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      Will Biden’s Recent Victories Lift the Democrats?

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      More from our inbox:What’s Better, an After-School Program or a Job?President Biden is still one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history, despite his political victories.Yuri Gripas for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Biden Basks in String of Wins. Will This Be a Turning Point?” (news analysis, front page, Aug. 9):The president’s legislative agenda, a close approximation to the one promised, has passed. These are accomplishments, not rhetorical speculations. That the president has low ratings at this juncture speaks volumes not about him — he has delivered, and in under two years — but about the fuzzy-thinking electorate surveyed by pollsters.Yes, voters are perennially concerned about their purchasing power and the brutal effects of inflation. Americans need to be reminded that presidents do not bring inflation with them to the White House. A complex set of global problems — including a war, a pandemic and supply chain problems — contribute to a disrupted economy.Americans would do well in this historic moment to stop and smell the proverbial roses: We, as a country, have finally acted on climate change. And drug pricing. And infrastructure. And, incredibly, guns. Much remains to be done on all these fronts. Nothing is perfect, though voters polled seem disappointed that all their wishes don’t come true on Election Day.President Biden’s poll numbers are low, but let us take a poll of climate activists, people struggling with the cost of drugs, those who understand the truly herculean effort it took to pass the Inflation Reduction Act bill. Would his numbers be higher? I’ll go out on a limb and say they would triple.Will SouthColumbia, S.C.To the Editor:As a Democrat who had previously been disillusioned with President Biden’s commitment to working with Congress in a bipartisan manner, I found the legislative and economic accomplishments noted in this article reassuring and worth celebrating.However, they may not mark a turnaround for the Biden presidency, especially with respect to the coming midterm elections. We can simply revisit the first two years of the Obama administration to see why.Barack Obama’s legislative, economic and judicial achievements through the second year of his presidency are comparable, if not more remarkable, than those of Mr. Biden. By August 2010, Mr. Obama had already nominated two Supreme Court justices, passed Dodd-Frank and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and signed into law what was arguably his crowning piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act.But, as we all know, he and the Democrats suffered substantial losses in the midterm elections of 2010.So, is Joe Biden on a legislative hot streak? Yes. But will it play to his advantage during the midterms? History suggests otherwise.Ravin BhatiaBrookline, Mass.What’s Better, an After-School Program or a Job? BjelicaS/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “The Best Extracurricular Is a Job” by Pamela Paul (column, July 31):Ms. Paul is right to lament the decline in the number of teenagers who work after school. Teens who work can learn valuable things about themselves and work life that are not readily available otherwise.Where Ms. Paul goes wrong is in playing down extracurricular and after-school activities. After-school experiences help teens develop soft skills and self-confidence. They also provide credentials for getting good jobs down the road.In my research, I spoke with dozens of human resources professionals who had conducted mock job interviews with teens who had participated in after-school programs.The professionals were impressed with the experiences and skills that the teens had acquired and considered many of them to be hirable, even without a history of paid employment. In particular, after-school programs provide opportunities for teens to develop complex leadership skills, something they can rarely do at work.Teens need sequences of after-school programs and work experiences that build on each other, providing the best of both worlds.Bart HirschEvanston, Ill.The writer is professor emeritus of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, and the author of “Job Skills and Minority Youth: New Program Directions.” More

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      Why Isn’t Biden Ever on TV?

