The Rise and Fall of the Founder’s Foundation: How Barack Obama and his Democratic Party Work together to Promote Democracy in the 21st Century

Candidates for Congress and governments in the states have been requesting help from Barack Obama because they feel the election could determine control of Congress and governments in the country.

To these candidates, American democracy itself is on the line. Many of the invitations are about to get turned down because Obama agrees with them on the stakes.

The former president’s approach to the campaign will remain limited and careful according to advisers and others that have spoken with him. As Obama tells people his presence fires up GOP opposition only as much as it lights up supporters, that he has more of an impact if he doesn’t do much, there’s a cautious approach as well.

” Biden has held a wide range of official events with campaign vibes.” Biden uses this mode as his main mode of campaigning in the leadup to the midterms, which is what other presidents have done.

Yet Obama’s prominence is a reminder of the kind of A-list political talent that the modern Democratic Party lacks. It was an indictment that the best messenger first ran for president.

He’ll make a handful of appearances on the campaign trail, bundling appearances for candidates for Senate and governor and secretaries of state, arguing that Democrats winning those races is essential to preserving democracy.

“We’ll explore a range of issues – from strengthening institutions and fighting disinformation, to promoting inclusive capitalism and expanded pluralism – that will shape democracies for generations to come,” Obama writes in an announcement of the event going out to donors, first obtained by CNN. “We’ll showcase democracy in action around the world, and approaches that are working. We will discuss and debate ideas about how we can adapt our institutions for a new age.

Ben Rhodes, a longtime adviser who has been helping plan the Democracy Forum, said that the foundation’s work is removed from politics but will reflect Obama’s priorities.

“All the things he might care about as an ex-president – climate change, health care, avoiding war – all connect back to whether or not democracy survives, and frankly whether or not the worst-case outcomes happen in terms of who’s in charge of countries,” Rhodes said. He sees the threads that connect everything he is doing.

Gone will be the rounds of mass campaign endorsement lists for statewide, House and state legislator candidates that Obama had been putting out since leaving the White House. The decision to stop those lists is a function, people who’ve been working with him say, ofstepping back from the leadership role he played in the Democratic Party during the Trump years.

Obama remains an avatar of progressive change and an increasingly diverse nation, who’s far more popular than current Democratic President Joe Biden. He’s the most sought-after political fireman for Democrats struggling to survive tight swing state races and is being used to energize young, minority and suburban middle-class voters.

“I’m not sure I can think of him as an elder,” said Rep. Mike Levin, who was one of six first-time House candidates in California with whom Obama did a joint event for in 2018. Six went on to win. Levin in an interview last week was still talking about the 2008 race almost as if it just happened.

The multi-million dollar deals have been the focus of much of Obama’s time as president. He is one win short of becoming an EGOT if his production company is included.

Some Democrats mock his various ventures as “Obama, Inc.” Among them: The second volume of memoirs will add to the previously published 768-page book that chronologically followed the killing of Osama bin Laden during his first term.

With the start of his library, obama moved from flashy powerpoint demonstrations for donors to real beams and columns on the South Side of Chicago and is still courting multimillion dollar donors

He’s a celebrity, but what do you wanna hear? Obama talked to high level political leaders on climate change and the Afghanistan withdrawal

The one we look to advance our values is still in the ring. The other man is a celebrity, said the high level Democratic operatives. “If your passion is politics, you want to be with the person in the arena.”

Still, Obama has quietly strategized with political leaders at home and abroad – from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to new, young, leftist Chilean President Gabriel Boric or British opposition leader Keir Starmer – while avoiding getting into the daily fray.

It is silly for him to be the guy to sway people. That’s not his role. Does he speak inspirationally? Yes,” said the Obama friend. “But he’s a pragmatist.”

“I’m not sure he would have been at COP26 and Copenhagen and holding a summit on democracy here at home if he wasn’t recognizing what’s happening broadly,” said Eric Schultz, a senior adviser who’s been working with Obama since the White House days, referencing last year’s climate summit in Scotland and a major speech on democracy in Denmark earlier this year.

Obama consulted with both Biden and Schumer after the failed attempt to push through a bill that would have given voting rights to minorities. After the collapse of Biden’s bill, he advocated a smaller bill with climate change provisions as a way to win support from West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.

He used a lot of phone calls with tech leaders and advocates to get the elites to get involved with what he described as essentially unregulated social media companies.

A few weeks later, he gathered several Black journalists, including New York Times Magazine’s Nikole Hannah-Jones, LA Times executive editor Kevin Merida, and Columbia University School of Journalism dean Wes Lowery.

“He was in a space of how he could be helpful, how he could help to move things along from the seat he is in currently,” said Rashad Robinson, the president of the advocacy group Color of Change, who also attended the meeting.

Obama’s staff continues to be in touch with Biden’s political staff at the White House, looking for opportunities to speak up for the President. He was a sounding board for Biden on the Afghanistan withdrawal and followed up with a strong statement of support.

Obama is still important stamp of approval during moments of celebration as well, like when he called in August to congratulate the President after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/10/politics/barack-obama-midterms/index.html

The moment that Barack Obama attacked the U.S. president during the 2018 presidential election: a tribute to Babauta and the young leaders at the foundation of democracy

At a rare Obama fundraiser in San Francisco for the DNC, a man in a chair and a microphone was speaking to a group of tech billionaires in the home of a co-founder of their company.

They were struck by the intensity of his attacks. They noted how he seemed to be reflecting on his own presidency and how Republicans didn’t care when he begged them not to block Garland.

Biden and the White House say he will be on the road a lot in the coming three weeks, though it’s not clear exactly where or which candidates he will appear with.

She spoke at the virtual 2020 Democratic convention, her last campaign appearance. She told her friends that she felt too depressed about what was going on in the country to campaign more than that.

At the White House portraits ceremony, she gave a speech about the peaceful transfer of power. She won’t be going to the trail again because she doesn’t believe she is powerful enough to connect with the Black women who have proven to be the most important constituency for Democrats.

Instead, the Obamas are sticking to a rhythm that developed in the 2018 cycle: He’ll do the direct campaigning and she’ll take a less direct role as the leader of her officially non-partisan, multi-celebrity, co-chaired registration and turnout effort non-profit, When We All Vote.

Always returning to the Martin Luther King quote about the “long arc of history,” Obama’s interest has remained less on the midterms or 2024 than on the network of nearly 1,000 young leaders at the center of his foundation.

Gift Siziva, a young leader from Zimbabwe who is now running for his nation’s parliament in next year’s elections, said that seeing democracy threatened in America has made him more connected to Obama and to the repositioned work of the foundation.

It’s also a reflection of the type of young people who’ve been brought in – when Sheila Babauta was introducing Obama at last year’s international climate conference, for example, she had already been part of a march outside demanding more. Activists were already waiting to speak to Obama after his speech and were taping themselves to the streets in Glasgow.

“These moments are like an electric car when it goes to a charging station. Juan Monterrey was one of the inaugural Obama scholars and was a delegate to last year’s climate convention.

Babauta, a lawmaker in the Northern Mariana Islands that she lives in, said her association with the former president has trickled down to the children at a youth center where she works. The children “asked if me and President Obama and I are BFFs” after they found a picture of them together.

In one instance, Obama pushed back on a question about how to handle opposition during a session with European leaders in which he was the moderator, but he occasionally pipes in with advice.

“Sometimes it just turns out they’re mean, they’re racist, they’re sexist, they’re angry. Obama said his job was to just beat them because they were not persuadable.

He warned that sometimes we get filled up with self-righteousness. We’re so convinced that we’re right that we forget what we are right about.”

The Spontaneous Biden-Trump Tension: Why the Ubiquitous 2010 Senate Races Are Superstrange

This tension represents another dimension of the “double negative election,” in which most voters are expressing doubts about each party. It is clear from the two sides’ ad strategies that it has an impact. Democrats have used their messaging to raise doubts about Republican candidates, particularly on abortion and their personal ethics, since Republicans have spent a lot of time tying Democratic candidates to Biden. Republicans are attempting to nationalize the Senate races, while Democrats are attempting to personalize them.

