“I don’t think this complicates passage. I think it helps accelerate it.”
Joe Biden suffered his first major political lashing as president Tuesday. But even as Democrats were processing a battering in the Virginia governor’s race and the uncomfortably close gubernatorial election in New Jersey, the White House and officials across the party pledged to forge ahead with the twin pillars of the president’s domestic agenda. Several made the case that Tuesday’s results only added to the pressure for them to do so. “We have to show we can govern,” said Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), citing a recent breakthrough in talks to lower prescription drug prices for seniors and allow negotiations in Medicare. “The picture has been of Democrats sparring amongst ourselves. That’s probably not the best face to put out. I hope that there’s more of working toward agreement, like we had today, than openly sparring with each other. » “We have the ability and the responsibility to govern and I think that’s what we should focus on, » Peters added. The determination to stick with the $1.75 trillion social and climate spending bill underscores just how much the Democratic Party has bet its future on Biden’s legislative priorities. And it comes right as the president’s own political tailspin has put him in a weakened position to help them sell it. The White House is expected to turn up the salesmanship of its plans, arguing that the results in Virginia and New Jersey, where things remained too close to call, are in part a reflection that voters want to see Congress get things done, a person close to the White House said. Biden’s advisers insist the political environment could look vastly different next fall, when members of Congress face voters. Before polls closed Tuesday, Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine cleared its last major regulatory hurdle for kids ages 5 to 11, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent vaccine advisers offering a unanimous endorsement. And the drug pricing provision Democrats were working to revive in the social spending package was generating outright glee among party leaders who contend Republicans would be forced to choose whether to oppose one of the most popular provisions under discussion. But Biden’s advisers also acknowledge none of these breakthroughs will matter if they can’t sell their achievements to voters. And privately, several Democrats complained that it was Biden himself who helped slow progress on his own agenda by giving progressives tacit approval to hold up a vote on bipartisan infrastructure legislation as they hashed out the social spending plan.
