Irish Examiner view: Tide turning for the Democrats

President Joe Biden's ‘anti-Maga’ prime time speech and a revitalised legislative agenda has slowly changed the political landscape.

The midterm elections in the US are traditionally seen as a referendum on the incumbent president. A few short weeks ago, any such vote would have reflected very poorly on the presidency of Joe Biden. Now, with just weeks left to a poll which will decide whether the Republican party of Donald Trump will take control of both the US senate and congress from Biden’s Democrats, there is increasing confidence within the ruling party that a cause recently considered lost, might yet have life in it.

Biden’s recent feistiness and especially his ‘anti-Maga’ prime time speech and a revitalised legislative agenda, along with a mass influx of women signing up to vote in the wake of the Supreme Court decision which upended abortion rights across America, has slowly changed the political landscape.

Nine weeks before the elections, what was predicted to be a ‘red tsunami’ in favour of the Republicans has now turned into a seriously competitive fight between the two parties.

Republican hopes that the electorate in November would be focused on the economy, immigration, crime, and Mr Biden’s then stalled legislative agenda have been dashed in the face of a dramatic shift in voter priorities — not least gun control, the threat to democracy, climate change, and, most of all, abortion rights.

What was once considered to be ‘a referendum election’ on Biden and his administration has instead focused voters’ minds on the stark differences between the two parties. This has energised a previously unmotivated Democrat base and has rekindled the likelihood of the voter surge that put Biden in the White House in the first place.

The dynamics which were seemingly propelling the Republicans to a big win have not disappeared, but they are no longer the forces shaping the campaign.