President Obama traveled to Dallas on Wednesday to raise money for Democratic Senate candidates, telling would-be contributors that they need to open their wallets if the party is to prevent Republicans from taking over a second chamber of Congress — a dynamic, he said, that would perpetuate gridlock in Washington.

Delivering a message that fellow Democrats will almost certainly carry into the 2014 campaigns, Obama charged that allowing Republicans who already run the House to take control of the Senate too would create more crises for the country like the 16-day government shutdown and the near-default on the country’s debt.