There is growing second guessing over Democrats’ strategy and whether they are talking effectively about the issues voters care about most. Biden’s closing message on saving democracy from pro-Trump candidates might be an accurate reflection of fresh threats posed by the ex-president and his acolytes. But it does nothing to ease fears about the cost of groceries or a gallon of gas.

“In large part that’s why this election is super weird,” says Bryan Bennett, lead pollster for Navigator, a Democratic polling consortium. People are having to make a trade-off between the immediate economic concerns and the power of the incumbent party in power. But at the same time, they know that same incumbent party is the one that is going to protect that fundamental human right” on abortion.

Noble says Kelly is benefiting from campaign fundamentals: the Democrat has significantly outspent, and also more successfully occupied the center, than his Republican rival. But Noble also believes that Kelly is surmounting disenchantment with Biden in part because some voters are already looking past the president as they assess the parties. “The [president’s] job approval, for whatever reason, is not having as much effect,” Noble says. “People have accepted it’s Joe Biden, and pat him on the head, push him along, so you are not seeing that direct connection” to the Senate vote.

A majority of Democratic-aligned voters think that Biden has had a good effect on the party, but there are also many who think he hasn’t made much difference.

The results in Senate races through the 21st century underscore Abramowitz’ point. In states where the exit polls recorded Trump approval under 50%, the Republican Senate candidates lost all of their races. In the GOP’s 2010 sweep, Democrats lost 13 of the 15 Senate races in states where exit polls put then-President Barack Obama’s approval rating at 47% or less. Republicans lost 19 of the 20 Senate races in the states where exit polls show George W. Bush with a approval rating of 45% or less. Despite the national tide being against them, the president’s party won most of the Senate races in states where his approval ratings exceeded those levels.

The economy: A slim plurality of voters, about 31%, called inflation their top issue, and roughly 8 in 10 said inflation had been a hardship for them personally. The voters said that they trusted the GOP over the Democrats to deal with inflation.

Democrats everywhere are warning about the threat to democracy posed by Trump and his movement and they are stressing issues related to rights and values. Democratic candidates have spent more money on abortion-themed ads than Republicans since June.

The Economic Impact of Biden’s Legislating Achievements in the Term of the Implications for Labor and the Future of the US Manufacturing Sector

In the long run, the most important of these may be the argument that the incentives for domestic production embedded in the trio of central Biden legislative accomplishments – the bills to rebuild infrastructure, promote semiconductor manufacturing and accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy – will produce a boom in US employment, particularly in manufacturing jobs that don’t require a college degree.

But those plant openings are mostly still in the future and only a few Democrats (such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Arizona Sen. Kelly, and Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan) are emphasizing those possibilities this year.

More commonly, Democrats are stressing legislation the party has passed that offers families some relief on specific costs, especially the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Democratic pollster Geoff Garin says that highlighting such specific initiatives can allow individual candidates to overcome the negative overall judgment on Biden’s economic management. His main concern is that too many Democrats are sublimating any economic message while focusing preponderantly on abortion.

Piece by piece, Democrats are trying to build a sea wall against the currents of economic discontent by citing the coming manufacturing boom and the cost-saving provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. If that current is at a level that endangers the party, the campaign will measure it in the final weeks.

Compared with January, there’s been a steeper increase in support for nominating someone other than Biden among Democratic-aligned voters of color (from 43% to 53%) than among White voters (from 57% to 63%) and among independents who lean toward the Democratic Party (from 60% to 77%) than self-identified Democrats (from 48% to 53%). Younger Democratic-aligned voters are also notably less supportive of a Biden-led presidential ticket than are older voters (74% of those younger than 35 would like to see someone else at the top of the ticket compared with just 43% of those age 65 or older).

College was a strong dividing line. The Democrats had a 13-point advantage among those with a bachelor’s degree. Among those without one, Republicans held a 15-point edge.

The winning coalition of the Democrats in the Senate and White House relied on a significant gender gap to win women during the Trump presidency.

But the poll showed that Republicans had entirely erased what had been an 11-point edge for Democrats among women last month in 2022 congressional races to a statistical tie in October.

Trump’s favorability rating hasn’t changed. Just 31% in the new poll rate him positively, the smallest share to do so since before he was elected president, while 60% hold an unfavorable view. More than half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents agree that the former president’s views and policies are extreme, while only 32% see him as mainstream.

National exit polls show that 70% of midterm voters don’t want Biden to run for president in 2024, compared to 30% who want him to run. The majority of Republicans who voted in the midterm don’t want Biden to run again, and a few Democrats don’t want him to run again.

Today, the mood of the nation is decidedly sour. A strong majority of likely voters, 64 percent, sees the country as moving in the wrong direction, compared with just 24 percent who see the nation as on the right track. The share of likely Democratic voters who believe the nation is headed in the right direction fell six percentage points since September but is above the low point of the summer.

“Everybody’s hurting right now,” said David Neiheisel, a 48-year-old insurance salesman and Republican in Indianapolis. I think that everything is going to collapse because of the increase in inflation, interest rates, the cost of gas, food and property taxes.

A Telephone Interview with Biden: The 2020 Oregon House Speaker’s Sentiment Trip to the Blue State and the Hope for a Democratic Governor

The survey was conducted by phone with live operators, over a 10 day period in October. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. Methodologies and cross-tabs can be found here.

At a Union Hall in Portland, Ore., volunteers with the state’s Democratic Party sat shoulder to shoulder at long tables, dialing voters on their cellphones, when in walked President Biden holding a pink and white box of doughnuts.

This Western swing was Biden’s longest campaign trip to date, but it was decidedly low key. There were no big rallies, just speeches about his accomplishments so far.

“The history books show that an incumbent president is not a boost to their party in their midterms. Smith said if Jesus Christ were an incumbent president, his political party would probably be against him in the election.

But Oregon is a very blue state that Biden carried handily in the 2020 presidential election. Biden told the volunteers that it was nice to win by 16 points.

Two years later, Democrats are nervous about the tough three-way race for governor. The first Republican governor of Oregon in a generation could happen if an independent candidate were to get enough votes from the Democrats.

A Presidential Campaign for Reelection: A Portrait of a Football Player, Michael Bennet’s Camp Hale, and What he Means to Biden

The next day, the pair stopped at Baskin-Robbins for some ice cream after Biden attended a grassroots fundraiser. There, as he waited for his double scoop of chocolate chip in a waffle cone, Biden said he was confident Kotek would win.

Compared to both Obama and Trump, Biden has held far fewer campaign rallies for his party during this midterm cycle. The last month he’s delivered official events to crowds that occasionally only number a few dozen.

He has been in great demand at events to raise money for his party. At a Friday night fundraiser in a private home in Los Angeles, Biden helped raise $5 million, money that will help congressional candidates all over the country, including those in swing districts who at the moment wouldn’t want to be seen in public with Biden.

Some Democratic candidates have claimed scheduling conflicts when Biden comes to town, conflicts that preclude joint appearances. Republicans mocked Biden for this. Smith, author of Any Given Tuesday, said that Biden and the Democrats are being smart.

A majority of Biden’s own voters would like to see someone else as their candidate, which is hardly flattering to a president. Biden is vulnerable in a reelection race because of his sub 50% approval rating. And there’s never been a presidential election when an 80-something president is asking for a second term. Biden said that he is a great respecter of fate because he knows that the good health needed for a campaign is not taken for granted at his age.

Biden can help the Democrats if they have a strong advantage in voter registration. Camp Hale, a training site for World War II, was designated by Biden as a new national monument. And at the picture-perfect site, he made sure to give a little extra love to Sen. Michael Bennet, who is running for reelection in a tougher than expected race.

