Joe Biden’s ‘Up-Ticket’ Ballot Strategy
According to polls, President Joe Biden is suffering greatly. Even his most ardent Democratic fans are dissatisfied with his work and, at most, are not very enthusiastic about voting for the incumbent president in the autumn.
Simultaneously, Democrats are enjoying a stellar year in the polls themselves. Tuesday night’s nearly flawless sweep of significant contests capped a year in which party nominees significantly outperformed in municipal and state elections and prevailed in every state abortion rights referendum.
Both Republicans and Democrats are perplexed by the political paradox: Does this imply that Biden is in a better position than he seems to be for the presidential contest next year? Is Joe Biden, who turns 81 on November 20, especially susceptible due to his advanced age and other problems? Can down-ticket Democrats also help propel their leader to victory the next year, reversing the usual dynamic where the presidential contender either encourages or discourages candidates in his party?
Former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party and GOP strategist Jason Cabel Roe said, “I do think at some point this is a Joe Biden problem, not a Democratic Party problem.” According to Roe, “I do think he’s vulnerable—absolutely,” even in light of Democratic victories both this year and last.
Democrats skillfully exploited the right to abortion to win important state legislative seats, the Kentucky governor’s race, and an Ohio referendum on the topic. During a year when the president (Joe Biden) is facing extreme unpopularity, the party managed to seize control of the state Senate in Virginia, gain multiple seats in the New Jersey legislature, and win a special election for a state legislative seat in New Hampshire. These victories position the party to regain control of the 400-member chamber the following year.
That comes after a year in which Democrats outperformed by an average of ten percentage points, either winning by a larger margin than expected or losing by a smaller one than the district’s demographics would predict.
Therefore, when Democratic leaders and political operators say something, who are you going to believe—your own lying eyes, opinion surveys, or the voters who have helped Democrats win a string of victories?
“These [polling] data reflect a snapshot from a year ago. Jessica Taylor, of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, states, “I don’t see them necessarily as a predictor” of the 2024 elections. “These races are going to be really tight. I believe it is too early to tell.
In fact, a grim New York Times/Siena College survey issued on Sunday showed that President Joe Biden was lagging GOP front-runner Donald Trump in five of the six crucial states. However, on Thursday, Biden ignored queries about polling.
“Because you fail to read the polls. Ten polls: in eight of them, I’m ahead of him in those particular states. You guys exclusively work for the New York Times and CNN. Examine it. Examine it. As he was ready to go for an address before the United Auto Workers in Illinois, Biden joked, “We’ll get you copies of all those other polls.”
When questioned about his perception of his deficit in key states such as Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the president replied, “No, I don’t.”
Campaign staffers for Joe Biden said they are bracing for a close contest in 2019. While some Democrats have called for Biden to resign, most notably former Barack Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, the administration of the current president asserts that Biden’s record demonstrates that he should not be undervalued.
Many analysts wrote off Joe Biden during the 2020 primary season because he had performed poorly in the early nominating states and then won a crucial victory in South Carolina.
However, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, campaign manager for the Biden-Kamala Harris campaign, told reporters in a conference call on Thursday that “if we want a real window” into how Biden is positioned for the 2024 election, people should look less to what people tell pollsters and more to “how people are actually voting.”
Furthermore, she said, “Republican attempts to use President Joe Biden and his agenda as an attack on Democrats really failed,” even though the president was not running for office this year or in the midterm elections.
Republicans have had challenges since the summer due in part to voter resentment, particularly among women who comprise the majority of voters, regarding the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which removed the right to an abortion that is guaranteed.
The Kentucky GOP attempted to link the highly unpopular Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, to Joe Biden, but Beshear easily prevailed there thanks to Republican nominee Daniel Cameron’s staunch anti-abortion position.
A’shanti Gholar, president of Emerge, a political organization that trains and prepares Democratic women to run for office, said, “We told people to pay attention to what was happening in states like Virginia and Kentucky and ballot measures in Ohio because Republicans were using those as test cases for what they might be able to accomplish in 2024.”
Cartoons about the Election of 2024
State legislative candidates in Virginia focused a great deal of their campaigning on the topic, warning residents that if GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin managed to secure a Republican trifecta—controlling both houses of the legislature and the governorship—he would outlaw abortion, eliminating Virginia’s current distinction as the last Southern state where it is largely legal.
Youngkin proposed a 15-week restriction, which he saw as a compromise. However, not enough voters were persuaded by the proposal, and as a result, the state legislature is currently controlled by Democrats in both chambers.
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia stated, “We had a similar set of predictions about Democratic poor performance in ’22 that didn’t come to pass.” “At the end of the day, you have to make a decision, regardless of how you feel about the president, when you are facing candidates who will violate your rights.”
The problem also plagues GOP contenders for president. A number of people in critical areas are probably going to take offense to Trump’s frequent boasts that he put justices on the Supreme Court, which overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana who has been used by Democrats as a poster child for abortion restrictions, sent out a fundraising email even after Tuesday’s results, claiming that Democrats were “indoctrinating the young today” on the subject and that this needed to stop.
“The stakes could not be higher, and the sanctity of life hangs in the balance,” Johnson stated. Using a line frequently used by Biden, the Republican said, “I am urging you to join me in this critical fight. It is a political battle for the soul of our nation.”
The five Republicans participating in the GOP debate on Wednesday night—former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley, senator from South Carolina Tim Scott, governor of Florida Ron DeSantis, former governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy—all emphasize their opposition to abortion.
Haley was the only one to suggest that the GOP should stop demonizing people who disagreed with them and instead find a better approach to discussing the problem. Although the debate audience applauded the line, many predicted that pro-abortion rights supporters would not be placated.
As a Trump surrogate in the 2020 election, conservative pundit Ford O’Connell states, “Republicans are not very comfortable talking about abortion.”
“Democrats believe their play is winning. Republicans need to learn that lesson quickly,” he continues. “Joe Biden is poisonous on his own. O’Connell continues, “A lot of Joe Biden’s plans are poisonous, citing the president’s age, the border, and inflation. “Republicans just need to make sure they make their case on the issue that resonates best with that audience.”
Democrats, on the other hand, think they can capitalize on unhappiness with Trump as well as the abortion issue. Trump’s approval ratings with the general public are comparable to those of Joe Biden. In a conference call with reporters, Democratic Secretary of State of Colorado Jena Griswold warned that voters are wary of future radicalism as they approach the 2024 election season due to Trump’s legal issues and Republicans’ inability to “right the course” of their party following the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising.
“Our country is at risk because of their unwillingness to confront this extremism,” she remarked.
State and local politicians may actually help push Joe Biden to win as he is losing ground in the polls among important Democratic demographics, such as young voters and black and Hispanic voters, according to Gholar.
Here at Emerge, we keep witnessing how our alumni, who are vying for state legislature, municipal council, school boards, and important law enforcement roles, have effectively mobilized the local electorate. And that aids in raising the top of the ticket,” the woman remarked. A year away from the election, Joe Biden’s approval numbers remain persistently low, so he will require all the assistance he can get.