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      Americans are seeing a lot less of the president than they did of his predecessor. That’s partly by design.On a sweltering day last month, President Biden traveled to Somerset, Mass. Appearing on a bulldozed patch of land where a coal-fired power plant recently stood, and where a substation for an offshore wind farm eventually will, Biden delivered what the White House press office billed as remarks on “actions to tackle the climate crisis.” The previous week, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia seemingly torpedoed Biden’s ambitious climate package (though Manchin would soon resurrect it). In the meantime, much of the country was suffering from extreme weather: wildfires, floods, record heat. Now Biden, sporting Ray-Bans and forgoing a tie in the blistering heat, looked out at the crowd and the cameras. “Let me be clear,” he declared. “Climate change is an emergency.”Does any of this sound familiar? Can you picture it? Probably not: None of the three major cable news channels carried the speech live. All three network news shows led with stories about record-high temperatures — “the suffocating heat gripping more than 100 million Americans,” as NBC’s Lester Holt described it, only to be one-upped by ABC’s David Muir, who spoke of “heat warnings and advisories for 29 states now, more than 140 million Americans.” But they didn’t cover Biden’s speech until well into their newscasts, and then only for a minute or so; if you had stepped away to adjust your air-conditioner, you might have missed it.The leader of the free world does not have much of a visual presence in it.If you saw any of the president’s speech online, it was most likely the brief segment in which he recalled the oil refineries near his childhood home and said they were “why I and so many damn other people I grew up with have cancer.” Critics, seizing on what they saw as a gaffe, circulated that clip all over social media: “Did Joe Biden just announce he has cancer?” an official Republican National Committee account posted on Twitter. Biden’s defenders said he was referring to the nonmelanoma skin cancers he has had removed in the past. Bill Clinton once prompted a debate about “the meaning of the word ‘is’”; Biden’s speech started one about the semantics of “have.”The lack of substantive coverage of the climate speech itself illustrates an unusual feature of Biden’s presidency: The leader of the free world does not have much of a visual presence in it.No president, of course, could have quite the visual presence of Biden’s predecessor. Donald Trump filled our screens. The cable channels went live for his speeches and cabinet meetings and grip-and-grins with foreign dignitaries — even his walks from the White House to a helicopter — in the entirely justified hope that he would do something newsworthy. Try to pick the indelible image of Trump’s presidency. It’s impossible: There are too many. The white-knuckled squeeze of Emanuel Macron’s hand during an uncomfortably long shake. Standing on the South Lawn reading from a Sharpie-festooned legal pad, denying any “quid pro quo” with Ukraine. Holding up a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church during the protests over George Floyd’s murder. These images compete with dozens, maybe hundreds, more. Now try to select an image from — much less the indelible image of — Biden’s presidency. You can’t, because there aren’t any. This is partly by design. Biden’s 2020 campaign was founded, in large part, on the promise of a return to normalcy, and it is not normal for Americans to be thinking about their president as relentlessly as they did during the Trump years. “People got tired of listening to and seeing the president,” Martha Joynt Kumar, a scholar of presidential media strategy, told me. “They were exhausted by the end of the Trump administration.”Biden has provided a respite. According to Kumar’s tabulations, he has held about half as many as news conferences and given around a third as many interviews as Trump had at this point in his presidency. It’s not just submitting to fewer questions from the press; he’s in front of cameras less frequently than Trump as well, even spending days with nothing at all on his public schedule. To Republicans, this is proof of Biden’s senescence; to the press, his lack of transparency. But when CNN asked the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, what Biden was doing during two days out of view last month, she replied that he had been “very busy dealing with the issues of the American people, and meeting with his staff and senior staff the last two days.”That could well be true. The problem, for Biden, is that his predecessor redefined what’s expected of the president. There has long been a performative component to the role, but Trump made public performance the entire job. The press covered his every appearance not just because his behavior resulted in gaffes but because it set policy. A defining feature of the Trump years was the president publicly fulminating about something, and then administration officials scrambling to cobble together policy proposals that matched his fulminations. To pick one of many instances, in 2018 Trump announced, while venting to reporters about immigration, that he was enlisting the U.S. military to guard the border with Mexico. The White House subsequently clarified that Trump meant he was mobilizing the National Guard, not active-duty military, but when Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen was produced to explain the plan to reporters, she had no details to offer: “We’ll let you know as soon as we can,” she said. “I’m going to get on phone calls right now.” Biden, somewhat anachronistically, still insists on putting the horse before the cart. After Manchin seemed to sink the administration’s climate agenda last month, Democrats called on the president to formally declare a climate emergency, which would theoretically allow him to circumvent Congress in taking action. But he demurred. Speaking to reporters after the Massachusetts speech — in which he pointedly did not declare a climate emergency — he explained, “I’m running the traps on the totality of the authority I have.” This should be an admirable trait. But Biden’s reticence often registers as an absence. When Democrats criticized him for not being forceful enough in his response to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, it wasn’t