By SEUNG MIN KIM and COLLEEN LONG, Associated Press
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 stays broadly unpopular: promote his administration’s accomplishments and appear where he can effectively rally the party faithful — all while continuing to rake in campaign money.
Biden’s first stop Wednesday is near Vail, Colorado, where he’s to designate his administration’s first national monument on 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’ll hold a pair of events promoting two of his most important 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 a gap for a Republican to win the race outright in November.
“We have been very clear that the president goes to exit, the vice chairman goes to exit,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. “They will talk concerning the successes that we’ve got seen on this administration within the last 19 months.”
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It’s all a part of a campaign blueprint fine-tuned during the last several months for Biden, who has been wanting to travel the country but is facing the standard midterm headwinds against the political party in power, an unsettled economic outlook and presidential approval rankings which have remained stubbornly underwater.
To counter Republican criticisms over the economy and inflation, Democratic candidates have highlighted accomplishments akin to 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 rankings earlier this 12 months.
Democratic candidates have also been way more prone to appear with Biden if it’s an official White House event underscoring their achievements, akin to the groundbreaking for a pc chip facility in suburban Ohio that was aided tremendously by the law that bolsters domestic semiconductor production.
That is the approach in Colorado, where the White House says Biden will discuss his administration’s efforts to “protect, conserve, and restore a few of America’s most cherished lands and waters for the advantage of future generations.”
Biden is to designate Camp Hale — an alpine training site where U.S. soldiers prepared for battles within 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 no less than 12 other military sites designated as national monuments by other presidents.
Bennet will stand alongside Biden on the announcement, which comes after years of advocacy from the senator and other Democrats within 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 consider is among the many 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 worth 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 motion was “an usurpation of power.”
The political climate in Colorado prompted the Senate Leadership Fund, the first 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 focus on 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 within the shot term.
Democrats also consider a ballot referendum that might enshrine access to abortion and contraceptives within the state structure will keep the difficulty within the highlight for his or her California candidates, at the same time as the difficulty fades elsewhere. But rising gas prices — California has the very best within the nation at roughly $6.20 a gallon — will likely be an unwelcome political backdrop for Biden.
Republicans think they will capitalize on gas prices, inflation and the economy as they appear to defend and pick up five House seats across the state. Each parties are eyeing no less than two offensive opportunities within the Orange County area, where Biden will speak Friday on lowering costs at some point after the federal government releases its final inflation report before Election Day.
Biden can even 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 advantages the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The president headlined a dozen receptions this 12 months for the Democratic National Committee which have brought in greater than $20 million.
It’s in Oregon that Biden’s political pull will likely be tested amongst Democratic voters.
The party is at risk of losing the governor’s race within the traditionally blue state, as Betsy Johnson — a former Republican and Democrat who has since quit each parties — has mounted a well-financed bid against each Democratic nominee Tina Kotek and the GOP’s pick, Christine Drazan. Democratic officials hope that while in Oregon, Biden may help consolidate the party’s support behind Kotek.
“That could be a huge consider this race,” David Turner, a spokesman for the Democratic Governor’s Association, said of Johnson’s candidacy. “I don’t think we could be talking about this race if Betsy Johnson wasn’t in it.”
Republicans for months have sensed a chance within the Oregon race, not only 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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