Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki has argued Democrats know that they will bite the dust if the November midterm elections become a referendum on US President Joe Biden.
Psaki told NBC News on Sunday that if the midterms focus on the “most extreme” party, mentioning Republican Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene by name, then Democrats will be celebrating on election day.
However, “if it [the midterms] is a referendum on the president, they will lose. And they know that. They also know that crime is a huge vulnerability for Democrats, I would say one of the biggest vulnerabilities," the former White House press secretary added.
Biden’s former spokesman, who left the White House in May to take a job at MSNBC, also said that she has been keeping a watchful eye on the US Senate race in Pennsylvania between Democratic candidate John Fetterman and GOP rival Mehmet Oz.
“What’s been interesting to me is it’s always you follow the money, and where are people spending money. And in Pennsylvania, the Republicans have been spending millions of dollars on the air on crime ads against Fetterman because that’s where they see his vulnerability,” Psaki said.
She insisted that even though “the economy is hanging over everything, […] you have do have look at state-by-state factors and crime is a huge issue in the Pennsylvania race.”
Psaki spoke after a new poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News indicated that a total of 56% of Democratic Party supporters would like Democrats nominate someone other than Biden as its candidate for president, and only 35% of the respondents supported his candidacy.
According to the survey, only 39% of likely voters said they approve of Biden’s overall job performance and just 36% gave thumbs up to his handling of the economy.
This was preceded by last month’s Morning Consult poll, which showed that 42% of Democratic voters are “angry” about the November midterms, compared with 41% of Republicans. In addition, far fewer Democrats pile hope on the midterm elections than Republicans did four years ago (56% to 74%), the survey revealed.