• US President Joe Biden travels to western United States ahead of midterm elections.
• He will campaign in New Mexico, where Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham is leading Republican Mark Ronchetti.
• The White House hopes to turn the midterms into a referendum on Republicans and vice-presidential hopefuls.

US President Joe Biden travelled to the western United States as part of his final major campaign swing before the midterm elections, which the White House hopes to turn into a referendum on Republicans and Republicans into a vote on Biden.

Biden’s three-day campaign swing begins in New Mexico, where Democratic governor Michelle Lujan Grisham leads Republican challenger Mark Ronchetti, a former television weatherman, by approximately six percentage points.

The race echoes political battles across the country.

Lujan Grisham, a member of a powerful political family in New Mexico, has made abortion access the centrepiece of her campaign. Ronchetti wants to ban the procedure after 15 weeks and has criticised Lujan Grisham on crime.

Biden will speak about his student loan forgiveness programme at a community college in Albuquerque, New Mexico, before travelling to California on Thursday evening, Illinois on Friday, and Pennsylvania on Saturday for a rally with former President Barack Obama. He will speak at a rally in Maryland on Monday ahead of the congressional elections on Tuesday.

According to the White House, he intends to contrast his economic plan with a Republican push to roll back loan forgiveness.

“If state Republican officials get their way, tens of millions of borrowers will be denied this extra breathing room as they prepare to resume loan payments next year,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on her way to New Mexico.

Biden, whose job approval percentage rating in the low 40s is a drag on Democratic candidates, is fighting to help his party fend off a strong Republican challenge for control of the United States Congress.

Polls show that Republicans are widely expected to take control of the United States House of Representatives and possibly the Senate, as voters are concerned about the state of the economy and inflation. Historically, opposition parties fare better in midterm elections, providing a check for new presidents in the second half of their terms.

Biden warned on Wednesday night that Republican supporters of former President Donald Trump are a threat to democracy because they refuse to accept election results if they are defeated on Tuesday.

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