- Democrats are privately fuming about Biden's lack of involvement in their midterm planning.
- CNN reports that top leaders of the party's campaign arms reportedly can't get a meeting with the president.
- Democrats also reportedly want to hit Republicans much harder for obstructing their agenda.
Top Democrats are lamenting about an absent and distracted President Joe Biden ahead of what's expected to be brutal midterm election that could see the party lose control of Congress.
"It's hard for me to believe that the president knows how little his political shop is doing to support Democratic majorities in the Senate and the House. All of us believe that the president would be shocked to learn how little the White House political team is doing," one unnamed senior Democratic elected official in Washington told CNN.
CNN detailed numerous examples of Democrats both privately and publicly fuming about the White House's management of the party's future. In a pair of reported episodes, Biden stressed that he wanted to meet with Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney and Sen. Gary Peters after separately running into the two leaders of the House and Senate Democrats' respective campaign arms. But months later, neither lawmaker has been able to get a meeting with Biden.
White House advisors told CNN that Biden meets with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But the network reports that "people familiar with both leaders say any campaign talk has been brief."
Other Democrats have reportedly implored the White House to be much more forceful in both how it brags about Biden's accomplishments and how it trashes Republicans who oppose large swaths of the rest of the party's agenda.
"This is not strong enough," Sen. Stabenow of Michigan reportedly said of a White House-led presentation that urged the lawmakers to frame their agenda as a choice between two sides. Stabenow and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota wanted to call the GOP "shills" for their views on the pandemic and their support of corporations, according to CNN.
Historically, a president's party loses ground during midterm elections. Democrats have little breathing room given that the Senate is evenly split between the two parties and they hold just a five-seat House majority.
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