“Michael should come back up here a second,” said Biden, before regaling the crowd with a story about Bennet’s attempts to get him to designate the monument.

Changing the trajectory of the Los Angeles mayor’s battle with the democrats: a lesson learned from the past in a campaign that focused on the future

In Los Angeles, local officials lined up on a blue tape line on the tarmac to greet the president after he walked down the stairs of Air Force One. Karen Bass, who is running for LA mayor, got a hug with the blue plane in the background.

Biden called Bass the “soon to-be Ms. Mayor” in his speech that day, after he highlighted the law at the construction site for a new metro line.

“We’re always getting incoming requests,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling with the president on Air Force One. Yes, of course. Of course. We have a lot of good things to talk about.”

Biden’s sharpened message, after all, has been delivered in Washington – not standing on stage next to Democratic candidates in the midst of the most heated races across the country.

When you put it all together, Biden and the Democrats appear to have done something others have tried – and failed – in previous midterms: They turned the election into a choice between two parties instead of the usual referendum on the president’s party.

Biden, in the last four days, has candidly summarized the pendulum swing of the last several months that drove the political narrative from a looming Republican wave, to Democratic momentum, to the current moment of Republicans again eying majorities in the House and Senate.

“It’s been back and forth with them ahead, us ahead, them ahead – back and forth,” Biden said last week. We are going to see a shift back to our side in the closing days.

It was a candid acknowledgment of a moment that finds Democrats once again scrambling to zero in on a message to blunt GOP momentum, a reality exacerbated by divergent views inside the party of where that message should actually land.

It’ll be clear in 14 days if that optimism is right. But for now, it’s the basis for Biden’s view as voters weigh two years of unified Democratic power in Washington.

The definitive question is whether that will hold in a home stretch in which undecided voters historically break with the party out of power.

A Democratic campaign official said that they have sucked themselves back into their own firing squad. It wasn’t as good as some people thought it was, but it is not as bad as some are acting now. If we don’t pull it together it could be.

The weight of that history, not to mention the acute headwinds created by economic unease that continues to rank first among voter concerns in poll after poll, aren’t lost on Biden or his advisers.

Advisers say that will change in the days ahead as he insists on hitting the road for bigger events after weeks of intentionally smaller scale events designed to highlight legislative accomplishments.

What do Republicans want to see from the midterm election: Gas prices and GDP in the next few weeks, and where do they want to go?

They point to two factors specifically on that front: gas prices, which have been on a steady downward trajectory for the last two weeks, and the third quarter GDP report, which analysts expect to show robust growth after two quarters of contraction.

The deficit on the economy, despite legislative achievements, is not going to flip over the course of 14 days.

They see a chance to make gains, or at least fight to a draw, in the closing days with undecided voters, because of the correlation between gas prices and Democratic electoral prospects over the last several months.

But it’s one that officials say has been laid bare in a particularly acute manner by Republicans in recent weeks, whether on abortion, popular programs like Social Security and Medicare, or proposals to undo many of the individual provisions enacted by Biden that consistently poll in the favor of Democrats when taken in isolation.

Biden has also spent the last several weeks attempting to highlight individual issues officials see as key motivators to base voters they need to turn out in a big way to counter clear Republican enthusiasm, whether on abortion rights or Biden’s actions to cancel student loans for some borrowers.

The burst of optimism among Democrats after a late summer string of major legislative wins and energy driven by the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe vs. Wade was viewed by many inside the West Wing as overly optimistic.

Democrats play defense in blue-state strongholds like New York,Washington and Oregon to try and hold onto the House of Representatives. The Republicans need to get five seats to win back control. The fate of the Senate will be decided by several swing state showdowns, which are currently split evenly. Republicans are showing more interest in the New Hampshire race between Democrats and a retired army brigadier. Gen. Don Bolduc, a pro-Trump candidate Democrats brand as an election-denying extremist.

Even with unconventional and deeply flawed candidates such as Herschel Walker and Dr. Mehmet Oz running for key Senate seats, recent polls are showing that the GOP is in relatively good shape overall going into the midterm election on Tuesday. Even candidates in reliably blue states, such as New York, are at risk for the Democrats because of their scramble to defend several seats.

Democratic officials don’t believe that Biden’s visit to Florida on Tuesday will change the dynamics of the Senate and governor’s races, but they believe that it will allow them to nationalize the stakes in the final stretch.

“You can’t shake a stick (in Florida) without hitting a Republican that represents the MAGA extremes that the president is talking about,” a senior Biden adviser said. “So, it allows the president to really drive home what’s at stake and what the choice is.”

Biden claimed to have revived manufacturing, created high jobs and competed with China while highlighting the bright spots of the economy. He’s now warning that Republicans would gut Social Security and Medicare on which many Americans rely in retirement.

Trump’s appeal seems to be fading. Voters rejected his brand in two national elections after a disastrous midterm election for his candidates in swing states, which showed fatigue over his constant whining about 2020. Trump’s talent for thwarting accountability is, meanwhile, facing its toughest test from twin special counsel probes. And some Republicans are looking elsewhere. The CNN poll shows that when GOP voters are asked who they’d prefer, 47% have an alternative in mind. Nearly 4 in 10 of them pick Florida Gov Ron. DeSantis, who is untested on a national stage but already looms as a big threat to the former president.

A second senior Biden adviser argued that Biden’s contrast argument, with Florida as the backdrop, is “even more relevant” in the closing week of the midterms.

In an interview with CNN on the eve of Biden’s visit to his state, Crist was effusive about the president’s willingness to campaign alongside him in the final stretch of the midterms, as he hopes to deny DeSantis reelection.

“He’s the most important man in the world,” Crist said. “The fact that he’s coming down to Florida with a week to go until the election says everything you need to know about how important Florida is.”

More than any other issue, Crist said he hoped – and expected – Biden to zero-in on the topic of abortion rights when the president headlines the rally for Crist and Senate nominee Val Demings. DeSantis’ record as governor on the issue speaks for itself, Crist said, adding that abortion rights is the “number one issue” in his race.

When Biden visited Florida last month to tour damage from Hurricane Ian, the president and DeSantis put aside their political differences to emphasize an effective response.

After a debate with Crist, the governor made clear he was still eyeing Biden as a potential rival, even after he stated that he wouldn’t run for president.

But the 2024 election will be as much about Biden as it will be about Trump. While Biden can tout a successful legislative record that includes the Inflation Reduction Act and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, he will go into 2024 with the baggage that plagues any incumbent. The problems that he has struggled with, including inflation and the fallout from the withdrawal from Afghanistan, will be part of the conversation in a way that they were not four years ago. If he runs, Biden will no longer be campaigning to be the new boss – he is the boss.

Within a matter of hours, the whole thing happened because of Trump’s threat to reveal things about DeSantis if he runs. The former president hinted darkly, “I know more about him than anybody, except perhaps his wife.”

Biden, Kelly, and the Future: Why Biden isn’t Hearned on the Campaign Trail? How Popular Is Your Vote?

Biden has chafed at suggestions he is not in demand on the campaign trail, insisting to reporters that more than a dozen different campaigns had requested him in the final stretch of the contest.

That is not true. There have been 15. He said “count, kid, count” after a reporter suggested he hadn’t been holding many rallies in the final stretch.

Even those Democrats who are not fully on board with a Biden run for a second term still largely say they would back him if he did become the party’s nominee. Among the 59% of Democratic-aligned voters who would prefer another nominee, about half, 51%, say they would definitely vote for Biden if he became the nominee and another 28% say they would probably back him. All told, 86% of Democrats either support Biden for the nomination or say they would likely vote for him in the general election if he were the nominee.

According to people familiar with the conversations, he has grown frustrated with coverage that suggests he is a political albatross, arguing his policies are popular with voters.

Democrats know that Biden isn’t in demand in the most competitive races. They stated that rallies are less useful from an organizing perspective than they used to be.

