NEW YORK (AP) — Rousing Democrats for their fight to keep the Senate, President Barack Obama mounted a searing critique of the Republican Party on Wednesday, accusing his political foes of thwarting progress on everything from wages to scientific research and climate change.

In what’s become an election-year routine for the president, Obama took the mic at an opulent Manhattan apartment and urged Democrats not to let their party’s tendency to neglect midterm elections hand Republicans a chance to capture the Senate. Such a turn of events would essentially halt his agenda for his final two years in office.