necessarily because they expected him to do anything; as a matter of law, there was little he could do. But they did want the face of their party to assume a mantle of leadership, demonstrate resolve and help channel their energies. Considering Biden’s limitations — his age, his focus on policy — you might expect to see his young vice president out making the case for the administration. But Kamala Harris has her own problems. In the pair’s absence, Democrats are looking elsewhere. Some get excited whenever Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s secretary of transportation, goes on Fox News to dismantle a few loaded questions, circulating YouTube clips with titles like “Pete Buttigieg HUMILIATES Fox News Host with EPIC Response on Live TV.” Others hail Gov. Gavin Newsom of California as “an effective and fierce fighter,” in the words of the liberal pundit Dean Obeidallah, for running ads in Florida and Texas trolling those states’ Republican governors. A Michigan state senator named Mallory McMorrow raised more than $1 million from donors in 50 states after her speech on the G.O.P.’s treatment of the L.G.B.T.Q. community went viral. On their screens and in their imaginations, Democrats are experiencing a great and public void. At some point, someone is going to have to fill it for them.Source photographs: Jim Watson/Getty Images; Andrew Merry/Getty Images; Joseph Prezioso/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images; Frans Lemmens/Getty ImagesJason Zengerle is a contributing writer for the magazine. He is working on a book about Tucker Carlson and conservative media. More

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      Democrats Enter the Fall Armed With Something New: Hope

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      Vulnerable incumbent Democratic senators like Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada are already planning events promoting the landmark legislation they passed over the weekend. Democratic ad makers are busily preparing a barrage of commercials about it across key battlegrounds. And the White House is set to deploy Cabinet members on a nationwide sales pitch.The sweeping legislation, covering climate change and prescription drug prices, which came together in the Senate after more than a year of painfully public fits and starts, has kicked off a frenetic 91-day sprint to sell the package by November — and win over an electorate that has grown skeptical of Democratic rule.For months, Democrats have discussed their midterm anxieties in near-apocalyptic terms, as voters threatened to take out their anger over high gas prices and soaring inflation on the party in power. But the deal on the broad new legislation, along with signs of a brewing voter revolt over abortion rights, has some Democrats experiencing a flicker of an unfamiliar feeling: hope.“This bill gives Democrats that centerpiece accomplishment,” said Ali Lapp, the president of House Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC.In interviews, Democratic strategists, advisers to President Biden, lawmakers running in competitive seats and political ad makers all expressed optimism that the legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act — would deliver the party a necessary and powerful tool to show they were focused on lowering costs at a time of economic hardship for many. They argued its key provisions could be quickly understood by crucial constituencies.“It is easy to talk about because it has a real impact on people every day,” Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, the White House deputy chief of staff, said in an interview. The measure must still pass the House and could come up for a vote there later this week. “It’s congressional Democrats who’ve gotten it done — with no help from congressional Republicans.”Senator Chuck Schumer on Sunday after Democrats in the Senate passed the climate and tax bill.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesWhether Democrats can keep the measure in the spotlight is another matter. On Monday evening, former President Donald J. Trump said the F.B.I. had searched his Palm Beach, Fla., home, a significant development that threatened to overshadow the news of the Senate deal and that gave already-energized Republicans a new cause to circle the wagons around Mr. Trump.Still, for younger voters, who polls have shown to be cool to Mr. Biden and his party, the package contains the most sweeping efforts to address climate change in American history. For older voters, the deal includes popular measures sought for decades by Democrats to rein in the price of prescription drugs for seniors on Medicare. And for both the Democratic base and independents, the deal cuts against the Republican argument that a Democratic-controlled Washington is a morass of incompetence and gridlock unfocused on issues that affect average Americans.“It’s very significant because it shows that the Democrats care about solving problems, it shows that we can get things done and I think it starts to turn around some of the talk about Biden,” said Representative Dina Titus, a Nevada Democrat running in a competitive re-election race, alluding to angst about the president as his national approval rating has hovered around 40 percent.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsKansas Abortion Vote: After a decisive victory for abortion rights in deep-red Kansas, Democrats vowed to elevate the issue nationwide, while some Republicans softened their stands against abortion.Wisconsin Primary: Former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters have turned the false notion that his 2020 defeat can still be reversed into a central issue ahead of the state’s G.O.P. primary for governor.Election Deniers: In Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, Republicans who dispute the legitimacy of the 2020 election are on a path toward winning decisive control over how elections are run.Senate Races: The key question with less than 100 days until the fall election: Can Democratic candidates in crucial Senate contests continue to outpace President Biden’s unpopularity? Adding to the Democratic Party’s brightening outlook were the results of the Kansas referendum on abortion rights last week, when a measure that would have removed abortion protections from the Kansas Constitution was overwhelmingly defeated. It was a stark reminder of the volatile and unpredictable political impact