Democrats’ Midterm Dilemma: How to Back Biden, Yet Shun Him, Too

When President Biden appeared at the groundbreaking ceremony for a semiconductor factory in central Ohio on Friday, he was joined by Tim Ryan, the Democrat who is running for the Senate. However, the party’s nominee for governor did not attend, saying remotely that she appreciated Mr. Biden’s visit to her state.

Five days earlier, in Wisconsin, another crucial mid-term battleground, the situation was reversed: Gov. Tony Evers shared a stage with the president for a Labor Day speech while the state’s Democratic nominee for the Senate stayed away and previously shared a stage Parade marched skipping Mr. Biden’s address.

As they head into the final stages of the midterm campaigns, Democratic candidates find themselves performing an intricate dance with an unpopular president whose approval rating is rising but still stubbornly remains underwater. In ways big and small, Democrats have attempted to signal their independence from the White House without alienating themselves from their base or distancing themselves from key parts of Mr. Biden’s agenda.

It’s a dynamic that presidents often face in mid-term cycles. What has been particularly striking this year is the extent to which the Democrats have outperformed the President. Even those who say they somewhat disapprove of Mr. Biden were more likely to vote Democrat than Republican in a Pew Research Center poll last month. Private polling conducted for the House Democrats’ campaign committee found that their most vulnerable incumbents’ net job approvals averaged more than 20 points ahead of Mr. Biden, a dynamic that emerged as early as April and at least until now late nights remained constant in August, according to a committee official.

The distance between Mr. Biden and his party has forced Democrats to take a particularly treacherous course in this midterm election, one where success means defying nearly half a century of political history. The last time a party with a relatively unpopular president retained control of Congress was in 1978. That November, Jimmy Carter’s approval rating hovered around 50 percent, and Mr. Biden won re-election to a second Senate term.

Those races are ancient history for most in his party, who must make a complicated series of policy decisions about how to deploy their leader at midterm as the president accelerates his fall campaign plan. Tensions are most acute in the Senate elections, where Democrats see a better chance of maintaining control than in the House of Representatives. When asked about the president, candidates in both the House and Senate elections have made it clear that they are racially focused.

“We made it very clear that I disagree with the President on this matter,” said Mr. Ryan, the Ohio congressman and Senate candidate whose campaign in a fairly Republican state has turned tougher than initially anticipated in recent weeks. “People realize I’m going to be for Ohio.”

Mr Biden has jokingly said he will campaign for or against a candidate “whichever helps most” – a light-hearted affirmation from a political veteran that every candidate must make their own political calculations about their ties to the White House. Party leaders, candidates and the President have attempted to reframe the election as a choice between two radically different visions for the country, rather than the traditional midterm referendum on the President and his agenda.

But the president’s advisers say they believe Mr. Biden – who was a cheer searched Deputy in 2018 – remains one of his party’s strongest ambassadors.

In recent weeks he has traveled to events in Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and competed in challenging races with a number of Democrats. This week he plans to appear with Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts Maura Healey and is expected to lead a fundraiser for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a Biden aide said.

At a summer meeting of the Democratic National Committee in Maryland, where Mr. Biden spoke Thursday, a number of party officials argued that the president should be adopted across the country and underscored the explosion of legislative gains enacted under his oversight in recent weeks became. His allies argue that unlike 2010 and 2014, when vulnerable Democrats ran away from Obama administration gains like the Affordable Care Act, this year has many candidates on Mr. Biden’s agenda.

“He has so many bold and sweeping accomplishments that he can go to a lot of places and talk to people about what he was able to accomplish,” said Cedric Richmond, a close adviser to Biden who was deployed to the DNC ahead of the mid-term campaigns.

This balancing act between supporting Mr. Biden’s agenda and keeping the president at arm’s length will only get harder this fall as Republicans plan to unleash tens of millions of dollars in advertising to tie Mr. Biden to candidates.

Mr. Biden’s recent visits to key swing states have prompted grumbling from strategists, who fear the visits are distracting from their efforts to localize their races and divert focus to missteps by their Republican opponents.

Some candidates, like Mandela Barnes, the Wisconsin Senate nominee, have skipped presidential stops. Former Rep. Joe Cunningham, a South Carolina Democrat who is now running for governor in that largely conservative state, has gone further than many in his party in openly urging Mr. Biden to forego reelection to make way for to make a younger generation.

“I’m not running against him and I’m not running with him — I’m running against McMaster,” Mr. Cunningham said, referring to his Republican opponent, Gov. Henry McMaster.

Another group of candidates has highlighted political disagreements on issues such as Mr Biden’s student loan proposal and his plans to lift Covid-era border restrictions to appeal to the independent voters who contributed to Mr Biden’s victory.

Many try to refer only marginally, if at all, to the President. Only three Democrats have run ads even mentioning Mr. Biden in their general election campaigns, all of which emphasize their independence from the president, according to AdImpact, the media tracking firm.

Rep. Kim Schrier, Democrat of Washington, has aired an ad highlighting her political independence, which features both a Republican and a Democratic mayor, and highlighting her work on bills passed under both Mr. Biden and by former President Donald J. Trump. Earlier this summer, she aired an ad citing “moving on the Biden administration to suspend the gas tax.”

“I will work with everyone for the benefit of the district,” she said in an interview. “I will also hold both presidents accountable” when it comes to constituent interests, she said.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the leader of the Democrats’ campaign arm in the House of Representatives, said that candidates in close races overall “put forward a version of the same argument, which is, ‘I know you have doubts about my party, but I have doubts about the work complete.'”

A number of candidates have appeared with Mr. Biden in their capacity as government officials as he has visited their states to promote legislative gains. It was a way of suggesting that they were fighting for local priorities at the highest level without necessarily aligning themselves with him.

When the President appeared in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in late August to speak about public safety and promoting federal funds to strengthen community policing in the area, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate running for governor, was present — in his government role as Attorney General, according to his office.

Whether voters make such distinctions is another question, especially since Mr. Biden has spoken about the midterms at some of those events. In Pennsylvania, he praised Mr. Shapiro as well as John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for the Senate. Mr. Fetterman did not attend this event but later appeared with Mr. Biden on Labor Day in Pittsburgh. At one point in Wilkes-Barre, Mr. Biden reversed the offices they were running for, saying of the 6-foot-8 tall Mr. Fetterman, “Elect that big old boy for governor.”

The stakes for Mr. Biden in this election are also high. Midterm wins could provide a stark counterpoint to those in the party arguing that he should not run for re-election in 2024. The president has already positioned the midterm races as a proxy war with his former rival Mr. Trump, who is harboring his own ambitions for a second term as president.

Rep. Tom Malinowski, a New Jersey Democrat running in a hard-fought seat, said he feels “a lot better about things than he did three or four months ago.” He said the political landscape appears to be changing because Democrats have made a number of legislative gains and are concerned about abortion rights, while Republicans “seem getting more and more stuck in the Mar-a-Lago mud.”

When asked if it would be helpful for the president to campaign with him, Mr. Malinowski replied, “I would love for Biden or any other president to come to my district to help me deliver for my constituents, eh.” he did it.”

“Donald Trump,” he added, “came to my district to play golf.”