U.S. President Joe Biden may not be on the ballot Tuesday, but his legacy is riding on the outcome of the election.
A loss for Vice President Kamala Harris would prompt immediate questions over whether Biden stayed in the race too long, Democrats privately acknowledge. But it is also likely to doom many of Biden’s legislative achievements, including in clean energy, health insurance and foreign policy.
Former President Donald Trump has said that if re-elected, he would gut Biden’s signature clean energy bill, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, which is expected to pour $1.2 trillion over the next decade into technologies to fight climate change. Trump has scoffed at Biden’s efforts to prioritize racial equity when implementing policy. He has said he would allow Russia to do "whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies, while Biden’s aides say that rallying the Atlantic alliance to back Ukraine against the Russian invasion is one of his proudest accomplishments. Trump also recently criticized a bipartisan law that invests in semiconductor manufacturing as "so bad.”
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