Biden zeroes in on economic message as campaign winds down

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is zeroing in on a largely economic-focused message amid raging inflation and recession risks as he takes his closing argument for the November midterm elections to a hotly contested congressional battleground on Thursday and tries to reassure restive voters around the country.

Biden's travels to Syracuse, New York, on Thursday and to Philadelphia on Friday are part of a strategic two-step crafted for a persistently unpopular president: Promote his administration’s accomplishments at official White House events while saving the overt campaigning for states where his political power can directly bolster Democratic candidates.

The White House of late has paid outsize attention to Pennsylvania, where Democrats are aggressively contesting a Republican-held Senate seat to help offset potential losses in other marquee Senate races.

Publicly, the White House and senior Democratic leaders express optimism that they’ll defy traditional midterm headwinds and retain control of Congress. But in private, there is angst that the House will be lost to Republicans and that control of the Senate is a coin flip.

It’s a position that Democrats point out is far more favorable than earlier in the election cycle — particularly before the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade ended constitutional protections for abortion and upended the political landscape — yet many in the party are nonetheless bracing for the loss of at least one chamber.

“I will say, as the president has said, that we are quite confident that we’ll continue to have a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate as we move forward,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, a White House deputy chief of staff, told MSNBC on Tuesday night.

Biden has had a steady uptick in travel in recent weeks,...