US Elections 2024 – Voice of America (VOA News)

Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are increasingly concerned that voter concerns about President Joe Biden’s age will undermine their own candidacies, especially in states and districts where voters are deeply divided.

In the three weeks since Biden’s disastrous performance in the first presidential debate, efforts to convince the 81-year-old incumbent to step aside have become increasingly public. With some polls showing Biden trailing former President Donald Trump in several states vital to an election victory, members of his own party have expressed concern that his poor showing could derail their bid to retain control of the Senate and flip control of the House.

One example of the party’s concerns is Montana’s Jon Tester, one of the rare Democratic senators elected by voters in otherwise reliably Republican states. Tester, seeking his fourth term in the Senate, is locked in a tight campaign with Republican nominee Tim Sheehy. On Thursday, Tester said he believes Biden should end his campaign for reelection.

“I have worked with President Biden as he made Montana stronger, and I have never been afraid to confront him when he gets it wrong,” Tester said in a statement. “And while I appreciate his dedication to public service and our country, I believe President Biden should not seek re-election for another term.”

With Biden as nominee ‘I think we lose’

Rep. Adam Schiff, who is poised to win a Senate seat for California by a wide margin, became one of the most prominent Democrats this week to echo the sentiment that many of his colleagues have told reporters under promises of anonymity.

“I think if he is our nominee, we lose,” Schiff said privately at a fundraiser over the weekend, according to The New York Timeswho was given a transcript of the event. “And we could very, very well lose the Senate and our chance to take back the House.”

In a statement issued to the Los Angeles Times Schiff praised Biden’s performance on Wednesday, but added: “A second Trump presidency will undermine the foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November.”

Direct tickets and attendance

Drew McCoy, president of Decision Desk HQ, a provider of U.S. election data, told VOA there are two related factors that raise concerns that Biden’s performance could hurt other Democratic candidates.

First, voters who put a Republican at the top of their ticket may be inclined to continue voting for GOP candidates in elections further down the ballot.

“There is a high correlation between the vote of people at the presidential level and the vote of people at lower levels,” McCoy said, adding that fewer and fewer Americans are “split-ticket” voters, who elect members of different parties to different offices.

“That was pretty common 20 or 25 years ago. Today it’s pretty uncommon … so if (Biden) doesn’t do well, the people behind him think they’re not going to do well either.”

Second, turnout may be lower because Democratic voters are demonstrably unenthusiastic about Biden’s candidacy. In the coming days, McCoy said, “voters are going to have to decide who they’re going to vote for and whether or not they’re going to vote.”

Many Democratic candidates for the House and Senate are currently outperforming Biden in public polls, but in a presidential election year, it’s the candidate at the top of the ticket who has the greatest impact on turnout. With Republican enthusiasm soaring and Democrats’ morale flagging, even Democrats who are now ahead of the president in the polls could struggle in November.

McCoy said polls suggest many Democrats support candidates for lower-level positions, but they may not support Biden.

“Are these voters showing up? That’s the question,” McCoy said. “It’s all well and good to have an eight- or 10-point lead, but these are people who may not vote at all because they have questions about the top of the ticket.”

Biden’s numbers are dropping

While Biden and his closest advisers insist he is staying in the race and that he is best positioned to defeat Trump in November, polls have cast doubt on that assertion for months.

In nearly all polls, Trump has maintained a small but consistent lead over Biden nationwide. Since the June 27 debate, that gap has only widened.

More importantly, Biden appears to be trailing Trump in the seven swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. On Thursday, Emerson College released a poll showing Biden trailing Trump in all seven states, by a margin of at least 3 percentage points and, in the case of Arizona, by 10.

Polls also show that large segments of the voting public, including a significant majority of Democratic voters, believe Biden is too old to run for a second term.

A scenario in which Biden stays in the race and makes no significant progress “is not the kind of … situation in which Democrats can reasonably be expected to win the House or Senate,” Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman of the University of Virginia Center for Politics wrote in an analysis published Thursday.

Congressional control questioned

That’s because the balance of power on Capitol Hill is teetering on the brink.

In the Senate, Democrats and independents aligned with them hold 51 seats, while Republicans hold 49. However, because senators’ terms are staggered, only 34 seats are up for election in 2024, 20 of which are currently held by Democrats.

In the House of Representatives, Republicans hold a narrow 220-213 edge, but most analysts expect control of the body in the next Congress to hinge on about 18 separate races that are too close to decide.

In the Democrats’ nightmare scenario, Trump wins in November, and the majority of Republican candidates for the House and Senate run in his wake, giving the Republican Party unified control of Washington for the next two years.