On Friday’s broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” NPR Senior Political Editor and Correspondent Domenico Montanaro said that high inflation numbers and President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings usually “would mean a wipeout” for Democrats in 2022, but Biden and the White House see making the election about former President Donald Trump as a way to avoid having a referendum on Biden.
Montanaro stated, “Well, he really wants to get across that the threats to democracy are urgent. He called out MAGA Republicans, as he called them, and Donald Trump…of course, when you do that, it’s going to look and sound pretty political. But this was Biden really drawing a line in the sand.”
He added, “Politically, you have a President facing high inflation, low approval ratings. And ordinarily, that would mean a wipeout coming for the party in power in a midterm year. But with Trump playing such an unusually prominent role in these elections, Biden and the White House see an opportunity to make this a choice rather than a referendum on Biden’s presidency.”
Montanaro further said that while the speech sounded like a 2024 convention speech, “that’s not to say that there aren’t real threats.”
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