A memo from White House senior adviser
Mike Donilon
landed in Washington inboxes last week, claiming President Biden is enjoying a “strong jolt of momentum.”
Mr. Donilon spun a tale with Mr. Biden’s “approval rating on the upswing, a resilient economic climate, and strong support for the President’s agenda.” Neither “Republican extremism” nor abortion or “concern for our democracy” decided the November election, he said. Instead, the answer lies in “what hasn’t been fully reported on” or “fully understood”—namely, “how important a role the achievements and agenda of the President and the Democrats played in the midterms.”
Maybe. But let’s consider the effect of those “achievements and agenda” in key states.
Ohio’s Republican Gov.
Mike DeWine
won re-election by 25 points and led the GOP in sweeping every state office by 18 to 21 points as well as all three Supreme Court slots by 12 to 14 points. The U.S. Senate race was closer—a nearly 7-point win for Republican J.D. Vance—only because Mr. Vance was a flawed candidate and Democratic Rep.
Tim Ryan
spent the campaign declaring his independence from Mr. Biden. Ohio won’t be in play for Democrats in 2024.
Floridians weren’t impressed by the “Biden-Harris Administration achievements and agenda” either. Republican Gov.
Ron DeSantis
prevailed by more than 19 points against Democrat
Charlie Crist.
The GOP swept every statewide office by 18 to 22 points, picked up four House seats and won supermajorities in both state legislative chambers.
Then there’s Georgia, a new battleground that Mr. Biden carried narrowly in 2020. Republican Gov.
Brian Kemp
won by 7.5 points, leading the entire statewide GOP ticket to victory with the exception of Senate candidate
Hershel Walker.
He lost because Sen.
Raphael Warnock
focused on Mr. Walker’s lack of “character and competence” rather than on the Biden record.
Similarly, Arizona Democrats played down their Biden links, choosing instead to highlight character differences and state issues. The Democratic gubernatorial nominee,
Katie Hobbs,
focused on…
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