America short and Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidates like John Fetterman and Malcolm Kenyatta are falling in line. They are tripping over themselves as they sprint to the Left to keep up with Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi. Together, they are taking Pennsylvania off the rails.”
Kaelan Dorr, the vice president for communications for America First Policy Institute, suggested that “six months in” it’s “a near-impossible challenge to point to any indicator or tangible improvement in the health, welfare, and freedoms of American families.”
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“The recent polling in diminishing American optimism is reflective of that. No catchy slogan or false promise is going to make up for the damage he’s done so far,” Dorr, a former Trump Treasury official, added. “We are back to Jimmy Carter’s America. We need America First for Americans.”
