Democrats turn to Obama for midterm miracle, or at least to stem the bleedingLess than two weeks before the U.S. midterm elections, with Democrats on verge of losing their razor-thin majority in Congress, the party is asking former President Barack Obama to perform some late-game heroics - or at least help limit their losses.
Obama, who left office in 2017 after serving two terms, travels to Georgia on Friday, and then moves on to Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania, all key battlegrounds in the Nov. 8 election.
All four states are home to competitive Senate races where Republican candidates appear to be gaining momentum. Republicans need to pick up just one additional Senate seat to secure control of that chamber, with Georgia and Nevada looming as prime targets.
Republicans are also expected to win enough seats to take over the U.S. House of Representatives. Holding both chambers will enable them to stonewall President Joe Biden's agenda, block his nominees, including federal judges and launch investigations of his administration.
With Biden’s approval among voters hovering at 39% according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, it is the former president, who is assuming the role as the party’s closer in the final days. Biden served as Obama’s vice-president for his two terms.
"He's probably a better ambassador for swing-state Democrats than Biden is, since he's more popular - especially in the competitive states - and less tied to the current issues on voters' minds," said Jacob Rubashkin, an election analyst with Inside Elections in Washington. "He's also a more natural campaigner."
Obama will hit a fifth state, Michigan, which has a competitive governor's race, along the way.
Dogged by the public’s concerns over inflation and the economy, Biden has been nearly invisible on the campaign trail. His predecessors, Republican Donald Trump and Obama, both had held more than a dozen large rallies at this point in their second year in office.
But those presidents saw significant losses in Congress regardless, underscoring the political headwinds that Biden faces now. Obama suffered what he later called a "shellacking" when Republicans captured 63 House seats in the 2010 midterms, altering the trajectory of his presidency..............
https://www.yahoo.com/news/democrats-turn-obama-midterm-miracle-100214730.html