Now, it is the former president who appears to be the most sought-after Democrat for the nation’s marquee races. He held rallies in four states over the weekend and will be going to Nevada and Arizona this week.

Obama and Biden last appeared together at the White House in September, when Obama’s official portrait was unveiled in the White House East Room. The event had been put off while Trump was in office, partly because neither the Obamas nor the Trumps were interested in putting on a show of friendship.

On the event side, Biden scaled back battleground state political rallies in favor of political speeches in Washington and official events where he has called attention to his accomplishments – like infrastructure and manufacturing investments – and warned of the Republican alternative.

Mike Noble, an independent pollster in Phoenix, sees more opportunity for Democrats to separate from the president, at least in Arizona. Kelly narrowly led Masters despite the majority of likely voters in Arizona having a negative opinion of Biden, according to a new poll. One of the reasons for Kelly’s lead is that a large number of voters in the poll were unfavorable towards Biden and negative towards Masters. Those ambivalent voters, Noble said, were backing Kelly over Masters by more than eight-to-one.

With the highest inflation in forty years, the hope of a Biden increase in his approval rating has been dashed.

“The big problem for Democrats is things have not gotten better in people’s eyes, regardless of what they have done in passing legislation and what good it might do in the future,” says Alan Abramowitz, an Emory University political scientist. They would be in better shape if inflation had come down. But you can’t convince people that things are going better when their own experience tells them that it’s not.”

The results of the election show that Biden is right about a political landscape that rattled allies and foes alike over the last several years.

But four other Democrats in 2018 defied that trend to win in states where Trump’s approval stood at 50% or more. The four Democratic winners are incumbent Joe Manchin in West Virginia, Jon Tester in Montana, and Sherrod Brown in Ohio, as well as the challenger, who is currently in Arizona.

The CNN mid-October polls raised that possibility by showing Cortez Masto and Barnes still narrowly trailing even though they were attracting double-digit support among voters who disapprove of Biden. Gene Ulm, a Republican pollster, says he believes the final electorate will tilt even more toward Republican voters dissatisfied with Biden than polls now project. The reason, he argues, is that in the end, disenchantment with current conditions and Biden’s performance will turbocharge more turnout from Republicans, and depress turnout more from Democrats, than most models now anticipate. “The composition of the electorate … is going to crush everything,” he says flatly.

The exception has become rare in US politics. Because Biden’s standing is so bad in so many places, the Democrats will need more of them.

Biden has not been as effective in speaking with Americans who want to return to normal after the swine flue or in empathising with the high prices they’re paying.

Biden’s speech Wednesday, delivered blocks from the US Capitol that was ransacked by ex-President Donald Trump’s mob on January 6, 2021, was a strong election-closing argument. But for an election other than the one taking place next week.

In effect, Biden’s stress on the threat to US political institutions posed by Trump essentially asks voters to prioritize the historic foundation of America’s political system over their own more immediate economic fears.

“You have the power, it’s your choice, it’s your decision, the fate of the nation, the fate of the soul of America lies, as it always does, with the people,” Biden told voters.

The elections ought to be more than one thing. Voters can eat gum at the same time. But the harsh truth is this: In Washington, where just a glimpse of the towering Capitol dome reminds politicians and their media chroniclers of the January 6 horror, the threat to democracy feels visceral.

But in the heartlands of Pennsylvania, the suburbs of Arizona and cities everywhere, the gut check issue is less the somewhat abstract and age-old concept of self-government. It is the basic one of feeding a family. This election is more about the price of groceries or the price of a gallon of gas than it is about the founding truths of America.

The Price of Everything Was Good During Trump: The Path to Chaos in the U.S. President Donald J. Biden’s 2021 Presidential Campaign

As Scottsdale, Arizona, retiree Patricia Strong told CNN’s Tami Luhby: “The price of everything was better during Trump,” adding, “We were looking forward to retirement because everything was good.”

The Federal Reserve raised its short-term borrowing rate by less than 1% on Wednesday, making it even harder for Americans with credit card debt to save for retirement. One of the best features of the Biden economy is the low unemployment rate. It is feared that the Fed’s strategy will ruin it and make the economy more likely to go into recession.

Biden’s argument is implicitly that while inflation will fall, and economic damage can be repaired, the current election – and its legions of anti-democratic Republican candidates – could cause political wreckage that is beyond mending.

There are candidates for Congress, for the governor, for the attorney general, for the secretary of state, who won’t accept the results of the elections they’re in. That is the path to chaos in the United States. It is the most Unpretentious thing that has happened. It is not legal. It is not American.

It’s not that Biden hasn’t been also talking about high prices. He wants to spend billions of dollars in order to lower the cost of health care, lift up families and create millions of jobs. That is a possibility, but it isn’t enough to ease the pain being felt right now.

Throughout history, inflation has often been a pernicious political force that breeds desperation in an electorate and seeds extremism as a potential response. Politicians fear the surge of prices so much that they fear being shot and the Biden White House initially insisted that the problem was caused by Covid-19.

In front of a still violence-scarred Capitol in 2021, the president renewed his call for national unity. He explained that American democracy was primarily under attack because “the defeated former president of the United States refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election.”

He put his loyalty to himself before loyalty to the Constitution because he had abused his power. And he’s made the Big Lie an article of faith in the MAGA Republican Party – a minority of that party,” Biden said, being careful not to insult every GOP voter as he did when referring to “semi-fascism” earlier this year.

The president said that Trump’s threat was larger now than it was during the election. “As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America: for governor, Congress, for attorney general, for secretary of state who won’t commit – who will not commit to accepting the results of the elections they’re running in,” the president warned.

The first Black president of the United States grew out of a backlash to the anti-Black appeal of Trump, who has embraced his anti-democratic, populist, nationalist appeal to mainly White voters. In the last few days, the 44th president has been repudiating Trump on the campaign trail and defending democracy.

“This intimidation, this violence against Democrats, Republicans and non-partisan officials just doing their jobs, is the consequence of lies told for power and profit, lies of conspiracy and malice, lies repeated over and over to generate a cycle of anger, hate, vitriol and even violence,” Biden said. We have to confront those lies with the truth, the future of our nation depends on it.

Even though he hoped Americans would reject menacing forces, Biden was anything but optimistic in his message Wednesday. The speech was given by Biden after an attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was also the subject of right-wing conspiracy theories.

Biden made sure to note that most Americans, and even most Republicans, would not resort to violence. He said those who would have the biggest influence.

“I believe the voices excusing or calling for violence and intimidation are a distinct minority in America,” Biden said. “But they’re loud and they are determined.”

Biden and his team had been contemplating giving a speech on the topic of democracy for some time, but their decision-making in recent days had been shaped by what they’ve viewed as a surge in anti-democratic rhetoric and threats of violence. Biden and his top advisers were very worried after the attack on Paul Pelosi and the home invasion in which the elderly man was injured, and he is expected to make a full recovery.

“How can you say that you in fact care about democracy when you deny the existence of a win? He said at the event that the only way to win was if the other guy cheated.

What is the Meaning of America, and What Is Not: Barack Obama & Donald Trump Face the Problem of The Future of the United States

Biden’s Civil War reference hardly appeared coincidental; he was seen this week carrying a copy of historian Jon Meacham’s new book, “And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle,” which explores how America’s 16th president confronted secession and threats to democracy.

Barack Obama and Donald Trump personify two rival visions of the meaning of America itself and are extending their bitter years-long duel as they find themselves on opposite sides of a profound confrontation over the future of US democracy.

Trump has mobilized his Make America Great Again movement, which first emerged as a backlash to the first Black presidency and is built around the notion that the cultural values of a largely White, working-class nation is under siege from political correctness, undocumented migration, experts and the establishment.

On the eve of an election in which he is not on the ballot, Trump made it all about himself – even as he claimed he didn’t want to overshadow Republican candidates. At a rally for a GOP Senate candidate, Donald Trump spoke of America being in decline, exaggerated claims that America was in terminal decline, and lied about the 2020 election. He would try to make a case that he is the victim of tyranny if he was indicted in a number of criminal probes.