of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.Voters in Lawrence, Kan., last week when the state abortion referendum was defeated.Katie Currid for The New York Times“I can kind of feel it on the streets, that there’s some change in momentum,” Ms. Titus said.Indeed, in recent days, Democrats pulled ahead of Republicans for the first time this year when voters were asked which party they would prefer to control Congress — the so-called generic ballot test — according to polling averages maintained by the data-journalism website FiveThirtyEight.There is no guarantee of success in selling the bill. Last year, the White House shepherded through a rare bipartisan infrastructure deal. But its passage, which drew great fanfare in Washington, did little to arrest the continual decline in Mr. Biden’s approval ratings — and many Americans were still unaware that the measure passed months later, polling showed.Republicans say the new legislation could galvanize their own base against an expansive progressive wish list that has been decades in the making, just as the passage of the Affordable Care Act preceded the Republican wave of 2010.“That’s the sort of thing that could really set a spark to the powder keg — in the same way that the midnight passage of Obamacare was the moment that electrified Republican voters and started to really pull independents in our direction,” said Steven Law, who leads the main Republican super PAC devoted to Senate races.Republican assaults on the legislation — for bulking up the Internal Revenue Service, for creating a green energy “slush fund,” as Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, has called it, and for expanding spending programs despite the bill’s Inflation Reduction Act title — have already begun. More

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      Democrats and Republicans Struggle to Forecast 2022 Midterms

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      Doug Sosnik is the kind of political analyst who likes to figure out the results of the next election well in advance — it’s just how he’s wired.But even Sosnik, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton who now tries to forecast elections as a hobby, is stumped about the 2022 midterms.“I can’t figure this one out,” Sosnik said on Monday, a day after Democrats passed Build Back Better — whoops, pardon me, the Inflation Reduction Act, a woolly mammoth-size package that aims to shrink both the deficit and the risk of catastrophic climate change.The bill’s passage is one of a string of recent victories for beleaguered Democrats, who have spent the past 18 months squabbling among themselves and fretting about the coming elections. Gas prices are ticking down. Jobs are plentiful, with the unemployment rate at a 50-year low.Congress also passed the bipartisan CHIPS Act, a bill that would provide $52 billion in subsidies and tax credits to companies that manufacture chips in the United States and would add more than $200 billion for applied scientific research.Even President Biden, whose age and concern about the virus forced him to spend much of the 2020 presidential election campaigning from his home in Wilmington, Del., managed to shrug off 18 days of coronavirus-induced quarantine.As Ethel Merman might say, everything seems to be coming up roses for Joe and the gang in recent weeks, despite widespread predictions that Democrats are likely to lose the House and possibly the Senate.A ‘blood bath’ that might never arriveAccording to the usual logic Sosnik uses to make predictions, Democrats should expect a “blood bath” in the fall. But he’s not so sure anymore and is questioning everything he knows about the deeper patterns of U.S. elections.He is puzzled by one thing in particular: Which past elections offer a guide to 2022?The question doesn’t have an easy answer, in part because times have changed — there was no recent assault on the Capitol with the partial backing of one particular party in the 1982 midterms, for instance — and in part because the nature of political partisanship has changed.That latter point makes it really hard to compare today’s approval ratings to the past; back in, say, the 1960s, voters were much more inclined to give the president the benefit of the doubt. Today, far fewer partisans are willing to give the other side an ounce of credit or respect.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsKansas Abortion Vote: After a decisive victory for abortion rights in deep-red Kansas, Democrats vowed to elevate the issue nationwide, while some Republicans softened their stands against abortion.Wisconsin Primary: Former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters have turned the false notion that his 2020 defeat can still be reversed into a central issue ahead of the state’s G.O.P. primary for governor.Election Deniers: In Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, Republicans who dispute the legitimacy of the 2020 election are on a path toward winning decisive control over how elections are run.Senate Races: The key question with less than 100 days until the fall election: Can Democratic candidates in crucial Senate contests continue to outpace President Biden’s unpopularity? Midterms are completely different animals than presidential election cycles, too: Fewer voters turn out, and the electorate tends to be older and more Republican.Historically, or at least since World War II, the party in power has lost seats in every midterm election but two: 1998 and 2002.The first came as Clinton skillfully exploited the unpopularity of congressional Republicans, whose impeachment drive backfired. The second came after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when patriotic sentiments were still running high.But these midterms are structurally different from many others. For one thing, many of the Democratic House members in battleground districts — the Cindy Axnes and Elissa Slotkins of the world — were elected in the anti-Trump wave of 2018. Those who held onto their seats in 2020, a good year for Republicans in Congress despite Trump’s loss, may know a thing or two about staying in office. More

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      Biden’s Remarkable Summer

