Less than 24 hours after signing his $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law, President Joe Biden hit the road to sell the bill's benefits directly to the American people.
His first stop? A trip to New Hampshire, where 215 bridges are deemed structurally unsafe.
The president spoke Tuesday as it lightly snowed, with the backdrop of a rusted bridge that carries state Route 175 over the Pemigewasset River. Built in 1939, the bridge has been on the state's "red list" since 2014 because of its poor condition. Another bridge over the river was added in 2018.
"This may not seem like a big bridge, but it saves lives and solves problems," he said. "Businesses depend on it, like the local propane company, or the sand and gravel company or logging trucks."
"When you see these projects starting your hometowns, I want you to feel what I feel: pride. Pride of what we can do together as the United States of America," he said of the various improvements and sectors the infrastructure law will begin to fund.
Democrats are planning to campaign on the infrastructure bill, a major part of Biden's economic agenda, as they head into the 2022 midterm elections.
New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called for a "full court press" to sell the infrastructure bill on Tuesday, adding that House Democrats are planning to hold "1,000 events" between now and the end of the year to celebrate their legislative accomplishments.
"There'll be 1,000 events between now and the end of the year describing why this work that we have now completed on the infrastructure bill and will soon complete on the Build Back Better Act will give people a better country, give them more breathing room for their families, and a future they can look forward to," Maloney said at a press conference Tuesday.
"We are going to stick together, we are going to get it done, we are going to tell them we did it, and we are going to tell them who the other side is," he added. "And with those four parts of the strategy, we're going to tackle the toughest problems that face the American people, and we want people to know what we're doing."
"If you’re rooting against this jobs bill, you’re rooting against America," he added.
But Republicans are feeling optimistic about their chances to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and not just because of Biden’s slumping poll numbers or Republican Glenn Youngkin’s surprise win in the Virginia governor’s race.
Republicans only need to flip five seats held by Democrats next year to take back the House, and they will likely enjoy a tremendous advantage in the redistricting process — the process of creating new lines for congressional districts every ten years after the publication of national census data.
“If you’re a Democrat and President Biden won your seat by 16 points last year, you’re in a competitive race next year. You are no longer safe,” House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Calif., opined in a press conference earlier this month.
According to a tracker from ABC News' FiveThirtyEight, thirteen states have already completed their redrawn maps, such as Montana and Utah, while several other states are deep in the process, including California and Florida, which have 80 congressional seats between them.
By FiveThirtyEight's analysis, Democrats and Republicans have picked up five seats nationwide apiece, while the number of competitive seats
However, most state legislatures oversee redistricting, and more of them are controlled by the GOP than by Democrats. As such, Repbulicans could pull ahead of Democrats soon, FiveThirtyEight predicts, though many highly partisan maps are likely to be challenged in court.
“Both political parties understand that it is in many ways easier to take control of the chamber for a decade by redrawing lines once every 10 years than it is by winning these seats,” said David Daley, a senior fellow for the nonpartisan voting rights advocacy organization FairVote.
Daley pointed to Ohio, where Republicans fully control the redistricting process, as one example: Republicans in the Buckeye State are trying to enact new district lines that could result in 12 or 13 Republican seats, and just two or three Democratic seats, even after state voters overwhelmingly backed redistricting reform in 2018.
“It is a mockery of what voters want, but it is yet another indication of just how important this process is and what politicians will do to control it,” Daley said.
Historically, the party of the president tends to fare poorly in the midterm election, so Democrats know that they face an uphill battle to keep their majority. On top of that, with Tuesday's announcement that California Rep. Jackie Speier will retire at the end of her term, 14 House Democrats have said they are not running for re-election. Ten House Republicans are also not seeking re-election, along with six U.S. Senators: Five Republicans and one Democrat.
Experts warn redistricting deserves the most scrutiny as legislatures create fewer and fewer competitive races across the country.
“The number of competitive seats will be a lot less in November 2022 than it was in November 2020,” said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program.
Spectrum News' Austin Landis and Kevin Frey contributed to this report.