President Joe Biden and his team at the White House are closely watching Tuesday’s elections to determine what – if anything – can be discerned about the electorate a year out from the presidential contest.
Amid a fresh round of troubling polls and Democratic hand-wringing, few, if any, Democrats on the ballot Tuesday have tied themselves to Biden, even as some embrace his accomplishments. The president himself has not campaigned at all this election season, focused instead on foreign crises and promoting his own agenda – miles away from any competitive race.
Yet some of the very issues Biden’s campaign believe will define next year’s contest – including abortion rights and the economy – are being weighed both directly and indirectly. For the president and his advisers, Tuesday’s results will be a test of those issues’ saliency heading into 2024.
And while Tuesday’s key races are not in the battleground states that will determine next year’s presidential winner, they each do provide clues that Biden’s team will look to as they calibrate their strategy. Turnout among young people and minorities, key to Biden’s coalition, will be closely watched as polls indicate a dramatic softening of support.
In Virginia, where all 140 seats in the General Assembly are on the ballot, Biden’s team is watching closely to see how successful Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin was in pushing for early voting — a marked break from the GOP’s position in 2020, when then-President Donald Trump vilified mail-in and early voting efforts.
Suburban swing districts also played an outsized role in propelling Biden to victory in 2020, meaning results in places such as Stafford and Fredericksburg counties in Virginia will be closely monitored by Democrats for national implications.
Virginia has also become a test case for reproductive rights as…
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