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      Media narratives are driven by trajectory.Things get better or worse. People rise and fall. Maybe there is an upstart sensation who threatens the establishment. Maybe there is a spectacular fall from grace. Maybe there is a comeback. Regardless of the story, the direction of movement is what matters.Joe Biden got caught in one of those narratives: that things were going badly and people were losing confidence. Then, of course, the polls backed up that narrative, which provided a patina of proof.But the truth is that news narratives and polls are symbiotic. The narratives help shape what people believe, which is then captured by the polls, and those polling results are then fed back into news narratives as separate, objective and independent fact.“Joe Biden can’t catch a break” was a neat narrative. Every new disappointing data point fit snugly within it. But reality doesn’t play by media rules. It is often much more nuanced.As the legendary football coach Lou Holtz once put it: “You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.”Biden has had some bad months, to be sure, but there is no way to get around the fact the last month or so has been stellar for the administration.On the economic front, as of Wednesday, gas prices had fallen for 50 consecutive days, down 86 cents from the record average high of $5.02 on June 14, according to CNN. The jobs market has also shown incredible resilience. Friday’s jobs report alone far outpaced expectations.There are challenges. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation increased “9.1 percent for the 12 months ending June, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending November 1981.” This doesn’t invalidate that Biden has had a good month; it only underscores the complexities of any news story.On the legislative front, in June, Biden signed the most significant federal gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years. Two weeks ago, his big spending bill, Build Back Better, which everyone thought was dead, was resurrected in the trimmed down form of the Inflation Reduction Act. Now, all Senate Democrats have gotten behind the bill and it has passed in that body. These developments don’t erase legislative disappointments like the failure of the voter protection bill or the police reform bill, but they are victories nonetheless.There are foreign policy wins, like the killing of the Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri in Afghanistan, and the overwhelming vote in the Senate in favor of expanding NATO to include Finland and Sweden, a direct reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And the Russians have suggested that they are open to discussing a prison swap to free Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, both of whom are still being held in Russian custody. Here, again, there are challenges. For instance, tensions are heating up with China, particularly after a visit to Taiwan by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.Then, there is the uber issue of the Supreme Court striking down the right to an abortion. This was a gutting disappointment to liberals, and many have accused the White House of not reacting strongly enough.But it appears that the issue has roused some otherwise disinterested or dispassionate voters and may help Democrats to hold off a massive wave of Republican wins in the midterms. We need look no further than Kansas, a state that voted strongly for Trump in 2020, but that last week voted even more strongly to keep the right to an abortion in the state Constitution.Biden’s string of victories may not yet be enough to shift the narrative about him from spiraling to rebounding, but a fair read of recent events demands some adjustment.The White House must also shift its messaging, from defensive to offensive. I’ve never truly bought the argument that Biden’s polling was bad because he simply wasn’t doing enough to tout his accomplishments. There were some periods where the disappointments actually seemed to carry more weight than his achievements.But that’s not the case now, and the administration must seize this moment, and not be shy about shouting about its wins.This is one area where Donald Trump succeeded: boasting. When he was campaigning in 2016, he claimed that if he was elected, people might even “get tired of winning.” As he put it, people would say: “Please, please, it’s too much winning. We can’t take it anymore. Mr. President, it’s too much.” To which he said he would respond: “No it isn’t. We have to keep winning. We have to win more.”He would go through his term bragging about how anything that happened on his watch was the biggest and best.We now know that the Trump presidency was a disaster that nearly destroyed the country, but, if a failure like Trump can crow about all he did, even when the evidence wasn’t there, then surely Biden can find a way to do a little crowing of his own, particularly during one of the most successful stretches of his presidency.Biden, you did it. Boast about it.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Hey, Joe, Don’t Give It a Go

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      WASHINGTON — Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a cautionary tale.She missed the moment to leave the stage, ignoring friendly nudges from Democrats and entreaties from Obama allies. She fell in love with her late-in-life image as a hip cultural icon: “Notorious R.B.G.,” the octogenarian cancer survivor who could hold 30-second planks. She thought she was the indispensable person, and that ended in disaster. Her death opened the door to the most conservative court in nearly a century. Her successor, a religious zealot straight out of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” is erasing Justice Ginsburg’s achievements on women’s rights.The timing of your exit can determine your place in the history books.This is something Joe Biden should keep in mind as he is riding the crest of success. His inner circle, irritated by stories about concerns over his age and unpopularity, will say this winning streak gives Biden the impetus to run again.The opposite is true. It should give him the confidence to leave, secure in the knowledge that he has made his mark.With the help of Chuck and Nancy, President Biden has had a cascade of legislative accomplishments on tech manufacturing, guns, infrastructure — and hopefully soon, climate and prescription drugs — that validate his promises when he ran. These are genuine achievements that Democrats have been chasing for decades, and they will affect generations to come. On Monday, from the balcony off the Blue Room, he crowed about