JLast days after sanctioning the $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package, Joe Biden was on the road selling the benefits of the project to the American people – and also to the political perspectives of his own party.
The president kicked off the “Help is Here” tour last Tuesday, visiting a flooring company owned by Black in Chester, Pennsylvania. “We are in a position where this will bring immediate relief – $ 1,400 – for 85% of the American public,” said Biden while visiting Smith Flooring. “And I think you should be aware: more help is on the way, really.”
Democrats are eager to flaunt the message that Biden has followed in his campaign pledge to deliver another round of stimulus checks and an extension of federal unemployment benefits to Americans who are struggling financially because of the coronavirus pandemic.
But passing the relief bill may also be the Democratic Party’s best chance to retain control of the two chambers of Congress after next year’s midterm elections. Democrats hope that the help it brings can help them avoid the historic tendency for the president’s party to lose seats in Congress in the legislative elections after his election.
There is also little room for error, given the narrow majority of Democrats in both chambers of Congress. Republicans need to draw only five seats to take control of the House, and the loss of a single seat in the Senate would cost Democrats a majority in the upper house. These losses would seriously undermine Biden’s ability to deliver on his agenda.
With these big bets in mind, President and Vice President Kamala Harris has traveled across the country to announce the relief bill in the undecided states that will hold major Senate disputes next year.
Biden told House Democrats earlier this month that he was determined to learn from 2009, when Barack Obama hesitated to take a “victory lap” after the stimulus bill was approved.
“We did not adequately explain what we had done,” Biden told lawmakers. “And we pay a price for that, ironically, for that humility.”
Democratic groups are helping out on Biden’s victory tour, flooding the radio waves to remind voters in battle states, where these $ 1,400 direct payments came from. American Bridge 21st Century, a progressive political action committee, announced a purchase of a six-digit ad focusing on the impact of the aid package. The first ad, which featured a special education teacher talking about how the legislation would help schools reopen, started airing in Pennsylvania when Biden visited the state on Tuesday.
“This is a law that will help people’s lives in all aspects, and something that is holistically comprehensive on the policy side will also be holistically popular for intermediate evidence,” said Jessica Floyd, president of American Bridge. Echoing many Democratic lawmakers and strategists in recent weeks, Floyd has made a point of citing research that shows that the relief bill was supported by a vast majority of Americans.
But Republicans, who voted unanimously against the Congressional relief bill, are not standing still while Democrats make their marketing speech. Republican party leaders have been busy attacking the legislation as a liberal “wish list” that does nothing to tackle the crises the country faces.
“Americans deserve specific legislation that speeds up the distribution of vaccines, gets Americans back to work and reopens our schools safely – not hyperpartisans and unnecessary spending on pork,” said Ronna McDaniel, chairman of the Republican National Committee, in a statement after approval of the account.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee has already launched its own digital ads against two vulnerable Democratic candidates, Mark Kelly of Arizona and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, accusing them of “rescuing” New York and California by approving state aid from the aid package.
“Packed in the bill are provisions that will really hurt vulnerable senators in difficult states,” said a Republican operative focused on Senate contests. The agent predicted that Republican criticism of “bailout” money for Democratic-controlled states and stimulus payments to undocumented immigrants would remain more in the voters’ memory than the $ 1,400 checks they received.
There is still time for both parties to define how Americans view the aid package. Despite positive research on the bill, recent research by progressive company Navigator Research has shown that most voters say they know little or nothing about the legislation.
So the challenge for Democrats and Republicans will be to convince voters of the merit – or lack thereof – of the relief bill and then keep that issue in the forefront of voters’ minds when they start considering which candidates they will support in next November.
In that sense, these competing messaging campaigns from the two parties represent the start of a months-long competition to define the beginning of Biden’s presidency in the court of public opinion. The winner of this competition is likely to come out of Congress control.
“Part of our job is not to let people forget that Democrats have drafted a bill that is extremely popular now,” said Floyd. “Our job is to keep it popular and also to point to the coming months that all Republicans in Congress voted against. I think keeping these two facts in mind starts today. “