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Joe and Jill Biden will spend the spend the final weekend before Tuesday’s midterms stumping for candidates in areas the president won two years ago – in a growing sign the red wave is about to come crashing down on them.
The president will start Saturday in Chicago, pushing House candidates, before heading to Pennsylvania to campaign for Democratic candidates Josh Shapiro and John Fetterman with Barack Obama.
It is the final bid to try and get voters on Democrats‘ side with projections showing Republicans will take the House and could take up to four seats in the Senate.
Biden expressed confidence on Friday his party would prevail: ‘We’re going to win this time around, I think. I feel really good about our chances. I haven’t been in all the House races, but I think we’re going to keep the Senate and pick up a seat. I think we have a chance to win in the House.’
But congressional polls show the momentum firmly with the GOP, with Rasmussen Reports on Friday night giving the them a five-point lead in their final telephone survey before the midterms.
All eyes are on the key Senate races in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, New Hampshire and Nevada, where candidates are separated by just a couple of points in the last-minute surveys.
Data on 470,000 early votes released by the Nevada Independent shows Democrats are ahead by just 1 per cent in the state, a sign of trouble in the crucial toss-up between the incumbent Senator Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt.
On Sunday, Biden will be in New York for Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a top GOP target, and Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is in a tougher race with her Republican opponent Lee Zeldin than Democrats expected.
The first lady will be in Arizona on Saturday, boosting endangered Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, who is clinging to a scant lead over Republican nominee Blake Masters, before heading to Texas to rally the Democratic base there.
The couple will be on the same stage Monday night in Maryland, where they make the closing pitch for their party as election forecasters predict Republicans will take control of both the House and Senate on November 8th.
Joe and Jill Biden will spend the weekend rallying their political base, looking to boost candidates in areas the president won two years ago in the latest sign Democrats fear a Republican victory on Tuesday
Joe and Jill Biden, seen above last week in New York, will be on stage together on Monday night in Maryland
Congressional polls show the momentum firmly with the GOP, with Rasmussen Reports giving the them a five-point lead in their final telephone poll before the midterms. Real Clear Politics has Republicans winning between 15 and 48 seats
The same projection has Republicans taking four seats in the Senate. Polls in key races are going down to the wire
Tuesday’s election will be seen as a referendum on the first two years of Biden’s presidency.
Voters have labeled the economy and the high rate of inflation as their top concerns. They give the president low marks for his stewardship of it in a show of frustration with the high cost of living.
Republicans have battered the president on the economic state of the nation and slammed him for the high rate of crime around the country.
GOP control of a single chamber of Congress will stymie Biden’s legislative agenda on Capitol Hill and make a difficult two years for the president ahead of the 2024 presidential election. House Republicans also are vowing to investigation the business interests of their son Hunter Biden.
Going into Tuesday’s election, polls show a heavy lack of enthusiasm among black, Latino and young voters – typical voting blocs for Democrats.
Early voting numbers back up those polls with Republicans faring largely better across the country when it comes to casting an early ballot. At least 36 million people have voted in the 2022 general election as of Friday afternoon, according to the United States Elections Project.
Biden’s low approval ratings have resulted in many Democratic candidates in tough races holding him at arm’s distance.
The president, for example, has not campaigned in Arizona, Georgia or Nevada. He had not made recent trips to Wisconsin or Michigan.
But Jill Biden’s softer touch has been more welcome on the campaign trail. She’s campaigned for candidates in competitive states like Wisconsin and Florida in addition to her Arizona stop on Saturday.
Both the president and first lady have worked into their stump speeches topics election strategists think will motivate Democrats to cast their votes: the fight for democracy and Republican attempts to turn back abortion laws.
President Biden has labeled the election a ‘battle for the soul for our nation,’ setting up Tuesday’s contest as a choice between democracy and autocracy.
‘We the people must decide whether the rule of law will prevail or whether we will allow the dark forces and thirst for power put ahead of the principles that have long guided us,’ he said Wednesday night in a speech on the dangers to democracy.
Jill Biden has focused on reproductive rights, an area that has Democrats worried since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
She has described helping a friend get an abortion pre-Roe. vs. Wade and what her friend had to go through in order to get the procedure legally.
‘Secrecy. Shame. Silence. Danger. Even death. That’s what defined that time for so many women,’ she has said.
Many election forecasters have predicted Republicans will win the House. The GOP only needs a net gain of five seats to take the majority there.
But, on Friday, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted its forecast for the Senate toward Republicans, citing numbers that show issues like the economy and inflation are resonating more with voters than abortion rights.
With the Senate currently sitting at 50-50 – and Vice President Kamala Harris providing the tie breaking vote – any race could decide which party is in the majority next year.
The Cook Report, will saying there is a path for Democrats to hang onto the majority, is predicting Republicans could pick up as many as three seats.
A man arrives to cast his ballot during early voting for the midterm elections at the Smyrna Community Center in Smyrna, Georgia
A driver drops off ballots into a ballot drop box for early voting outside of the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center
Arizona, will Jill Biden will be on Saturday, is seeing its Senate race in a virtual tie.
An Emerson College Polling survey of Arizona voters out on Friday finds Republican Blake Masters with 48% while incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Kelly has 47%, within the margin of error.
Since September, Masters’ support has increased three points while Kelly has held 47%, the polling firm notes.
In Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is in a neck-and-neck race fighting for her political life. Obama came was in the state on Tuesday to try and rally Democrats her way.
The Georgia Senate race is also a nail biter but neither incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock nor Republican nominee Herschel Walker are polling above 50%.
State law mandates that candidates must receive a majority of the vote in order to win an election; if no one does so, the top-two finishers advance to a runoff.
In Pennsylvania, another crucial state, Republican nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz has, for the first time, surpassed Democratic candidate John Fetterman in polling.
The two point gap – 48% to 46% – shows steady improvement for Oz, whose support from likely Pennsylvanian voters has increased by 5 points since September, according to polling from The Hill/Emerson College.
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