• The White House is confident in the outcome of last night’s elections.
• Democrats still have a strong chance of holding onto the Senate and the House.
• The difficulty for the White House will be to convince people that some of these Democrats were able to compete because of them, not spite them.

As most Americans went to bed yesterday night, President Biden and his advisers stayed up late to monitor the results of the midterm elections.

They were confident of two things: Democrats appeared to have averted the slaughter that some had foreseen and feared yet races across the board appeared competitive.

This morning, the White House finds solid grounds to maintain the confidence from last night: Democrats still have a strong chance of holding onto the Senate, and they’ve seen important Democratic candidates for the House as well as the governors of important swing states win their elections.

Of course, the fate of the House and the precise number of seats the Republicans will ultimately gain remain major open questions.

There will be significant repercussions for President Biden and his party’s capacity to rule in the second half of his first term depending on whether Democrats can maintain control of the Senate and how the final makeup of the House will play out.

The difficulty for the White House will be to convince people that some of these Democrats were able to compete because of the White House and President Biden, not in spite of them, as they prepare to highlight some of the positive aspects of last night’s results.

There was already a lot of finger-pointing directed towards the White House before election day.

For instance, some House Democrats told media that Biden and his team failed to make a strong economic case at a time when voters have made it quite apparent that this is their top concern.

We anticipated the economy would be horrible, and they had no economic message at all, said one progressive House member to media.

The congressman bemoaned that they also didn’t see the White House sufficiently take credit for Democrats’ legislative victories, including last year’s approval of a significant bipartisan infrastructure measure, mirroring feelings shared by some of their colleagues. They claimed it was a “complete failure to take a victory lap.”

The outcomes thus far, however, may have afforded everyone some breathing room, especially the White House, at least for a few days, if more Democrats were prepared to start playing the blame game.

In the run-up to the midterm elections, White House representatives have argued that Biden has constantly highlighted the economy and made economic issues a focal point of his campaign messaging.

They’ve also made it clear that they think voters are thinking about a variety of issues as they head to the polls, not just the economy, and that it was crucial for the Democratic Party’s leader to openly discuss issues like abortion rights, gun safety, and protecting democracy, which they think have been key factors in energizing the party’s base.

According to this line of reasoning, it would have been impossible for Biden to ignore the state of women’s reproductive rights in this country following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe; similarly, there was no scenario in which the President would have neglected to publicly denounce election fraud, threats, and acts of political violence when it was obvious to him how serious these issues were during this election cycle.

Biden is anticipated to address the election results in some way on Wednesday, though the precise date and plans are still up in the air.

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