President Joe Biden was a close friend of the late Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, whose seat is held now by Democrat Mark Kelly. || Photo courtesy the Biden Campaign
By Tristan Richards || Cronkite News
President Joe Biden’s name is being invoked a lot this year on the Arizona campaign trail – by Republicans.
GOP campaign sites routinely blame the country’s woes on Biden “and his leftist allies,” with GOP Senate nominee Blake Masters’ website tagging Biden no fewer than 15 times – three times more than he name-checks former President Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the president is all but invisible on Democratic campaign websites. The latest example came Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” when Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly would not directly say if he wanted Biden’s help on the campaign trail.
“If anybody wants to come to Arizona and talk about Arizona issues or issues that affect the country, I’ll be here,” Kelly said when asked by host Jake Tapper if he would like to have Biden go to Arizona.
But Kelly followed that up by telling Tapper he is “not at all” concerned that Biden will drag down Democrats’ 2024 chances in Arizona.
A spokesperson for Kelly’s campaign declined comment this week on the exchange. But political analysts said they were not surprised to see Kelly “playing jiu-jitsu” with Biden’s support, noting the president’s low approval ratings and the challenges traditionally faced by the party holding the White House in midterm elections.
To Kyle Kondik, managing editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball and political analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, Democrats omitting Biden from their messaging is a “pretty normal strategy during a midterm, specifically when a president is unpopular.”
