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| Photo Credit: AP. |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden’s three-state swing out West this week will capture, in a nutshell, the White House’s midterm strategy for a president who remains broadly unpopular: promote his administration’s accomplishments and appear where he can effectively rally the party faithful — all while continuing to rake in campaign cash.
Biden’s
first stop Wednesday is near Vail, Colorado, where he is to designate his
administration’s first national monument at the behest of Democratic Sen.
Michael Bennet, the state’s senior senator who finds himself in a competitive
reelection bid. Then the president will head to California, where he will hold
a pair of events promoting two of his most significant legislative achievements
and headline a fundraiser for the House Democrats’ campaign arm.
Finally,
Biden will stop in Oregon, where Democrats’ grip on the governor’s mansion in
Salem is being threatened by an unaffiliated candidate who has captured
double-digit support in polling, giving an opening for a Republican to win the
race outright in November. Early voting starts in Oregon and Colorado next week
and is already underway in California.
“We’ve been
very clear that the president is going to go out, the vice president is going
to go out,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.
“They’re going to talk about the successes that we have seen in this
administration in the last 19 months.”
He is
notably staying away from states where his presence could hurt Democrats; on
this trip he’s skipping Nevada and Arizona, where incumbent Democratic senators
are battling tough re-election bids.
It’s all
part of a campaign blueprint fine-tuned over the last several months for Biden,
who has been eager to travel the country but is facing the traditional midterm
headwinds against the political party in power, an unsettled economic outlook
and presidential approval ratings that have remained stubbornly underwater.
To counter
Republican criticisms over the economy and inflation, Democratic candidates
have highlighted accomplishments such as bipartisan infrastructure,
manufacturing laws, and a sweeping climate, tax and health care package. Those
achievements also helped prompt a late-summer uptick in Biden’s own job performance
ratings earlier this year.
Democratic
candidates have also been far more likely to appear with Biden if it’s an
official White House event underscoring their achievements, such as the
groundbreaking for a computer chip facility in suburban Ohio that was aided
tremendously by the law that bolsters domestic semiconductor production.
That’s the
approach in Colorado, where the White House says Biden will speak about his
administration’s efforts to “protect, conserve, and restore some of America’s
most cherished lands and waters for the benefit of future generations.”
Biden is to
designate Camp Hale — an alpine training site where U.S. soldiers prepared for
battles in the Italian Alps during World War II — as his administration’s first
national monument. Many troops who trained at Camp Hale returned to Colorado
after the war and helped create the state’s lucrative ski industry. While most
national monuments protect extraordinary natural landscapes, there are at least
12 other military sites designated as national monuments by other presidents.
“I am
grateful to President Biden for answering Colorado’s call to honor our
veterans, safeguard our wildlife and public lands, and strengthen our outdoor
recreation economy,” Bennet said in a statement Wednesday morning.
Bennet will
stand alongside Biden at the announcement, which comes after years of advocacy
from the senator and other Democrats in the state. Bennet, in office since
2009, is facing a challenge from GOP candidate Joe O’Dea, a businessman with a
moderate profile who national Republicans believe is among the party’s best
recruits this cycle. O’Dea dismissed the trip as a stunt.
“It’s not
changing our economy. It’s not changing the price of gas,” O’Dea said of the
Camp Hale designation in an interview. He added that while Camp Hale is “a
special place,′ Biden’s unilateral action was “an usurpation of power.”
The
political climate in Colorado prompted the Senate Leadership Fund, the primary
super PAC dedicated to electing Republicans to the Senate, to make its first
investment of the cycle in Colorado last week by sending $1.25 million to
O’Dea’s super PAC.
“We’ve been
monitoring Colorado and we like what we see there,” Steven Law, the group’s
president, said,
Biden will
return to his standard midterm pitch in California, where he plans to highlight
the Democrats’ climate and health care package that the party hopes is its
political panacea for voters’ inflation concerns, despite the law’s
indiscernible impact on prices in the short term.
Democrats
also believe a ballot referendum that would enshrine access to abortion and
contraceptives in the state constitution will keep the issue in the spotlight
for their California candidates, even as the issue fades elsewhere. But rising
gas prices — California has the highest in the nation at roughly $6.20 a gallon
— will be an unwelcome political backdrop for Biden.
Republicans
think they can capitalize on gas prices, inflation and the economy as they look
to defend and pick up five House seats across the state. Both parties are
eyeing at least two offensive opportunities in the Orange County area, where
Biden will speak Friday on lowering costs one day after the federal government
releases its final inflation report before Election Day.
Biden will
also talk up the bipartisan infrastructure law, signed last fall, at a separate
speech in Los Angeles and hold his first fundraiser this cycle that directly
benefits the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The president
headlined a dozen receptions this year for the Democratic National Committee
that have brought in more than $20 million.
It’s in
Oregon that Biden’s political pull will be tested among Democratic voters.
The party is
in danger of losing the governor’s race in the traditionally blue state, as
Betsy Johnson — a former Republican and Democrat who has since quit both
parties — has mounted a well-financed bid against both Democratic nominee Tina
Kotek and the GOP’s pick, Christine Drazan. Democratic officials hope that while
in Oregon, Biden can help consolidate the party’s support behind Kotek.
“That is a
huge factor in this race,” David Turner, a spokesman for the Democratic
Governor’s Association, said of Johnson’s candidacy. “I don’t think we would be
talking about this race if Betsy Johnson wasn’t in it.”
Republicans
for months have sensed an opportunity in the Oregon race, not just from
Johnson’s bid but on a message of homelessness and crime that has been a top concern
for the state’s voters.
“Democrats
are panicked their multi-decade grip on the governor’s office is slipping away
as Christine Drazan connects with a majority of Oregon voters who yearn for
change,” said Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the Republican Governors Association.
“The Democrat regime of Joe Biden, Kate Brown, Tina Kotek, and Betsy Johnson
have done nothing to make Oregon safer or more prosperous.”
Associated
Press writers Nicholas Riccardi and Jesse Bedayn in Denver contributed to this
report.
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