Democrats competing in competitive down-ballot races this year largely stayed silent or dodged questions about the first presidential debate on Friday as the party grapples with the president’s fallout. Joe Biden‘s shaky performance.
Several Democratic candidates for Senate in key states took to social media not to comment on the debate, but to share images of recent campaign events or highlight other policies. Staffers who worked with several of these campaigns did not return requests for comment on the debate. And a few candidates did not directly answer questions about whether Biden should continue as the party’s presidential nominee.
“I’m focusing on my race. I’m not an expert,” Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told News5 Cleveland when asked whether party leaders, including himself, should ask Biden to step aside. “I have never told my colleagues what to do with their free time and what to do with other politicians.”
“I have flooding all over my district and I’m going to go home and work on that,” Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., who is facing a hotly contested re-election race, said Friday at the Capitol when asked whether Biden should step aside.
“Let other experts do their job,” Craig added.
While some Democrats privately worried about the party’s chances in the November elections after Thursday night’s debate, those working on competitive congressional races did not panic.
“I think everyone would agree that last night was not the president’s best performance. He had a very bad night,” said Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha. impact on House or Senate races.”
Rocha and other Democratic strategists noted that voters have long worried about Biden’s age and have therefore distinguished between the president and lesser candidates, pointing to public and private polls showing Democrats outperforming him in key elections.
“As we have always said, Senate campaigns are a battle of candidates and Republicans have a roster of deeply flawed recruits. We will win because we have the better candidates,” said David Bergstein, communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, in a statement to NBC News.
Democrats have little room for error in this year’s congressional battle. Republicans need a net gain of just two seats to take control of the Senate, or one if a former president Donald Trump wins the White House because the vice president breaks Senate ties.
In the House of Representatives, Democrats hope to gain just four seats to gain the majority.
A Democratic strategist who covers House races said Friday that internal polling shows Biden struggling in districts he won in 2020, but stressed that the party’s congressional candidates are outperforming Biden. The strategist said voters are “clearly” distinguishing between the races, but worried “that may not last; there may eventually be a drag effect.
Others, however, were skeptical about whether the debate could influence subsequent elections, as many voters already had opinions about Biden and Trump.
”Joe Biden delivered a weak debate performance. There’s no way around that,” said a Democratic strategist who covered elections in the House of Representatives and the Senate. “But it doesn’t change the fact that voters have come to expect that Joe Biden is old and that Donald Trump is really crazy.”
Renewed optimism for the Republican Party
The debate left Republicans bubbling with optimism about winning not just the presidency, but both chambers of Congress this fall.
Senator JD Vance (Republican from Ohio), a potential candidate for vice president, said any support for Trump will help the Republican Senate candidates. He noted that many of them perform worse than him, including in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Montana.
“Tonight helps Donald Trump. And because it helps Donald Trump, it probably helps Republicans in the Senate,” Vance said Thursday night after the debate. “The bottom line is, in every race, Republicans run behind Donald Trump.”
Republican strategist Brad Todd said the debate puts Republicans in good shape to retain the House of Representatives and positioned to win more than 54 seats in the Senate.
“I think Hakeem Jeffries is probably taking a lot of Tums tonight — antacids for the ulcer he just got between 9 and 10:30 p.m.,” Todd said of the House minority leader. “Republican control of the House of Representatives will be in pretty good shape if the climate trends are true and helped the climate tonight. And I think Republican donors should seriously entertain the idea that they may not be focusing on a broad enough Senate map.”
In addition to his efforts to flip West Virginia, Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, he said, “I think now you need to look beyond that and expand that map. Nevada, Virginia, New Mexico – states that we haven’t talked about before need to be included in the conversation now.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee continued to focus on a top target: Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, who is running in a state that Trump carried by double digits four years ago.
“Senate Democrats have told Americans that Joe Biden is still sharp, with Jon Tester even going so far as to say that Biden is ‘absolutely 100% in.’ It’s clear they lied, and voters will remember that in November,” NRSC spokesman Mike Berg said in a statement, pointing to an ad the party is running on Tester praising Biden’s abilities.
In the House of Representatives, a spokesman for the Republican Party campaign arm said he expects more attacks tying Biden to the Democrats.
“House Democrats know the president is not up to the job, yet they allowed him to dodge the Oval Office as the border descended into chaos. Prices skyrocketed, communities were consumed by violence, and wars raged abroad,” said Jack Pandol of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
“They will be held accountable for their recklessness, with an onslaught of publicity tying them to our Commander in Decline,” Pandol added.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
