How Donors' Disappointment in Biden Admin Can Bury Democrats' Midterm Chances
10:54 GMT 30.05.2022 (Updated: 14:00 GMT 19.12.2022)
© AFP 2023 / CHIP SOMODEVILLA
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President Joe Biden's approval rating has remained consistently low over the course of the past several months, and the chances of the Democratic Party enjoying sunshine and rainbows in midterms are already quite low. However, the administration itself seems to be on track to worsen these chances even more.
Joe Biden's White House does not seem to be eager to please the Democratic Party's big donors, and this reluctance may undermine the Democrats' chances in the October midterms, according to The Daily Beast.
The report outlined that a number of deep-pocketed bundlers feel sidelined and ignored by the Biden administration, as well as disappointed by the White House's policies.
The relations between Joe Biden and the Democrats' big donors seem to have been crumbling since Inauguration Day, after more than 800 bundlers chipped in on Biden's presidential campaign. Having assumed the Oval Office, the president appeared to be less than grateful.
“The inauguration was an inauspicious beginning, in retrospect,” one donor told The Daily Beast. “Not getting invited to a party you’ve paid for is a bit on-the-nose.”
It seems that lack of outreach from the White House has made people who helped Biden win the White House "engaged and terrified" over what they received in return for their money.
“They put a tonne of time and effort into what they thought was fixing the problem, or addressing the solution, and now it’s only getting worse. We have the president, but we don’t have anything else," said one Democratic organiser.
John Morgan, a high-level bundler for Biden's campaign and a prominent lawyer, is among those with little enthusiasm about the upcoming midterms, despite the Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress.
“Democrats are doomed for the midterms. They decided it was all or nothing and got nothing,” Morgan said.
It's not like the Biden administration is successful enough without its wealthy supporters - on the contrary, the president's approval ratings are extremely modest, with the figures coming on the heels of skyrocketing inflation and a number of questionable foreign policy decisions. Still, the White House continues with the "demotivating" attitude towards the donors - something that could cost the Democratic Party the midterms.
“You build this group of people that are super motivated and engaged and then it goes cold. It just takes a while to reheat the fire and excite people," a longtime Democratic operative told The Daily Beast. "If they had kept the fires warm, maybe people would have been giving more to Senate candidates and congressional candidates and things would look different.”
However, the Biden administration sees frequent phone calls with wealthy donors and bundlers as "babysitting", according to one unnamed White House official. It seems that the White House views it as a strategy to pose the administration as "independent", even though many people seem to disagree.
When contacted by The Daily Beast for an explanation of this strategy, a Biden advisor argued that the president is “focused on the work he and his administration are doing to lower prices and make our communities safer and strong, while ultra-MAGA Republicans want to raise taxes on the middle class, take away a woman’s right to reproductive healthcare, and oppose the Administration’s work to keep guns out of the hands of criminals”.
Aside from the brewing tensions between the White House and its donors, the Biden administration seems to be losing its black voters, as noted by NBC News, with Biden's support among them dropping by 20 percent since the 2020 election. At the same time, skyrocketing inflation and record-high gas prices also shadow the Democrats' midterms prospects, with a re-ignited debate on gun control that followed recent mass shootings adding up to the pile of acute issues.
