Republicans are increasingly bullish on winning big in Tuesday’s midterm elections, as they slam Democrats over raging inflation and crime while President Joe Biden seeks a late reprieve by warning that GOP election deniers could destroy democracy.
In a sign of the critical stakes and the growing angst among Democrats, four presidents – Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton – all took to the campaign trail over the weekend.
Ex-President Trump, edging ever closer to announcing a 2024 White House bid, will wrap up a campaign he used to show his enduring magnetism among grassroots Republicans, in Ohio, with a rally for Senate nominee J.D. Vance on Monday. In a speech that concluded in pouring rain for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Sunday, Trump predicted voters would “elect an incredible slate of true MAGA warriors to Congress.”
Biden, who spent Saturday getting out the vote in the critical Pennsylvania Senate race with Obama, warned the nation’s core values are in peril from Republicans who denied the truth about the US Capitol insurrection and following the brutal attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul.
“Democracy is literally on the ballot. This is a defining moment for the nation. And we all must speak with one voice regardless of our party. There’s no place in America for political violence,” Biden said.
The president will end his effort to stave off a rebuke from voters at a Democratic event in Maryland. The fact that he will be in a liberal bastion and not trying to boost an endangered lawmaker in a key race on the final night reflects his compromised standing in an election that has reverted to a referendum on his tattered credibility and low approval ratings.
Democrats are playing defense in blue-state strongholds like New York, Washington and Oregon and are waging a longshot struggle to cling to the House of Representatives. Republicans only need a net gain of five seats to win back control. A handful of swing state showdowns will decide the destiny of the Senate, currently split 50-50, including in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Republicans are also showing renewed interest in the race in New Hampshire between Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan and retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, a pro-Trump candidate Democrats brand as an election-denying extremist.
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel predicted on CNN’s “State of the Union” her party would win both the House and the Senate and accused Biden of being oblivious to the economic anxiety among Americans with his repeated warnings about democracy.