President Joe Biden has ramped up his campaign travel ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, but he has yet to visit several tightly contested states viewed as critical to Democrats retaining their Senate majority.
Following Biden’s surge in the polls in early August, the White House announced he would increase his travel in support of vulnerable Democratic candidates. Since then, the president has held public events in California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, and Wisconsin.
BIDEN HAS SPENT MORE THAN ONE-FOURTH OF HIS TIME IN OFFICE IN DELAWARE
He has also spent multiple weeks vacationing in both South Carolina and at his family homes in Rehoboth Beach and Wilmington, Delaware, yet Biden’s midterm push had not included Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, or North Carolina.
As of Monday, Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Raphael Warnock (D-GA) are both in toss-up races. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) has a slight lead over Republican Blake Masters, endorsed by former President Donald Trump, while Cheri Beasley, the Democratic nominee in North Carolina, is trailing by a similar margin.
Democrats would likely need to win at least two of those contests, and Republican officials previously expressed confidence to the Washington Examiner about all four.
White House officials did not respond to inquiries about the remainder of Biden’s campaign travel but did announce that the president would take part in a virtual ceremony for “Members of Congress in Nevada.”
Furthermore, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also declined last week to preview any of Biden’s additional travel during the final weeks of the campaign.
“I’m not going to get ahead of the president. There will be more travel that we certainly will be announcing,” she added during Monday’s press briefing. “He’s going to go to Pennsylvania this week. We announced that he’s going to be doing — the DNC, I should say — the DNC announced he’s going to be doing a rally on November 1st in Florida, and I would say stay tuned.”
Despite the brief polling bounce, Biden’s approvals remain solidly underwater, and the White House’s choice of travel has revived questions about Democratic candidates’ willingness to appear with him in public.
Warnock and Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) both distanced themselves from the president when asked if they wanted him to rally voters in their states.
Warnock has dodged the question throughout his campaign against former University of Georgia football star Herschel Walker, while Ryan was even more explicit.
“No, I won’t be asking the president to come in — or very, very few, if any, national people to come in — and actually campaign with us because I want to be the main face, the main messenger of that of this campaign,” he told CBS on Oct. 11.
Republicans have capitalized on comments from Ryan and other Democrats.
“The only Democrats willing to welcome Joe Biden at this point are paid DNC employees who work in Washington, D.C.,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Emma Vaughn said in a statement on Monday. “Meanwhile, down-ballot Democrats across the country are desperate to hide their Biden voting records.”
Biden himself sought to dismiss that narrative last week, telling reporters at the White House that he has appeared alongside 16 candidates.
“A lot more have asked, another 20 or so,” he added before departing Washington, D.C., for an event near Pittsburgh. “So I’m going to be doing it.”
The president did travel to the Democratic National Committee’s Washington headquarters on Monday to deliver his “closing argument” to campaign staff and volunteers on what the party must “do in the next 15 days to make a victory assured.”
“If we get people out to vote, we win,” Biden stated. “And you’re getting them out to vote.”
His Monday remarks also picked up on repeated attacks against the “mega-MAGA trickle-down politics” he claims will “crash the economy” should the GOP take over Capitol Hill.
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“If they win, what do they say they’ll do? Well, I have to hand it to them. They’re saying it out loud. They’re so confident they’re going to win, they’re saying it without an ounce of shame,” the president concluded. “I’ll never apologize for helping middle-class and middle-class folks and Americans as they recover from the pandemic.”
