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AUBURN, Maine — Whenever strategic decisions made by President Joe Biden’s advisers get second-guessed, they’ll often note that they’re focused on a different audience — the middle of the electorate, not the noisy left and right flanks.
Speaking ahead of the president at an event in his congressional district last week, Democratic Rep. Jared Golden put it a bit more sharply.
Biden “believes in the character of normal American people,” Golden said. “And there are more normal people than the weirdos out there would have us believe.”
The Maine Democrat traveled with Biden on Air Force One and Marine One to his district, one of the most rural in the nation — and one carried in each of the last two elections by Donald Trump. He has voted against Biden in Congress more than any other Democrat since the president took office, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis.
That’s no small thing, given how narrow the party’s majority was in Biden’s first two years and Golden’s status as a perennial target of Republican campaigns, and Golden alluded to that in his remarks.
“It’s no secret that I don’t always agree with or vote for President Biden’s agenda. But when I look at the accomplishments and long-term economic goals of the first two years of his presidency, what I see is the beginnings of a challenge to the dismantling of our national economy that left American workers exposed to foreign competition, and allowed American manufacturing power to drift overseas,” Golden said.
In an interview after the president departed, Golden indicated he could support Biden for a second term, as he did in 2020.
“I’m focused on a return of manufacturing and industrial policy that wants to prioritize making it here, that is really focused on supporting workers and unions. That’s the stuff that got me into the Democratic Party, and I don’t hear enough of it from my colleagues in Congress,” Golden said. “I’m really pleased that that’s what this White House is talking about and trying to do good work on.”
Biden’s Maine event was hardly the biggest news of the week on cable news or driving social media amid legal investigations into his son and his potential 2024 opponent. But advisers are betting that that quiet middle of the country — voters in swing districts like Golden’s — will be won over by the argument he and Golden made. That means defining his economic vision as not just a reversal of trickle-down economics but about reviving a sense of pride in communities that had felt left behind.
Biden noted that more money from initiatives like his infrastructure law are going to Republican-leaning counties and states, showing he’s “not picking winners and losers based on who they voted for” but “based on the need they have in their communities.”
Golden said that Biden’s argument may not reverse the 7-point victory Trump enjoyed in his district three years ago. But “he should be here, and he should be paying attention,” Golden said.
“You got to have the right focus. And like I said, you better be focused on regular people, and normal, real things that matter,” he said.
Golden voted against Biden on his signature “Build Back Better” legislation, as well as the American Rescue Plan and legislation for expanded background checks and banning assault weapons. But he supported the slimmed-down Inflation Reduction Act a year ago, as well as the CHIPS and Science Act and infrastructure laws.
“We’re succeeding here, and I think that’s because I’m a normal guy representing normal people and normal communities, that want regular things and they want serious representation,” Golden said. “There are all kinds of weird people down there engaging in very strange debates that have very little to do with what people’s daily lives look like. … I think the president gets that.”