“Why would you vote for somebody who you know is not telling the truth about something? I mean, on something that important, I don’t care how nicely they say it. Obama said of the former local TV news anchor that he doesn’t care how poised or well-lit they are.

When truth isn’t important anymore, what happens? Obama added. If you just repeat what your side is saying over and over, and it is a lie, it is okay.

Trump’s hilarious encounters with his wife, Hillary, and the father of his wife Michelle, during the 2016 midterm elections: How much do you need to know about her?

As he campaigns for his endorsed candidates this fall, Trump has made little attempt to conceal his larger intentions: to buttress his own likely presidential campaign he hopes will return him to the White House.

In his speech at the event, Trump repeated conspiracy theories that Obama spied on the president’s campaign.

One interesting comparison of the styles of Trump and Obama on show in their rival rallies is in their use of humor. Trump has long used comedy to bind himself to his audience, a feature that doesn’t always come across on TV. Often his crowds look like they are having a whale of a time, enthralled by a rule-breaking bull in a china shop trashing decorum with every word and lacerating his opponents with outrageous accusations and belittling nicknames.

“He fought for this. Even though carpooling was not an option, his adult children bought three private planes. Now, I mean, you need three?” Obama joked.

It’s easy to tell when the 44th president doesn’t have his heart in his task. In the early rallies of his 2012 election race, for instance, he was lethargic and weary, and he didn’t approach top form in his events last year in an off-year election in Virginia.

But his rallies this year have rocked with the pulsating energy and enthusiasm that is often lacking at appearances by the incumbent president, an older, more conventional politician. Obama has also come up with far more relatable and focused economic messages than Biden has managed – ironically performing the same role for the current president as another ex-president, Bill Clinton, performed for him in the 2012 campaign – a service that led Obama to dub the 42nd president “the explainer-in-chief.”

Obama’s talent for oratory is undiminished and he looks like he’s having great fun showing it off. He’s like a basketball star who after years retired makes a comeback and suddenly starts draining three-pointers. His popularity allows him to reach out to the states that Biden would not welcome a visit from the president.

David Axelrod said that the onetime boss is being used by his party on a specific electoral mission.

Then came the 2022 midterms. Although Republicans will likely gain control of at least one chamber of Congress, if not both by narrow margins, the GOP will be frustrated. By inserting himself into the race and endorsing a slate of candidates, Trump managed to make the midterms partly a mandate about him rather than the sitting president. He selected a number of his hand-selected candidates that lost.

Republican officials have worried all election cycle about the former president putting his own political ambitions ahead of his party. It was the vice president’s tie-breaking vote that enabled the Democrats to take control of the Senate in Georgia with the help of false voter fraud claims, which many now blame on Warnock.

While he is going out in to the country, Trump has not done his usual schedule of multiple rallies in the most closely disputed states. The GOP has succeeded in the last few weeks in returning the focus of the election to Biden, high inflation and the economic anxieties that are spooking voters.

Sources familiar with the matter said that if Republicans fare well in the election, it would be a good time for Trump to start his campaign.

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and the Republican Party: What will the midterm election teach us about the emergence of the real political party?

“They are weaponizing the Justice Department,” Trump said at his rally Thursday, accusing Democrats of a transgression of which he himself was guilty when he was in the White House and treated attorneys general as his personal lawyers.

Former Trump White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway praised the former president for not taking the focus off the GOP’s midterm message, a decision that may repay him with a radical Republican House majority that he could use to weaken Biden in the run-up to the 2024 election.

He would like to have done it already. … I think you can expect him to announce it soon,” Conway said of Trump’s anticipated campaign launch. Some people are urging him to have a November surprise.

“Donald Trump is just getting started. I think you should keep your cellphone on,” Conway told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast on Thursday.

Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author and editor of 24 books, including, “The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment.” Follow him on Twitter @julianzelizer. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion on it.

While Trump has been hinting at another run for months, the news would certainly send shockwaves through the political world. Trump is arguably one of the most controversial and destabilizing political leader in contemporary US history. His presidency was consequential because of the toxicity and support for conspiracy theories within the GOP, as well as the recent Supreme Court decisions.

If the midterm campaigns have shown the Democrats anything, it is that the Republicans remain a strongly united party. Very little can shake that unity. After Trump left the White House, the party didn’t change in substantive ways and the “Never Trump” contingent failed to emerge as a dominant force. Indeed, officials such as Congresswoman Liz Cheney were purged from the party.

If Republicans do well next week, possibly retaking control of the House and Senate, members of the party will surely feel confident about amping up their culture wars and economic talking points going into 2024. And given the number of election-denying candidates in the midterms, a strong showing will likely create the tailwinds for the GOP to unite behind Trump. Although there has been copious speculation about the rise of other Trump-like Republicans like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, it’s likely they will look “liddle” once the former President formally reenters the political arena – as his formidable opponents learned in the 2016 Republican primaries.

Any incoming GOP majority would be made up of people who are against Donald Trump. Prospective committee chairs have already signaled they will do their best to deflect from Trump’s culpability on the January 6, 2021, insurrection and go after the Justice Department as it presses on with several criminal investigations into the ex-President’s conduct. There could be a lot of election deniers in state offices who could control the 2024 presidential election in some key areas. GOP dominance of state legislatures could further curtail voting rights.

If Trump becomes a candidate, the Department of Justice might have to appoint a special counsel to oversee investigations into the president as well as his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But that’s unlikely to stop Trump; we’ve seen his relentless attacks on former special counsel Robert Mueller, who oversaw the Russia investigation. And once Trump is formally a candidate, it will make prosecuting him all the more difficult. Trump will claim that any investigation is a politically motivated “witch hunt” meant to take him out of the running.

If Trump avoided prosecution he would unleash a full-scale assault on the president, who might be still struggling with a shaky economy and divisions within his own party. It is more likely that Trump will use the loyalists who have penetrated state and local election offices to his advantage if election deniers enter positions of power after the elections. It is believed that Donald Trump can perfect the rhetoric that put him in office because he has been to this rodeo before. And now that Elon Musk has purchased Twitter, Trump could be reinstated – giving him a way to direct and shape the media conversation once again. (Trump, who founded Truth Social, where he has been active since he was banned from Twitter, has not publicly indicated that he will return).

Of course, the fact that Trump poses a very serious threat in 2024 doesn’t mean he will win. Trump had turned off many independents and even some Republicans by 2020 and it remains unclear if he can win their support in crucial swing states. And as we have seen with President Barack Obama’s run against Mitt Romney in 2012, presidents who have faced tough reelection campaigns can still find a path to victory.

Democrat Sen. Mehmet Oz and President Donald J. Biden: What is it like to be a Republican or a Senator?

Three presidents, one sitting and two former, will descend on Pennsylvania in the final weeks of the campaign for the Senate, an event that underscores the stakes of one of the most closely watched Senate races.

Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor has traveled to his home state 20 times since taking office, so the political stress test will be significant.

Donald Trump lost the 2020 Pennsylvania presidential election by a tiny margin and a win by Mehmet Oz could prove that he is still viable in the state.

It has been claimed that the election results could have a negative effect on Biden’s standing in congress as he nears the most important meeting of his first two years.

The moment marks a historic anomaly. Former presidents have typically only waded sparingly into daily politics, mostly avoiding direct criticism of the men occupying the office they once held. Since 1885, a one-term president who had lost the election has won the White House again.

Since taking office six years ago, Trump has caused an altered norm in Pennsylvania with each warning of dire consequences should the opposing party prevail.

Biden, who spent much of his first year in office trying to avoid saying Trump’s name, is no longer so cautious. He called out Trump and his supporters at a California rally this week and labelled Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as “Trump incarnate” during a benefit on Tuesday. At his own rallies, Trump plays a video reel of his gaffes, but he hasn’t been as aggressive in his attacks on Obama.

