“It’s important that we go for someone besides Trump because Trump’s not on the ballot,” said Celinda Lake, a pollster for Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign pollster who conducts focus groups with midterm voters. “We’re trying to beat Republicans in 2022 in state legislatures, secretaries of state races, governors races and congressional races.”

Rather than calling out Trump by name, Biden is targeting the Make America Great Again takeover of the Republican Party, casting a range of issues – the fight with Disney World over LGBTQ-related issues, aGOP income tax proposal and a recent Supreme Court draft opinion overturning abortion rights – as the product of an increasingly extreme party…

Despite Trump’s departure from the White House, Nayak said voters still see Republicans as a “different, radicalized party,” pointing to the emergence of Trump-allied lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. and Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

“There’s a recognition that the threats are much broader than Trump,” he said, adding that the “ultra MAGA” label “told a much broader story that was no longer about one individual but a much broader set of actors.”