The midterm elections appear to be headed in the direction of the GOP, and this has made the Democratic Party unbelievably desperate.
The left has long seen the 2022 election as a must-win, or at least a must-maintain, as losing control of either or both houses of Congress would likely relegate the entire organization to the second tier of the American political system.
Now, in their desperation, they’re turning to their last President for help.
Barack Obama joked at a campaign rally in Milwaukee over the weekend that the state’s Democratic governor — Tony Evers, the bespectacled one-time science teacher mired in a neck-and-neck race for a second term — had “more of a Clark Kent” than a Superman vibe.
“But don’t let the glasses fool you,” Obama said, chuckling.
If anyone’s looking to be rescued in this final stretch before the midterms, it’s the Democratic Party. And it’s turning, yet again, to the 44th president to save them from freefall.
With Joe Biden’s poll numbers stuck in the low 40s, the sitting president has largely been absent from the trail in the final weeks of the campaign, opting for a mix of speeches from the Washington area and headlining fundraisers. Into the void stepped his former boss, who reminded crowds over the weekend that he remains — far and away — his party’s most effective surrogate.
And the desperation was widespread.
Nobody is more in demand than Obama. His team was inundated with requests to speak, with Democrats imploring him to cut brief get-out-the-vote videos and congressional leaders leaning on him to headline fundraisers with them. It harked back to times when, as president, Obama would issue endorsement lists that delved so far down the ballot that some of the announcements more closely resembled a phone book than a standard news release.
Obama hit a trio of battleground states over two days to rally the base for Senate and gubernatorial hopefuls in tough races. On Tuesday, he’ll be in Nevada to do the same, before heading to Phoenix on Wednesday and then Pennsylvania alongside Biden on the final weekend before Election Day.
With only a week left until the midterms arrive, Obama’s help may be a day late and buck short with political pollsters beginning to again suggest that a “red wave” is headed toward Congress.
