Joe Biden’s Democratic critics had a terrible election night

Joe Biden‘s Democratic critics had a bad night on Tuesday as the president celebrated major wins for Democrats in key races and appeared to dismiss a recent poll showing him behind former President Donald Trump in swing states.

Biden took to social media site X, formerly Twitter, and declared that “MAGA lost”—a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan— following Democratic victories in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The election results come as some Democrats have criticized Biden or called for him to drop out of the 2024 presidential race following a poll from The New York Times/Siena College that showed the president behind Trump in five battleground states.

Biden appeared to make reference to that poll in a post on Tuesday.

“Across the country tonight, democracy won and MAGA lost. Voters vote. Polls don’t. Now let’s go win next year,” the president wrote.

Democrats won a series of victories on Tuesday that may undermine calls for Biden to step aside as the party’s 2024 candidate for president.

Newsweek has reached out to the Biden campaign via email for comment.

In Kentucky, Democratic Governor Andy Beshear won re-election and defeated Republican state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, while Democrat Daniel McCaffery won a 10-year term on the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court, defeating Republican Carolyn Carluccio.

The Associated Press called the race for McCaffery at around 11 p.m. on Tuesday. Abortion was a key issue in the race and McCaffery campaigned on upholding Pennsylvania’s law that allows abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Democrats in Virginia gained full control of the General Assembly. They retained their majority in the state Senate, which they’ve held since 2020, and flipped the House of Delegates in a defeat for Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin.

Virginia Democrats had made abortion access a key part of their campaign.

Democrats have been galvanized to turn out to vote in recent elections in support of abortion rights following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year overturning the 50-year-old decision of Roe v. Wade that protected a pregnant woman’s right to choose to have an abortion.

New Jersey Democrats defied expectations and expanded their majorities in both the state Senate and the Assembly, though final counts could not be made on Tuesday night.

In a separate post from the official @POTUS account on X, Biden highlighted that voters in Ohio approved a ballot measure on Tuesday that will enshrine reproductive rights, including abortion access, into the state constitution.

“Ohioans and voters across the country rejected attempts by MAGA Republican elected officials to impose extreme abortion bans that put the health and lives of women in jeopardy, force women to travel hundreds of miles for care, and threaten to criminalize doctors and nurses for providing the health care that their patients need and that they are trained to provide,” Biden wrote.

“This extreme and dangerous agenda is out-of-step with the vast majority of Americans,” the president added.

Tuesday’s results are likely to bolster Biden’s position following recent bad polling and criticism from some Democrats.

The New York Times/Siena College poll showed Trump leading Biden in five out of the six battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

David Axelrod, a political strategist who worked on former President Barack Obama‘s 2008 and 2012 campaigns and served as a senior adviser in his administration, responded to the polling on X earlier this week and suggested Biden could drop out.

“It’s very late to change horses; a lot will happen in the next year that no one can predict & Biden’s team says his resolve to run is firm,” Axelrod wrote.

“He’s defied CW [conventional wisdom] before but this will send tremors of doubt thru the party—not ‘bed-wetting,’ but legitimate concern,” he added.

Democratic Representative Dean Phillips is challenging Biden for their party’s 2024 nomination and has repeatedly said that he does not think Biden should run for re-election. Phillips announced he would leave his position in the House Democratic leadership in October over his party’s support for Biden’s 2024 re-election bid.

Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal has not called for Biden to leave the race but she told MSNBC host Jen Psaki on Sunday that she believed his re-election bid was in “great trouble” pointed to the current Israel-Hamas conflict as a major issue.

“I think it is important to recognize that we have a very divided country, as you well know. You have said that polls really don’t reflect where people are. I agree with you. But I will tell you, this is the first time, Jen, that I have felt like the 2024 election is in great trouble, for the president and for our democratic control, which is essential to moving forward,” Jayapal said.

“Because these young people, Muslim Americans, Arab Americans, but also young people, see this conflict as a moral conflict and a moral crisis. And they are not going to be brought back to the table easily with, you know, if we do not address this,” Jayapal added.