U.S. voters headed to polls on Tuesday to cast their ballots for midterm elections, which is expected to bring profound changes for President Joe Biden's term, regardless of the results.
Voters cast their ballots at Robious Elementary School during the U.S. midterm election in Midlothian, Virginia, on Nov. 8, 2022.
In public, Biden professed optimism to the end, telling Democratic state party officials on election eve that “we’re going to surprise the living devil out of people.” In private, though, White House aides have been drawing up contingencies should Republicans take control of one, or both, — a scenario Biden said would make his life “more difficult.”
Marlo Miller prepares signage for the polling place inside her garage, before polls open during the U.S. midterms, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 8, 2022.
The president, who was making get-out-the-vote calls to radio outlets targeted at the Black community, planned to spend election night at the White House watching returns with advisers. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden would address the nation on Wednesday about the results, which are sure to be incomplete at that point.
A person holds a sign in support of Reverend Raphael Warnock, Democratic Senator for Georgia, ahead of a "Get Out the Vote" midterm election rally in Macon, Georgia, U.S., Nov. 7, 2022.
The president last week appealed for Americans to be “patient” as votes are counted and to avoid engaging in conspiracy theories, a message he was likely to repeat Wednesday about pending returns.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump and former first lady Melania Trump walk together after voting at a polling station setup in the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center on Nov. 8, 2022, in Palm Beach, Florida.
Biden, in his first two years, pushed through sweeping bills to address the coronavirus pandemic, rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, address climate change and boost the nation’s competitiveness over China — all with the slimmest of congressional majorities. Now, aides and allies say, his focus will turn to preserving those gains, implementing the massive pieces of legislation — perhaps while under intense GOP oversight — sustaining effective governance in an even more charged environment and shoring up his party’s standing ahead of the next presidential election.
A boy plays his video game while his father votes in the 2022 midterm elections in Efland, North Carolina, U.S., Nov. 8, 2022.
Should Republicans win control of Congress, Biden allies are gearing up for fights on keeping the government funded and its financial obligations met, sustaining and protecting his signature legislative achievements from repeal efforts. Republican wins could also usher in a host of GOP candidates whom Biden has branded as threats to democracy for refusing to acknowledge the results of the 2020 presidential race, limiting potential avenues of cooperation and exposing new challenges ahead of 2024.
A man in a voting booth at a polling site at St. Francis College in the Brooklyn borough of New York, New York, Nov. 8, 2022.
The Biden administration has been preparing for months for an expected flood of GOP investigations should Republicans take over one or both chambers, devising legal and media strategies to address probes into everything from the chaotic to presidential
If the Republicans take power, Princeton University historian Julian Zelizer said, history shows it would be “very effective” for Biden to “focus on their extremism, and to turn their new power against them.”
People in voting booths at a polling site at St. Francis College in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
White House aides and allies have been closely monitoring the clamoring on the right to investigate or even impeach Biden. While they have pledged to cooperate on what they see as legitimate oversight, they are eager to exact a political toll on Republicans should they overreach, casting the GOP as focused on investigations instead of the issues most important to Americans’ lives.
The potential shift comes as Biden, at 79, has repeated his intention to run for reelection. He will need to make a final decision soon, perhaps teeing up a rematch against former President Donald Trump, who has teased his own expected announcement for Nov. 15.
Voters cast their ballots at Main Street Station on Election Day in Richmond, Virginia, on Nov. 8, 2022.
A bad midterm outcome doesn’t preclude a president’s reelection — historically incumbents are strongly favored to win another term. But Zelizer said that even presidents who manage to defy history and avoid major losses or hold their majorities are forced to change course for the balance of their terms.
“What effective presidents do, is they make defending what they’ve already done a priority,” he said. “And then come election time, your record, even if it hasn’t grown since the midterms, it looks good. What you don’t want is it to be dismantled, not to be able to implement it, and then your opponent in 2024 is going to say, ‘Look, what he did was just terribly ineffective and didn’t work.’"
A voter arrives at a polling place in Our Lady of Victory Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the US midterm elections, on Nov. 8, 2022.
In a tacit admission of his narrowed ambitions, Biden’s has largely focused on promoting his accomplishments and warning of the consequences of a GOP takeover. The larger elements of his 2020 agenda that fell to the cutting room floor during his two years of legislating — such as expanding free early childcare and two years of community college — have hardly factored into his speeches.
What hints he has given about what he hopes to pass in the coming two years have been conditioned on the slim chance that Democrats expand their thin majorities in Congress: passing an assault weapons ban, voting reform and a law codifying a right to abortion nationwide.
Pressed Monday on why Biden hadn’t done more to outline what he hopes to accomplish in his next two years, Jean-Pierre said: “Why not just tell the country what we have done? Why not just lay that out? Which we have.”
The U.S. Capitol on the morning of the U.S. midterm election, in Washington, D.C.
The president's advisers have stressed the headwinds facing Democrats this year, as inflation combines with historic trends that are unfavorable to the party in control of the White House. They maintain that Biden's agenda remains popular with voters and has been embraced, not shunned, by his party's candidates — unlike 2010, when Democrats fled from the unpopularity of the Affordable Care Act, the Obama-era health law, and went on to lose 63 House seats and six Senate seats.
Republicans under Trump lost 40 House seats but gained two Senate seats in 2018, and Democrats under Bill Clinton lost 52 House seats and eight Senate seats in 1994.
Republican Senatorial candidate for Pennsylvania Mehmet Öz gestures as he speaks during a get-out-the-vote rally ahead of the US midterm elections, in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 7, 2022.
Biden allies have begun considering areas of potential bipartisan cooperation that could also pay 2024 dividends should Republicans block them, such as veterans’ care and lowering insulin costs for all Americans. The Democrats’ August health care and climate bill capped the drug’s cost at $35 a month for seniors.
Cedric Richmond, the former Louisiana congressman and ex-Biden aide who is now a top adviser to the Democratic National Committee, said Biden would focus on areas of bipartisan cooperation in the second half of his first term.
President Joe Biden takes pictures with supporters during a rally on the eve of the US midterm elections, at Bowie State University in Bowie, Maryland, on Nov. 7, 2022.
“Regardless of who’s in, he’s going to work to try to accomplish his goals,” Richmond said. He pointed to Biden's ability to push through the infrastructure bill and a law improve veterans' health care as areas "where he brought Republicans along, so he’s going to continue doing what he’s doing, which is busting his tail to get accomplishments.”
Election workers help Detroit residents as they vote at First Congregational Church on Nov. 8, 2022, in Detroit, Michigan.