the drone-killing of the evil Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s top leader, who helped plan the 9/11 massacres. On Friday, he came out again to brag about surprising job numbers.Defying all expectations, the president has changed the narrative. Before, the riff was that he was too old school and reliant on his cross-party relationships in the Senate. Now old school is cool. The old dude in the aviators has shown he can get things done, often with bipartisan support.But this is the moment for Biden to decide if all of this is fuel for a re-election campaign, when he will be 81 (82 on Inauguration Day), or a legacy on which to rest.He could leave on a high, knowing that he has delivered on his promises for progress and restored decency to the White House. He did serve as a balm to the bombastic Donald Trump. Over the next two years he could get more of what he wants and then step aside. It would be self-effacing and patriotic, a stark contrast to the self-absorbed and treasonous Trump.He offered himself up as an escape from Trump and Trumpism, a way to help us get our bearings after the thuggish and hallucinatory reign of a con man. Then he and his team got carried away and began unrealistically casting him as an F.D.R. with a grand vision to remake the social contract. Biden’s mission was not to be a visionary but to be a calming force for a country desperately in need of calming, and a bridge to the next generation. So he’s a logical one-termer, and that keeps him true to his high-minded point: What does the country really need?The country really needs to dodge a comeback by Trump or the rise of the odious Ron DeSantis. There is a growing sense in the Democratic Party and in America that this will require new blood. If the president made his plans clear now, it would give Democrats a chance to sort through their meh field and leave time for a fresh, inspiring candidate to emerge.Usually, being a lame duck weakens you. But in Biden’s case, it could strengthen him. We live in a Washington where people too often put power over principle. So many Republicans have behaved grotesquely out of fear that Trump will turn on them. So the act of leaving could elevate Biden, freeing him from typical re-election pressures, so he and his team could do what they thought was right rather than what was politically expedient.It would also take steam out of what are certain to be Republican attempts to impeach him should they regain the House and make him less of a target for their nasty attacks on his age and abilities. The next two years could be hellish, with Republicans tearing Biden down and refusing to do anything that could be seen as benefiting him.Biden’s advisers think if you just ignore the age question, it will go away. But it is already a hot topic in focus groups and an undercurrent in Democratic circles, as lawmakers are pressed to answer whether they think Biden should run again or not. (Axios has started a running tally.)These are dangerous times — with inflation hurting us, weather killing us, the Ukraine war grinding, China tensions boiling, women’s rights on the line, and election deniers at CPAC, where Viktor Orbán spews fascist bile to a wildly enthusiastic audience. It might be best to have a president unshackled from the usual political restraints.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      In Senate Battle, Democrats Defy Biden’s Low Standing (for Now)

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      “The billion-dollar question,” as one Republican pollster put it, is whether Democratic candidates in crucial Senate races can continue to outpace the president’s unpopularity.PHOENIX — In a Senate split 50-50, Democrats on the campaign trail and in Congress have zero margin for error as the party tries to navigate a hostile political environment defined chiefly by President Biden’s albatross-like approval ratings.But with the Senate battlefield map mostly set after primaries in Arizona and Missouri this past week, Democratic candidates are outperforming Mr. Biden — locked in tight races or ahead in almost every key contest.In Washington, Senate Democrats are racing to bolster their position, pressing for a vote as soon as Monday on a sweeping legislative package that represents their last, best sales pitch before the midterms to stay in power.The history of midterms and unpopular presidents, however, is working against them. With the fall election less than 100 days away, the defining question of the struggle for the Senate is how long Democrats in crucial races can continue to outpace Mr. Biden’s unpopularity — and by how much.“That’s the billion-dollar question,” said Robert Blizzard, a Republican pollster who has studied the pattern of how a president’s support has affected Senate races over the last decade. His findings: Precious few candidates can outrun the president by more than a half-dozen percentage points — a worrisome fact for Democrats when Mr. Biden’s approval has fallen below 40 percent nationally.“The president’s approval rating acts as a weight on their party’s nominee,” Mr. Blizzard said. “Gravity is going to apply at some point.”So far, Senate Democrats have been buoyed by a cash edge, some strong candidates and the fact that Republicans have nominated a series of first-time candidates — Herschel Walker in Georgia, Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Blake Masters in Arizona — who have struggled to find their footing, have faced questions about their past and have generally been unable to keep the 2022 campaign focused on unhappiness with Democratic rule in Washington.Republican strategists involved in Senate races, granted anonymity to speak candidly, say that those three candidates — all of whom were endorsed by Donald J. Trump in the primaries — are falling short of expectations.President Biden and congressional Democrats are hoping that their climate and tax legislation can energize their party’s frustrated base.Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesDemocratic strategists hope the domestic package of climate and tax policies they are aiming to push through Congress, along with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, could reinvigorate a demoralized party base that is particularly displeased with Mr. Biden. But Republicans insist that passage of major legislation, as happened with the 2010 Affordable Care Act, could galvanize their side as well and could further intertwine Democratic senators with Mr. Biden in the minds of voters.The race for control of the Senate is occurring chiefly in more than a half-dozen presidential swing states, making Mr. Biden’s approval ratings all the more relevant. Republicans need to pick up only a single seat to take control, and four incumbent Democrats face tough races. Three Republican retirements have created opportunities for Democrats, and one Republican senator is running for re-election in Wisconsin, a state that Mr. Biden won narrowly.On Tuesday, Republicans scored one success, averting disaster in Missouri when voters rejected the comeback Senate bid of Eric Greitens, the scandal-plagued former governor, in favor of Eric Schmitt, the state attorney general, who is now considered the heavy favorite.In the best-case scenario for Democrats, they maintain control or even net a couple of seats if the environment shifts; in the worst case, support for Mr. Biden collapses, and Democrats lose roughly half a dozen seats, including some in bluer states like Colorado and Washington.Understand the Aug. 2 Primary ElectionsWhile the Trump wing of the Republican Party flexed its muscle, voters in deep-red Kansas delivered a loud warning to the G.O.P. on abortion rights.Takeaways: Tuesday’s results suggest this year’s midterms are a trickier environment for uncompromising conservatives than Republicans once believed. Here’s what we learned.Kansas Abortion Vote: In the first election test since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Kansas voters resoundingly decided against removing the right to abortion from the State Constitution, a major victory for the abortion rights movement in a reliably conservative state.Trump’s Grip on G.O.P.: Primary victories in Arizona and Michigan for allies of former President Donald J. Trump reaffirmed his continued influence over the Republican Party.Winners and Losers: See a rundown of the most notable results.For now, Republicans see Mr. Biden as their not-so-secret weapon. Some ads are literally morphing Senate Democrats’ faces into his, part of a brutal planned blitz of ads to yoke incumbents to their pro-Biden voting records.“What we call the 97 percent club — that they voted for this 97 percent of the time,” said Steven Law, who leads the main Senate Republican super PAC, which has $141 million in television ads reserved this fall.In an ad produced by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, an image of Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado slowly turns into Mr. Biden.National Republican Senate CommitteeWith a strong job report on Friday, long-stalled legislation moving and gas prices on the decline — albeit from record highs — it is possible that Mr. Biden’s support could tick upward.In contrast to the House, where Republicans have gleefully been talking up a coming red wave, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has sounded more like a trench warfare general, lowering expectations Wednesday on Fox News.“When the Senate race smoke clears, we’re likely to have a very, very close Senate still, with either us up slightly or the Democrats up slightly,” he said.In the four states with the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents — Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire — survey data from Morning Consult shows a breathtaking decline in Mr. Biden’s approval ratings since early 2021. His net approval ratings in those states have plunged by 27, 20, 27 and 24 percentage points. Yet all four Democratic senators maintain their own favorable ratings.“Voters are dealing with the Democratic candidates separately from President Biden,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster. “We see the incumbents’ ratings going up even in places where the president’s numbers are going down, which is a very unusual midterm dynamic.”The summer of ‘bed-wetting’Some Democrats in the most competitive races have also developed unique brands that could protect them.In Arizona, Senator Mark Kelly is a former astronaut and the husband of former Representative Gabby Giffords, who survived a shooting in 2011. In Georgia, Senator Raphael Warnock, who utilized an affable beagle in his last race, is well known as the pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. In Pennsylvania, the Democratic nominee is John Fetterman, the 6-foot-8, tattooed lieutenant governor, who has leaned into his not-your-typical-politician look.“The Democrats do have some good candidates,” conceded Corry Bliss, a veteran Republican strategist. “But the key point is very simple: If Joe Biden has an approval rating in the 30s, what Raphael Warnock says or does is irrelevant. Because he’s going to lose. Period.”Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia is seen as a relatively strong candidate, and his Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, has struggled at times on the campaign trail.Nicole Buchanan for The New York TimesRepublicans, Mr. Bliss said, were suffering through a cyclical “summer of bed-wetting” before a fall landslide.But some Republicans worry that their party has picked some worse-than-generic nominees in important states.Mr. Walker, a former football star who avoided primary debates, has been dogged in Georgia by his past exaggerations and falsehoods about his background, as well as the emergence of children he fathered with whom he is not in regular contact. A team of national operatives has been dispatched to steady his campaign.Dr. Oz, the television personality, has struggled to consolidate Republican support after a bruising primary as Democrats hammer his recent New Jersey residency. Polls show Mr. Fetterman ahead, even though he has not held a public event since a stroke in mid-May.Dr. Mehmet Oz has ceded the digital terrain of his Pennsylvania campaign entirely to John Fetterman when it comes to paid ads.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesMr. Fetterman’s campaign has shifted its efforts almost entirely online, where Dr. Oz’s campaign has ceded the digital terrain when it comes to paid ads. Since May 1, Dr. Oz has spent $0 on Facebook and about $22,000 on Google; Mr. Fetterman has spent roughly $1 million in that time, company records show.Still, the political environment has Republicans bullish on holding Senate seats in North Carolina and Florida. And in Wisconsin, where Senator Ron Johnson is up for re-election, the party sees Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, for whom Democrats just cleared their primary field, as overly liberal for the state.Some are even hopeful that Washington and Colorado could emerge as competitive. In the latter state, Democrats spent millions of dollars unsuccessfully trying to prevent Joe O’Dea, a moderate businessman, from becoming the Republican nominee.