A Republican election triumph has Democrats pointing fingers at President Joe Biden, blaming the White House for failing to map out a path to victory.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Biden won the states of Virginia and New Jersey in last year’s presidential election. And Democrats hold both chambers of Congress.
By Wednesday, voters in Virginia had elected Republican newcomer Glenn Youngkin governor and given Republicans several down-ballot victories. In New Jersey, Democrat Phil Murphy only barely survived a surprising challenge from Republican opponent Jack Ciattarelli, who had declined to concede the race Wednesday night after the Associated Press called it for Murphy.
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A senior Democratic leadership aide downplayed the results in Virginia on Wednesday, pointing to historical trends that favor the party that loses the White House.
He said Democrats are sobered by the Republican win in Virginia, but the close race in New Jersey set off alarm bells.
“What’s happening in New Jersey is a dire concern,” the aide said.
In Virginia, parents flocked to Youngkin over concerns that some school officials were attempting to teach students critical race theory, the idea that racism is a systemic ill, not an aberration.
David Ramadan, an adjunct professor at the Schar School at George Mason University and resident scholar at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said that what started as a fight over CRT “ended up on parents’ rights.”
McAuliffe cost himself dearly in the last debate when he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
“The schools issue became the focus of the race,” Ramadan said, calling this “a perfect storm.”
A former GOP member of the Virginia House who backed McAuliffe in his reelection bid, Ramadan said Democrats’ failure to confront the charge meaningfully cost them the election and will continue to plague them.
“It’s simple — if Democrats do reckon with this, if they take this and understand the issues that came across here, they will have a chance of holding the political gains they had over the last few years,” he said.
He added, “If they do not, they will lose continuously.”
Another factor was the party’s failure to pass meaningful legislation after nearly a year in office, Democrats told the Washington Examiner.
“If that bill goes to the floor and it fails, there goes everything. But what they haven’t taken into account is that doing nothing still concludes everything,” a senior Democratic leadership aide said, pointing to this week’s electoral bloodshed.
Yoked to Biden’s slipping poll numbers, candidates up and down-ballot struggled to overcome a tangle of issues, not limited to the fallout from the fraught Afghanistan withdrawal, increasing gas prices, rising inflation, and the lingering coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, Biden’s legislative agenda has stalled in Congress as lawmakers tangle over the sequencing of two sweeping infrastructure and social spending packages, held up by a demand from the Progressive Congressional Caucus.
Democrats said the blame lies with Biden, his top lieutenants, and party leaders.
“Here’s the deal,” the senior aide quipped. “The buck stops with leadership.”
After Biden met with Democrats last week in Congress, the expectation was some forward momentum, but it failed to materialize.
“They took a vote of confidence last week on the [Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework] measures, and the White House didn’t believe they still had the votes,” he said.
Citing Biden’s failure last week to push the House Democratic caucus to vote for his infrastructure bill before leaving for Europe, this person blamed the White House’s “risk-averse disposition.”
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“There is a risk-averse bubble that looms over the administration right now. For what reason, I don’t know,” he added.
