Days before a self-imposed deadline, Senate Democrats haven’t rounded up the votes to pass two partisan election bills that party lawmakers say will save them from a GOP takeover in this year’s midterm elections.
In a last-ditch bid to save the legislation, President Joe Biden will privately address Democrats on Thursday hoping to convince holdouts to change the Senate’s long-standing filibuster rule, which would ease the passage of the two bills by altering or eliminating the 60-vote threshold.
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But Biden will visit the Capitol with dismal approval ratings and diminished clout among Democratic lawmakers who fear a GOP sweep of Congress in November.
A Quinnipiac University Poll released Wednesday showed more bad news for Biden, reporting a 33% approval rating for the president, the lowest of his term and a decrease from November. The numbers indicated that things are getting worse politically for the president and the party.
The Quinnipiac survey of U.S. adults found 45% of those responding favored a GOP takeover in the Senate in the upcoming election, compared to 41% who said Democrats should keep control.
Among independents, who are a coveted segment of swing voters, Biden’s approval rating dipped to 24%.
The chamber is now evenly split between the two parties.
SCHUMER SAYS DEMOCRATS BELIEVE VOTING REFORM NEEDED TO WIN ELECTIONS
Biden and Democratic leaders have been pressing party lawmakers to agree to change the filibuster in time to pass the voting legislation by Jan. 17, the federal holiday celebrating civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Biden is unlikely to sway firm holdouts Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Democrats say they have been in intense talks with the two senators to try to convince them to agree to alter the filibuster, but neither appears to have budged from their opposition to ending the 60-vote threshold.
Biden has had little luck negotiating with Manchin, spending weeks trying to convince him to back his Build Back Better legislation. Manchin announced in December that he would not support the $1.75 trillion social welfare and green energy bill after all, and it appears hopelessly stalled.
Winning over Manchin and Sinema on changing the filibuster rules will be even harder for Biden, and the two likely represent a larger group of centrists who are uncomfortable changing the filibuster as they face reelection in swing states.
Biden’s approval rating in West Virginia, according to a mid-November poll, had sunk to 32%. In Arizona, where Biden became the first Democrat to win since 1965, his approval rating in November dipped to 42% — and 35% among independents.
Sen. Mark Kelly, also an Arizona Democrat, has also refused to back a filibuster change publicly. Kelly is up for reelection in November in a race that analysts consider too close to call.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat in a competitive race for reelection, is another reluctant vote Biden must convince.
Biden’s approval ratings in the Granite State have also sunk, and a December poll by the New Hampshire Journal found a staggering 70% of registered voters there believed the country is on the wrong track.
Biden will visit the Capitol two days after delivering an impassioned speech in Georgia aimed at promoting the filibuster change and the voting legislation as critical to ensuring access to the polls.
Democrats argue that red-state voter integrity laws, like those passed in Georgia, will restrict voting rights.
Biden’s speech drew withering criticism from Republicans because it compared those who oppose the legislation to historical figures who promoted slavery and segregation.
“History has never been kind to those who have sided with voter suppression over voters’ rights,” Biden said. “And it will be even less kind for those who side with election subversion.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who worked with Biden in the Senate for decades, called the speech “profoundly unpresidential.”
Democrats had little to say about the speech, or Biden, on Wednesday ahead of his visit, even as GOP lawmakers lined up on the Senate floor to bash the speech.
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Biden — who visited the Capitol on Wednesday to pay respects to the late Sen. Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat and former majority leader who was lying in state in the rotunda — stopped by McConnell’s office, just steps away, telling reporters, “I like Mitch McConnell. He’s a friend.”
