President Joe Biden won last year’s election based on his promise to “shut down the virus” rather than the economy and restore a sense of normalcy. Even as his overall job approval ratings slide, his pandemic management remains a relative high point in the polls.

That’s why the White House is eyeing the emergence of the omicron variant of COVID-19 warily. Biden is suddenly on the defensive on his strongest issue. After more in the United States died of the virus in 2021 than in all of 2020, a grim milestone the country reached late last month, reporters began to repeat this election-year assertion back to him: “Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America.”