Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.
Some purple-district Democrats want to give Biden more credit. Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.), who represents a Las Vegas-area seat Biden won by 9 points, said she’d talk up ‘Bidenomics,’ “because it has made a difference.” What’s more, she wants the Democratic Congress that did the legwork to pass the landmark legislation to get its due, too.
“I don’t shy away from that. I think the president has a good record to brag about. But I also remind people that that recovery legislation got us started on this road to prosperity,” she said.
There’s a problem with that theory. Most Americans haven’t heard much about the Inflation Reduction Act or many of its provisions, polls show, so Democrats have to explain not only how they believe it’s helped voters, but also the existence of the legislation.
Still, for first-term lawmakers like Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.), who can’t do much legislatively from the minority, the main substantive work they can brag about came from the last Congress.
“I think that we’ve got to understand that sometimes it’s okay to toot our own horn,” he said.
