Democrat U.S. senators in competitive reelection races are distancing themselves from President Joe Biden, The Hill reported.
Lawmakers such as Sens. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., Bob Casey, D-Pa., Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, represent battleground states in which former President Donald Trump leads Biden, according to recent polling.
So far, Biden’s unpopularity hasn’t hurt the senators too much, but they know that could change.
“If you go out there and do a focus group, the focus groups all say, ‘He’s [Biden’s] 200 years old. You got to be kidding me.’ And the worst part about it is for unaffiliated voters or people that haven’t made up their mind, they look at this and say, ‘You have to be kidding us. These are our choices?’ And they indict us for not taking it seriously,” a Democrat senator told The Hill.
Another Democrat senator told The Hill that the president’s age (81) is a concern among voters even though Trump is 77.
“Biden’s showing his age in ways weirdly more than Trump,” the senator told The Hill.
Democrats will be trying to keep control of the Senate in November’s general election, in which they’ll have 23 seats on the ballot, Forbes reported. Three of those seats are in states that voted for Trump in 2020.
Republicans, meanwhile, will be defending just 11 seats, all in states Trump won.
New York Times, Siena College, and Philadelphia Inquirer poll results last week showed Biden trailing Trump in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania and tied with him in Wisconsin.
However, the same poll showed Democrat senate candidates leading their likely GOP opponents in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Rosen, who’s slightly ahead (40% to 38%) of Republican opponent Sam Brown, has tried to separate herself from Biden over his decision to withhold bombs from Israel.
Casey also has split with Biden over Israel, and on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Casey is currently leading Republican candidate Dave McCormick 46% to 41%.
Tester said he’s running on his own brand in Montana.
“Biden’s running his race, I’m running mine. I’ve got a good brand, people understand who I am, and we got to remind them who I am and what I’ve accomplished and what I intend to accomplish,” Tester said, The Hill reported. “They really are separate races.”
Brown has criticized Biden for not going far enough to protect American workers from cheap Chinese imports.
“While tariffs are needed to level the playing field for American workers, they are not enough to stop a flood of Chinese-government-subsidized products on their own. That’s why the administration must ban Chinese electric vehicles and use every possible tool to stop China’s cheating,” Brown said, The Hill reported.