“It doesn’t just work out just because somebody’s been on TV. Turns out, being president or governor is about more than snappy lines and good lighting,” Obama said in Arizona last week of the Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a former local news anchor.

Biden is not surprised that Obama is drawing more voters to the campaign trail than him, according to officials. He has discussed some of the races with his former boss and believes Obama’s message is both resonating with voters and complementary to his own.

Their appearance on Saturday will serve to underscore their differing styles and political abilities in a comparison Democrats say favors Obama.

The News Story of Joe Biden, the US Representative, and the 2011 Insurrection that Saved Us from Killing Inflation, or What Do We Want to Know?

“What I find is that they want to know: Is the United States stable? Do we know what we’re about? Are we the same democracy we’ve always been?” At his news conference, Biden described his conversations with world leaders.

There is KeITH. These conversations are private, according to Biden’s press secretary. It’s not like a formal announcement would come immediately, even if it is made this week or over Christmas. I remember when President Obama made his announcement. For the 2012 election, he didn’t announce his reelection until around April of 2011. There was no doubt that he would run. In that interview,Dunn stated that preparations are already underway.

Democrats are facing a nightmare scenario of Republicans mocking Joe Biden and failing to tame inflation as they close their campaign on Monday.

The red wave that many anticipated didn’t happen. Votes are still being counted in key states and districts, but even if Republicans end up with control of one or both chambers, their majority will be extremely narrow. It’s safe to say Democrats will not face the “shellacking” they experienced in 2010.

But the way each side is talking on election eve, and the swathe of blue territory – from New York to Washington state – that Democrats are defending offer a clear picture of GOP momentum.

The run-up to the elections highlighted the country’s deep divisions in a political era in which both sides feel victory is a sign of losing their country.

On Sunday, the RNC chair said that the Democrats were inflation deniers, crime deniers, and education deniers.

I am not happy, I am a loyal Democrat. I just think that we are – we did not listen to voters in this election. And I think we’re going to have a bad night,” Rosen told CNN’s Dana Bash.

It’s a message that sticks out in Washington DC, which is home to scars from the US Capitol insurrection. The survival of the world’s most important democracy is at stake. After all, Trump incited an insurrection that tried to thwart the unbroken tradition of peaceful transfers of power between presidents.

The premise of his domestic presidency and his entire political career has been based on restoring the balance of the economy and restoring a measure of security to working and middle class Americans. His legislative successes could bring down the cost of health care for seniors and create a diversified green economy that shields Americans from future high energy prices. But the benefits from such measures will take years to arrive. And millions of voters are hurting now and haven’t heard a viable plan from the president to quickly ease prices in the short-term.

There is no guarantee that plans by Republicans to extend Trump-era tax cuts and mandate new energy drilling would have much impact on the inflation crisis either. And divided government would likely mean a stalemate between two dueling economic visions. The election has turned into a vehicle for voters to stress out because there isn’t hope that things will get better soon.

There isn’t much the president can do to lower inflation on their own. The Federal Reserve is leading the way and the central bank could cause a recession with the rising interest rates.

The Republican Party also got exactly what it wanted as Trump has delayed his expected campaign announcement until after the midterms, depriving Biden of the opportunity to shape this election as a direct clash with an insurrectionist predecessor whom he beat in 2020 and who remains broadly unpopular. The president might have won over voters who still dislike the two-impeached former president if he had confronted him.

Republicans are getting more confident in victory in Tuesday’s election as they slam Democrats over inflation and crime, while the President warns that GOP election deniers could destroy democracy.

In an exclusive interview with CNN, the potential next Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, laid out his plans for power and vowed to tackle inflation, border security and rising crime. He said he would look into the administration’s dealings with parents and school board meetings, as well as the Afghanistan withdrawal. And he didn’t rule out an eventual push to impeach Biden.

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.

With a campaign to announce a White House bid edging closer, former President Trump will end his effort to show his enduring magnetism by holding a rally for the Senate nominee in Ohio. 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 was out campaigning for Obama on Saturday, warned that the nation’s core values are in danger due to Republicans who lied about the US Capitol insurrection and the attack on Pelosi’s husband.

The president will end his fight to stave off a vote of no confidence from voters at a Democratic event. 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.

The Ends of the 2016 Midterm Campaign: The Corrupt Campaign of Ronna McDaniel Against Biden on CNN/State of the Union

Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel predicted on CNN’s “State of the Union” that 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.

Obama warned in a speech in Pittsburgh with the president that Republican concern over the economy was a ruse and claimed that the GOP would cut Social Security and Medicare if they were elected.

They are all about the wealthier getting wealthy. The wealthier are staying wealthy. The middle class is getting stiffed. Biden claims that poor people get poorer under their policy.

But the final hours of this midterm campaign laid bare the polarized electoral environment, the specter of political violence and the possibility of disputed races – all of which have raised the stakes of the first nationwide vote since former President Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election and have augured an acrimonious two years to come.

On Sunday, a staffer opened a suspicious white powder letter at the headquarters of the pro- Trump nominee in the Arizona gubernatorial contest. Lake’s opponent, current Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, condemned the incident as “incredibly concerning.”

What Do You Want to See in the Next Democrat-Electoral Race? When Do You Need to Know? When Will You Walk Into a Reinforcement-Laboratory?

On a frenetic final weekend of campaigning, Biden and Obama tried to push Democratic nominee John Fetterman over the line in a Pennsylvania Senate race that represents the party’s best chance to pick up a GOP-held Senate seat. But Democrats are under fierce pressure in states like Arizona and Nevada that could flip the chamber to the GOP. Republicans need only one seat to win the majority.

While DeSantis, for instance, has impressed conservative voters by seizing on hot button culture war issues like immigration, transgender rights, anti-Covid 19 measures and supposed voter fraud, he has not yet come face-to-face with Trump. The Florida governor, who won an easy reelection race last month, has not said whether he will run against Trump, who set him up in his first gubernatorial race with an endorsement. But a string of primary debate clashes with Trump would test his capacity to take a blow, his ability to think on his feet and his willingness to counter-attack a former president who still benefits from a personality cult among GOP base voters.

The Florida Governor didn’t respond to Biden, who he called a donkey, instead calling his opponent a donkey and taking credit for bucking Washington officials during the Pandemic.

As he rallied for Rubio, who is seeking reelection, Trump didn’t repeat his mockery of DeSantis on Sunday but again teased the likelihood of a presidential run. In another sign the next presidential race is stirring, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who has long eyed higher office, announced he would not join the Republican primary.

Former President Bill Clinton was also called into action on Saturday, stumping for New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in Brooklyn. The Empire state is considered to be safe for the Democrats but Hochul is in a race against a Republican that was not expected to be close.

“I know the average election rally is just ‘whoop dee doo do vote for me,’ but your life is on the line. Clinton said for young people in the audience, their life is on the line.

The Cost of Living Crisis: What Will We Expect for the Next Two Years? When Will We Know If the GOP Wins Back the House?

If Republicans win back the house, they can use their power to impose a vise on the Biden program and make it harder for him to act on issues like spending and debt ceiling. They are promising a constant round of investigations to look into everything from US withdrawal from Afghanistan to the surge of migrants crossing the southern border.

A GOP majority would be used to damage the president ahead of a potential second meeting with him in a decade, and it would include many candidates with an extreme image of Trump. And a Republican Senate would frustrate Biden’s hopes of balancing out the judiciary after four years of Trump nominating conservative judges.

In an election that is more likely to cement its divisions than promote unity, a dispirited nation will vote in Tuesday’s election.

The elections often set the country on a new path with the people choosing their leaders and the leaders accepting the results.

Above all, the midterm campaign turned on the cost of living crisis, with polls showing the economy by far the most important issue for voters, who are still waiting for the restoration of normality after a once-in-a-century pandemic that Biden had promised in 2020.