“I appreciate the advertising,” Mr. O’Dea said in an interview. “It got my name recognition up.”The 2022 dynamics in the desertNowhere are the Senate dynamics clearer than in Arizona, a state Mr. Biden flipped in 2020 but where polls show he is now unpopular.Even before Mr. Masters won the Republican nomination on Tuesday, he had set out to tie Mr. Kelly to Mr. Biden. In a speech to a pro-Trump gathering in downtown Phoenix on Monday, Mr. Masters slashed at Mr. Kelly’s moderate reputation and blamed him for approving spending that “caused this inflation.”“What Biden and Harris and Mark Kelly are doing to this country — it makes me sick,” Mr. Masters said.Mr. Kelly, though, has used his financial advantage — he had $24.8 million in the bank as of mid-July compared with $1.5 million for Mr. Masters — to run television ads for months positioning himself as a get-things-done centrist who whacks oil companies and his own party alike.And in Mr. Masters, Republicans have a 36-year-old nominee who faces questions about his past comments and positions, including calling a notorious domestic terrorist, the Unabomber, an underrated thinker; questioning the United States’ involvement in World War II; and expressing openness to privatizing Social Security in a retiree-filled state.A recent poll for the super PAC supporting Mr. Masters showed that a majority of voters strongly disapproved of Mr. Biden; Mr. Masters trailed by five percentage points.The survey suggested that Mr. Kelly’s chief vulnerability was his perceived proximity to Mr. Biden’s agenda, though the Masters campaign will most likely need outside groups to pay to make that case.Senator Mark Kelly has considerably more money than Mr. Masters.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times“I’ve got to raise money,” Mr. Masters said in a brief interview this week. “But what I’ve really got to just do is tell the truth. Tell the truth about his far-left voting record.”Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist advising a super PAC supporting Mr. Masters, suggested that focusing on Democrats was going to be critical for all Republicans. “You’re going to see all the incumbent Democrat senators who vote with Biden nearly 100 percent of the time get ruthlessly tied to those votes,” he said.But Christina Freundlich, a Democratic consultant, said the “messier” slate of Republicans like Mr. Masters was making the 2022 campaign about both parties.Ms. Freundlich, who worked on Terry McAuliffe’s unsuccessful bid for Virginia governor last year against Glenn Youngkin, a vest-clad Republican businessman, said the newly elevated Senate G.O.P. candidates were no Glenn Youngkins: “They have a lot more fringe views.”Mr. Law, the Republican super PAC leader, said his group would re-evaluate the Senate landscape throughout August, looking for candidates with “enough money to connect directly with voters — and message discipline to focus on the issues that resonate.”“Not every candidate can do that,” he said pointedly.His group has booked $51.5 million in Arizona and Georgia television ads starting in September, though Mr. Law did not commit to those full reservations. “We have more time to assess both of those,” he said, raising questions about the Masters campaign by dint of omission. “In Georgia, in particular, I’m seeing very positive signs of developments in the Walker camp.”As in Georgia, national operatives are now reinforcing the Masters team, including a new general consultant as well as polling and media teams.Shane Goldmacher More

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      Lawmakers Urge Electoral Count Changes to Fix Flaws Trump Exploited

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      Lawmakers in both parties are eager to act after former President Donald J. Trump and his allies sought to exploit a 135-year-old law to overturn the 2020 election.Senators from both parties pressed for legislation that would update the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act, closing loopholes that former President Trump and his allies tried to exploit to reverse the 2020 election results.Sarah Silbiger for The New York TimesWASHINGTON — Determined to prevent a repeat of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, backers of an overhaul of the federal law governing the count of presidential electoral ballots pressed lawmakers on Wednesday to repair the flaws that President Donald J. Trump and his allies tried to exploit to reverse the 2020 results.“There is nothing more essential to the orderly transfer of power than clear rules for effecting it,” Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and one of the lead authors of a bill to update the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act, said Wednesday as the Senate Rules Committee began its review of the legislation. “I urge my colleagues in the Senate and the House to seize this opportunity to enact the sensible and much-needed reforms before the end of this Congress.”Backers of the legislation, which has significant bipartisan support in the Senate, believe that a Republican takeover of the House in November and the beginning of the 2024 presidential election cycle could make it impossible to make major election law changes in the next Congress. They worry that, unless the outdated statute is changed, the shortcomings exposed by Mr. Trump’s unsuccessful effort to interfere with the counting of electoral votes could allow another effort to subvert the presidential election.“The Electoral Count Act of 1887 just turned out to be more troublesome, potentially, than anybody had thought,” said Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the senior Republican on the rules panel. “The language of 1887 is really outdated and vague in so many ways. Both sides of the aisle want to update this act.”But despite the emerging consensus, lawmakers also conceded that some adjustments to the proposed legislation were likely given concerns raised by election law experts. In attempting to solve some of the old measure’s problems, experts say, the new legislation could create new ones.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More