Democrats are not sitting idly by in the final month before voters decide control of both chambers of Congress and economic trends give the president’s party reason to fret about their ability to maintain their majorities.
As news from Opec+ of plans to cut oil production for the first time since Covid-19 hit US shores means that gas prices are likely to shoot back up in the coming weeks, the party’s top campaigners are hitting the trail in a last-minute blitz to turn out their supporters and refocus the party’s message.
At the top of that list of course is Joe Biden himself, who just announced plans to hit the Rust Belt and join Pennsylvania US Senate candidate John Fetterman on the campaign trail next week. Mr Fetterman, the Democrat running for an open seat currently held by a retiring Republican senator, is widely seen as the Democrats’ best shot of picking up a seat in the upper chamber and solidifying what is currently a 51-vote majority only thanks to the tiebreaking vote of Kamala Harris. Mr Biden is also planning a 1 November visit to Florida to support the campaign of gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist.
But Mr Biden, the party’s presumed 2024 nominee for president unless he bows to calls for “generational change” from younger Democrats in the House and Senate, is far from the only big-name Democrat hitting the stump for his party this month.
The Hill reported on Wednesday that former president Barack Obama will join Senator Catherine Cortez Masto and Gov Steve Sisolak in Nevada on 1 November, rallying supporters against a surging Republican slate that in recent weeks has given both incumbents a scare as polls have shown them dipping behind their respective opponents. Mr Obama is also set to make several other visits in the coming weeks in Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin.
From the party’s progressive wing, Senate Budget Committee chairman and two-time presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is hitting the trail as well. Mr Sanders will stop in Nevada, Florida, Wisconsin, Oregon, California, Texas, Pennsylvania and Michigan on his barnstorm tour of the country; expect him to focus largely on economic issues as well as the expansion of Medicare, as he has raised concerns that a singular focus on protecting abortion rights has allowed GOP criticism and attacks on inflation and other topics to go unanswered.
“It is about energizing our base and increasing voter turnout up and down the ballot,” he said in an interview with The New York Times, adding that he was “a little bit concerned” with turnout and voter enthusiasm in the final stretch.
Activist organisations and unions are getting in on the game too. The American Federation of Teaches (AFT) announced on Wednesday the launch of a multi-state bus tour with events across the country in support of candidates who oppose election fraud conspiracies and support funding public schools.
“The truth is, although you hear a lot about the divisions polarizing our country, Americans really are united by a powerful bond: We all want a better life for ourselves and our families,” said AFT president Randi Weingarten.
“The most important right we have is the right to vote, and that is why, over the next three weeks, we will work every hour of every day to get the vote out,” she added.
Our Revolution, the progressive group begun by Mr Sanders, will hold dozens of rallies against election fraud conspiracies throughout October, the group said in a press release.
All in all, it’s a massive, late-game effort that is seeking to respond to a massive wave of GOP spending from groups like the Senate Leadership Fund and just about every major conservative juggernaut except for the one that potentially matters most: Donald Trump, whose Save America PAC has largely refused to join the spending spree to help the GOP take one or both chambers of Congress.
News of their efforts follows the publication of a New York Times/Siena College poll that showed Republicans with a clear advantage on a generic ballot; such polls are suspect, however, as they do not take individual candidate quality or the dynamics of individual districts into account.
Some Democratic-aligned activists have expressed confidence that polls are undercounting the number of women that will turn out this year; if so, the party could surprise the GOP with a stronger-than-expected performance on election day.
But others have complained that national leaders of their party seem asleep at the wheel, unwilling to effectively counter their GOP counterparts and instead relying on the grassroots to deliver a victory.
That was the sentiment from allies of Tim Ryan’s campaign in Ohio, where the congressman is hoping to capture an open Senate seat currently held by a Republican.
“Tim Ryan is running the best Senate race in the country and having to do it all by his lonesome,” Ohio-based Democratic strategist Irene Lin told NBC News last week. “If we lose this race by a few points, and the Senate majority, blame should squarely fall on the DC forces who unfairly wrote off Ohio.”