Democrats will have to accept a loss, regroup and try again in two years to convince the nation that their policies will chart the way out of crises. And Republicans, if they take majorities in Congress, will be able to argue voters have given them a mandate to fix things where Biden has failed. But after repeated elections in which disgruntled voters have punished the party with the most power, the GOP could find its own performance on the ballot in two years.

Biden told reporters that it was going to be difficult. If the GOP take control of Congress, life will become difficult for him, he admitted, and he thinks we will win the Senate.

Nancy Pelosi: The moment when police attacked her husband and the hammer hung over the US policies, and an interview with Anderson Cooper

Nancy Pelosi, who chairs the House, recalled the moment when police told her that her husband had been attacked with a hammer as the shadow of violence hung over US policies. She criticized certain Republicans in an exclusive interview with Anderson Cooper.

There is a party that is questioning the result of the election, feeding the flame and mocking any violence that happens. That has to stop,” Pelosi said.

McCarthy told CNN that impeachment will not be used for political purposes. “That doesn’t mean if something rises to the occasion, it would not be used at any other time.”

Ron Johnson says he is in line to be chair of the subcommittee for investigations if Republicans win the Senate, and he would use the power granted him to further crank up.

There’s something magical about democratic elections, when differences are exposed in debates and fierce campaigns. Until now, there was an expectation that both sides would follow the verdict of the people.

The Fourth Day of Elections: Donald Trump and the Loss of the Red Wave in the First Four Years of the Republican-Presidential Campaign

Frida Ghitis, a CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. CNN has more opinion on it.

The questions of who will control Congress and the results of the elections in two years time have not been answered. But on this day after, we can draw some initial conclusions.

First, there was no red wave. Predictions of a huge Republican victory at the polls did not materialize. The GOP didn’t fare well in the election. It was not a good day for Donald Trump, who wanted a Republican win to place him on a glide path to the presidential nomination in four years.

The challenge to democracy is not over, unfortunately. Deniers won the election. But even those who emerged victorious, performed worse than the non-election-deniers. They pushed away voters who supported other Republicans by making up Trump’s lies.

Despite tepid support for Trump to win the nomination, the survey finds the former president would likely enjoy majority backing among Republican-aligned voters in the general election if he did emerge as the party’s candidate. About two-thirds of those who want someone else to be the nominee also say they would definitely (36%) or probably (30%) vote for Trump if he did become the party’s nominee. In total, roughly 8 in 10 Republican-aligned voters either want Trump to be the nominee (38%) or say they would likely vote for him if he won the party’s nod(41%).

On election night, Trump told an interviewer, “I think if [Republicans] win, I should get all the credit. If they lose, I shouldn’t be blamed at all. But the evidence strongly suggests he deserves much of the blame.

How Did Mehmet Oz, Brian Kemp, and Ronald DeSantis Get Their Votes? A Brief History of Biden, Shapiro, Oz and Other Wonderful Candidates

They may well do it. Even if Nancy Pelosi is replaced as speaker by a Republican, Democrats will go on an amazing performance. Biden presided over the best performance by the party in power since George W. Bush in 2002, the first election after 9/11.

Josh Shapiro picked up about one-quarter of the vote who disapproved of Biden. Democratic candidates won the majority of the races if voters who disapproved of Biden.

Herschel Walker could win the election in December. He should never have been on the ballot, even if someone heard him campaign or knew about his past. Trump apparently thought fame would do the trick, just as it did for him. Mehmet Oz was endorsed for the Pennsylvania seat. Oz lost to John Fetterman, who after suffering a stroke struggled to regain his verbal prowess, a key skill for a political candidate.

The person who was the biggest winner of the night was Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who won his party’s nomination and was greeted by his supporters at his victory party with chants of two more years. an acknowledgement that his eyes, like Trump’s, are on the White House in 2024.

Then there was Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, another Republican who won reelection, in a rematch with Stacey Abrams. Kemp refused to overturn the 2020 vote despite huge pressure from the then-president, making him hated by Trump.

The Birth of Democracy: The Biden Legacy of the First Two-Term Democrat-Electorate Representative Candidate (Rovid) Covid

Biden also deserves some credit. As Nate Cohn explained on the New York Times podcast “The Daily,” Democratic success came in regions of the country where concerns over the health of the democracy and reproductive rights helped drive turnout. In the closing days of the campaign, Biden spoke about the need to protect democracy even though pollsters were predicting that inflation would be the primary concern.

Still, the election results were extremely unusual. I went back through the record books. Since 1922, there have been three previous instances of the president’s party gaining (or losing no) Senate seats and losing fewer than 10 House seats in the president’s first midterm.

Things did not get better for Biden when he was in the White House. Covid continued to wreak havoc on the country. Despite a 50-50 split in the Senate and Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema pitting themselves against the administration at various points, Biden was still able to move a formidable legislative agenda through Congress, overcoming fierce Republican opposition and even winning a few GOP votes along the way. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act stand up as a historic trifecta – a legislative track record arguably more significant than any that we have seen since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. More federal judges were appointed by Biden by August than any other president at that time in the term since Kennedy, according to the research center. Biden has used his executive power to fight climate change, bolster the US economy, and forgive student debt.

The Birth and Death of the American Dream: A Tale of Ron Biden and the End of the Bush-DeSantis Damned Scenario

Trump isn’t anywhere close to done. He has shown us how effective he can be when he releases his fire and fury. He still commands intense support within the party and retains a keen sense of operating in the modern media environment. In 1998, George W. Bush won his reelection in a landslide after securing the presidency, and in 2020, Florida’s Representative Ron DeSantis looks a little like him. He could pose a threat to Democrats in his ability to pull of a more polished version of Trumpism because he has an ability to appeal to the core of the Republican Party.

The case that Biden is not up to running the country was made by the Republicans because of his verbal gaffes. That drumbeat will only grow louder if and when he decides to run for another term.

So a president who has constantly defied expectations about his political vitality is unlikely to pay much attention to polls that suggest voters want someone else. Biden recently reinforced his firewall against a primary challenge by downgrading the Iowa caucuses and elevating his beloved South Carolina to the first spot in the primary race. Biden benefits from the lack of a strong alternative Democrat. Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t performed strongly enough to have her party clamoring for Biden to step aside in her favor. Democrats who have an eye on the White House will be careful to not damage the president.

Biden will turn 80 in nine days’ time and will be 82 years old shortly after the 2024 election. At the end of the second term, he would be 86 years old. Ronald Reagan left office in 1989 at the ripe old age of 77.

The National Election Pool: What Happened When President Donald J.B. Biden Returned in November of 1934 and Returned to the Laws of Abortion

Abortion rights: The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade brought abortion to center stage, with about 27% of voters calling it their top issue. About 6 in 10 voters felt negatively about the decision, with nearly 4 in 10 expressing anger. Democrats had a roughly 11-point edge over the GOP when it came to which party voters trusted to handle issues related to abortion.

CNN Exit Polls use in person interviews with Election Day voters and in-person interviews with telephone and online poll respondents to measure the views of early and vote by mail voters. They were done for the National Election Pool. Read more here.

Democrats retained the Senate, and it looks like they will keep any net losses in the House in the single digits.

Midterms are supposed to be the time for the opposition party to shine. That should especially be the case when there is once-in-a-generation inflation and when the vast majority of Americans think the country is on the wrong track.

So just what happened? It’s pretty clear that general election voters punished Republican candidates they saw as too extreme – on issues such as abortion and/or for being too closely tied to former President Donald Trump.

Democrats have had a strong performance at the state level this year. We already know, based on projected races, that this will be the first time since 1934 that the president’s party had a net gain of governorships in a president’s first midterm. (1986 is the only other post-1934 midterm, regardless of when it fell in a presidency, when the president’s party had a net gain of governorships, though Ronald Reagan’s GOP had massive losses in the Senate that year.)

We don’t have any polling from 1934, though considering Franklin Roosevelt won two landslide victories on either end of that midterm, he was likely quite popular.

