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2022 US Midterms
The 2022 midterm elections, slated for November 8, are set to see all 435 seats in the US House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate to be contested.

Biden Tries to Catch Up With 'Threats to American Democracy' Speech Days Before Midterms

© AFP 2023 / MANDEL NGANUS President Joe Biden. File photo
US President Joe Biden. File photo - Sputnik International, 1920, 03.11.2022
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Biden’s speech on Wednesday comes just six days before the United States midterms and is a warning about the risk that election deniers - a term used for supporters of former President Donald Trump who believe the 2020 US election was “stolen” - pose to the country.
“This intimidation, this violence against Democrats, Republicans and non-partisan officials just doing their jobs, is the consequence of lies told for power and profit, lies of conspiracy and malice, lies repeated over and over to generate a cycle of anger, hate, vitriol and even violence,” President Joe Biden said in Wednesday’s speech.

“In this moment, we have to confront those lies with the truth,” the president continued. “The very future of our nation depends on it. My fellow Americans, we’re facing a defining moment [sic] a reflection point. We must with one overwhelming unified voice speak as a country, and say there’s no place, no place, for voter intimidation or political violence in America, whether it’s directed at Democrats or Republicans. No place period, no place ever.”

"We have to face this problem, we can't turn away from it," he said. "We can't pretend it's just going to solve itself."
“There’s something else at stake: democracy itself. I’m not the only one who sees it. Recent polls have shown an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that our democracy is at risk. That our democracy is under threat. They too see that democracy is on the ballot this year, and they’re deeply concerned about it,” said the president in his remarks.
Biden’s televised address on Wednesday led with the purpose of focusing on “the threat of election deniers and those who seek to undermine faith in voting and democracy; and the stakes for our democracy in next week’s election,” the Democratic National Committee said in a statement, referring to Trump supporters who view the 2020 election as “stolen”.
“American democracy is under attack because the former defeated president of the United States refused to accept the results of the 2020 election. He refuses to accept the will of the people, he refuses to accept the fact that he lost. He has abused his power and put the loyalty to himself, before loyalty to the Constitution, and he’s made a big lie, an article of faith in the MAGA Republican Party,” the president said of Trump.
Lies that the 2020 election was “rigged” or “stolen” resulted in the January 6, 2021 protest during which a mob of the former president’s supporters breached the US Capitol Building in an effort to disrupt a joint session of Congress from counting the electoral college votes that would ratify then President-elect Joe Biden's election win. A bipartisan select committee was organized in the summer of last year to investigate the attack. Close to 1,000 individuals have ben charged in the attack since mid-October.
"It was an enranged mob, that had been whipped up into a frenzy by a president repeating over and over again the ‘Big Lie’, that the election of 2020 had been stolen. It’s a lie that fueled the dangerous rise of political violence and voter intimidation over the past two years,” the president said in his speech.
The speech is most likely an effort to close the voting gaps in tight races between Democrats and Republicans before midterms. Biden’s remarks that democracy is still under threat by supporters of his predecessor could sway undecided voters to vote left in a race where Republicans running for Congress (49%) are polled to have an edge over their Democrat opponents (46%).
But despite Biden’s speech on the threat to American democracy, polls show that 31% of American voters are more concerned about inflation and the economy, and those two issues will be the deciding factor in their vote in the upcoming midterm elections. Support for abortion rights and increased police funding were also polled to be important voting points for Americans, with three in five Americans saying they would be less likely to support a candidate that bans or restricts abortion access.
Biden opened his speech by addressing Friday’s attack in which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, 82, suffered an injury to his skull that an intruder inflicted with a hammer after he broke into the couple’s San Francisco home. The intruder, David DePape, 42, wanted to abduct Nancy Pelosi to “take [her] out” because he was sick of the “level of lies” coming from Washington, D.C.
“After the assailant entered the home asking, ‘Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?’” The president said of Fridays attack. Those are the very same words used by the mob when they stormed the United States capitol on January 6,” Biden said, drawing comparisons between January 6 insurrections and the individual who assaulted Pelosi on Friday.
The president's party is suffering continued criticism surrounding inflation and fears of a looming recession. The Federal Reserve has continued to hike interest rates in an effort to cool inflation despite criticism from analysts that hiking interest rates is not the solution. Biden acknowledged on Wednesday that "inflation is still hurting" his country even as the US central bank raised the benchmark borrowing rate by 0.75 percentage points that same day---the sixth hike this year alone.
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