‘Bailout’ Brawl, Round 1

COVID bill’s passage promised to heat-up partisan battle lines

With the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill passed by the House on Wednesday and headed to President Biden’s desk, the legislative battle over the massive measure is ending — but the PR and political fights are only beginning.

And the package, the first major legislation success in Biden’s short tenure so far in the White House, will likely be a defining factor in next year’s midterm elections, which will be a referendum on Biden’s first two years in office.

Biden’s planning a media blitz to sell the measure to the American public, with his rollout starting Thursday night when the president gives his first speech in prime time…

Democrats, who hope to hold onto their control of the House and increase their razor-thin majority in the Senate in the 2022 midterms, plan to showcase the bill in the months ahead.

“We are going to be campaigning on this legislation,” Sen. Gary Peters told reporters on Monday. The chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the re-election arm of Senate Democrats, emphasized that “we are going to show meaningful results for people in need.”

Veteran Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio tells Fox News that when it comes to the political impact of the COVID package, “the devil’s in the details.” Fabrizio argued that “only 10, 11% of the money actually goes to fighting COVID. The rest of the money goes to a whole bunch of other things, like bailing out states and bailing out cities and pension funds, money that has nothing to do with direct COVID relief.”

Pointing to Biden’s approval rating on handling the coronavirus – which stands around 60% in the latest public opinion polling — Anzalone said that voters “are acknowledging that there is a president who’s in control of the situation and who’s job number one is fixing this problem.”

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