Many of those Republicans were endorsed by Trump and had said (at least at one point) that they believed he had won the 2020 election. This is absolutely false, as Biden won the election.

We see this in gubernatorial elections, as well. Republicans nominated 2020 election deniers for governor in a number of blue or swing states. Only the Republican Kari Lake of Arizona has a chance of winning.

It is not unusual for you have a current president and a former president who are unpopular. Both Bush and Obama were unpopular before the 2010 election.

The reason for the difference between 2010 and 2022 is obvious. I had pointed out before the election that Trump was getting more Google search traffic than Biden (i.e. the former president was in the minds of voters). Bush wasn’t receiving anywhere near the search traffic as Obama in 2010, though.

This matches the dynamic we saw in the special House elections that took place in June. The Supreme Court ruling made the Democrats do better.

And while Republicans somewhat recovered their standing in national House polls in the closing weeks of the campaign, they never made it back to where they were during the spring.

Joe Biden, David Trone and the G-20: An aide’s view of the first face-to-face meeting with Xi Jinping

Thirty-seven minutes after wrapping up a late-night gala dinner with Asian leaders – punctuated by plates of wild Mekong lobster and beef saraman – an aide handed President Joe Biden the phone.

On the other end of the line was David Trone, the millionaire Maryland wine retailer who was thousands of miles and a time zone 12 hours away and had just clinched another term in the House.

A person familiar with the call said Biden had used dozens of calls to winning candidates over the last week, each one further solidifying the outcome of the election that dramatically altered the view of his presidency.

As Washington grapples with the domestic repercussions of a voter-induced electoral earthquake that kept the Senate in Democratic hands and has put the inevitability of Republican House control on the shakiest of ground, the most significant near-term effect is palpable here, on Biden’s long-scheduled foreign trip where the first face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping is taking place.

Jake Sullivan said that many leaders came up the president to say that they were following them closely and they took note of the results of the polls.

The theme of American democracy and what it means to be a democratic nation was something that emerged over the course of the two days, Sullivan said in an interview aboard Air Force One.

White House officials who were braced for losses in the lead up to election day have taken to their Twitter accounts and TV interviews to speak out against politicians who predicted otherwise.

It was a reflection of the team that feels constantly underestimated, and has always wanted success, even after a 21-month first year in office.

White House officials had been circling the G-20 as the likely sit-down with Xi for months. There were intensive preparations between the two sides in the lead up to announcing the engagement publicly. The tenuous state of the relationship necessitated a sit down, regardless of domestic politics.

In the weeks leading up to the election, White House advisers downplayed the effect sweeping midterm losses would have on the weight of Biden’s presence and message abroad, citing the same historical trends they would later buck.

But privately, multiple people familiar with the matter said, there was an awareness of the potential split screen of a US president grappling with his party’s political defeat at the same moment Xi would arrive in Bali at the peak of his power in the wake of the Community Party Congress, during which he secured a norm-breaking third term in power.

A US official said that political standing and perceptual matters. Everyone was watching this election, and it wasn’t the beall, end all, but it wasn’t a central focus or driver of the dynamics.

Each of the calls back home underscored the importance of the president entering the meeting with China’s leader at a time when US-China relations appeared to be inching toward conflict.

“I know I’m stronger,” Biden said, before noting that given his long-standing relationship with Xi formed during their times as their nations’ vice president that the results weren’t a necessity for the meeting to achieve its goals. US officials aren’t allowed to overstate the effect of a trip in a region where the complexity and challenges far surpass what voters decide in a congressional district.

Biden has made clear to his advisers that the leading autocracy in the approach and policy of the administration is China.

Biden has put the high-stakes competition with China at the center of his engagements with foreign leaders, pressing allies by phone and in person to take a sharper line. US officials have sought new ways in order to gain control over the proxy economic and technological competition that is happening between the two powers.

Up until the day after Election Day, allies and foes were left to take Biden at his word, when he attempted to answer those questions with an emphatic “Yes.”

Former President Donald Trump, whose election lies had driven the assault on the US Capitol, hadn’t faded away and he remained the most powerful figure inside the Republican Party.

The possibility that Biden would face the same harsh judgment of his first two years in office as nearly all his recent predecessors wasn’t just likely. It was always going to happen.

Instead, as he moved through bilateral meetings and pull-asides, gala dinners and summit gatherings, Biden’s own political vindication served another purpose for his approach on the world stage: Validation.

Biden “feels that it does establish a strong position for him on the international stage and we saw that I think play out in living color today,” Sullivan told reporters after Biden departed the ASEAN-US Summit, as the Xi meeting loomed. “I think we’ll see that equally when we head into both the G20 and to his bilateral engagements in Bali.”

Nevada Rep. Dina Titus, who faced a tough reelection battle in a redrawn district, had secured another term in office. Biden needed to express his joy.

President Biden is spending the holidays with his family. He will talk to his family during the holidays to decide if he’ll run again in 2024.

Lots of families had a lot of big conversations over the dinner table at Thanksgiving, and some of them were easy, some hard, and some of them involving major life decisions, like whether to run for a second term as president. With us is NPR’s reporter, who is doing a story about whether or not President Biden is going to run for reelection in 2024.

KEITH: Anita Dunn, who is a longtime adviser to Biden and is also a top White House official, was asked about it at an event recently put on by the publication Axios.

ANITA DUNN: The meeting he posed as was called by his grandsons led to his decision to run in 2020. Pop’s got to have this conversation. He is who he is and the family is going to be very involved in any decision he makes.

DUNN: If we didn’t do planning in November of this year, we should be in the political malpractice hall of fame.

Martnnez: When Donald Trump announced that he was going to run in 2024, I think everyone did a collective look toward D.C. to see exactly what President Biden was planning on doing.

What will biden and Trump say about the next presidential race? Early perceptions of rematching candidate nominees in the 2020 presidential race

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. The text may be revised or not in its final form. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

There’s little appetite for a 2020 rematch in the coming presidential election, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, as majorities of registered voters within each party say they’d rather see someone new nominated in 2024.

A new CNN/SSRS poll shows that 6 in 10 Republicans and GOP-leaning independents want their party to nominate someone other than Trump in 2024. On the other side, a piece of it hopes for a nominee other than Biden.

Among Democrats who say they’d like someone else as the party’s nominee, nearly three-quarters (72%) say they have no one specific in mind. Among those who do name another candidate, 5% mention Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, 4% California Gov. Gavin Newsom, 4% Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, 3% Vice President Kamala Harris and 2% Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

This CNN Poll was conducted on December 1st through 7th among a random national sample of 1,208 adults. The surveys were conducted live on the phone or online. Results among the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 points; it is larger for subgroups.

Even as President Joe Biden and ex-President Donald Trump move toward a rerun of the most turbulent White House race in modern history, many voters are pining for a break from the past – and the present.

Regardless of whether voters want it or not, the race is on. Early perceptions of the contenders’ strengths are important since they shape the decisions of potential rivals and donors in the early money chase. Biden seems to think he will let the country know early on in the new year if he runs, as he is giving every hint that he will.

Trump dining with extremists who have a checkered history of antisemitism at Mar-a-Lago is furthering the argument that he is damaged beyond repair. It looked like it was supposed to be easier for him to portray criminal probes into his conduct as persecution because of his lackluster campaign.

And yet, the former president’s allies, like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Jim Jordan of Ohio, will be hugely influential in the new GOP House majority. Paradoxically, the failure of Republicans to do better in November means that a thinner majority will be easier for extremists to manipulate as they seek to turn Republican control of half of the Capitol into a weapon to damage Biden and help Trump in 2024.

Still, any president is deeply vulnerable to unexpected outside events that could splinter his approval ratings and chances of reelection. And the oldest president in US history will have to confront the age issue every day. Republicans will seize on any slackening of the campaign trail pace, even a cold, as proof that he is not up to the job in a second term. People in their 80s have a increased chance of an adverse event.