WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden asked American voters on Wednesday night to consider the future of democracy when they vote in next week’s midterm elections, urging them to reject his predecessor’s “big lie” that is fuelling political extremism and violence.

In a televised address from Washington’s Union Station, just blocks from where a mob stormed the Capitol to disrupt his own ascension to the White House, Mr Biden hoped to put the democracy question front and centre for the final days of debate before voters complete their choices on Tuesday for Congress and numerous state offices.

“As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America, for governor, Congress, attorney-general, secretary of state, who won’t commit, they will not commit to accepting the results of the elections that they’re running in,” he said, flanked by a series of flags in the capital’s train station.

“That’s the path to chaos in America. It’s unprecedented. It’s unlawful. And it is un-American,” he added.

Mr Biden also drew a line from Mr Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 vote and the attack on the Capitol to the violent attack that hospitalised Mr Paul Pelosi, the husband of House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Mr Biden said Paul Pelosi’s attacker used “a hammer to smash Paul’s skull”.

“It’s hard to even say, after the assailant entered the home asking, ‘Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?’ Those are the very same words used by the mob when they stormed the United States Capitol on Jan 6,” he said.

“It was an enraged mob that had been whipped up into a frenzy by a president repeating over and over again the big lie that the election of 2020 had been stolen. It’s a lie that fueled the dangerous rise in political violence and voter intimidation over the past two years,” he added. 

Mr Biden spoke six days before the Nov 8 midterms. Polls showed voters were poised to hand control of one or both chambers of Congress to Republicans.

That result would set up a pugnacious back-half to Mr Biden’s first term, defined by congressional gridlock and investigations of his administration or even impeachment proceedings.

Mr Biden has repeatedly made the case ahead of the elections that democracy in the US is under threat from far-right extremism and followers of former president Donald Trump.

He said Mr Trump “abused his power and put the loyalty to himself before the loyalty to the Constitution”.

He cast the midterm elections as a “struggle for democracy, a struggle for decency and dignity, a struggle for prosperity and progress”.

“We don’t settle our differences in America with a riot or a mob or a bullet or a hammer, we settle them peaceably,” he said.

Political violence has become an increasing concern in recent years. Threats against members of Congress have risen more than tenfold since Mr Trump was elected in 2016, according to the US Capitol Police, which registered more than 9,625 such threats last year alone.

More than 370 Republican candidates have questioned and, at times, outright denied the results of the 2020 election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, according to a months-long New York Times investigation.

Mr Trump has made fealty to his false claims a litmus test for his support for Republican candidates.

Republicans once again asserted that in criticising them for election denial,

Mr Biden was himself being divisive instead of the uniter he promised to be.

“Desperate and dishonest,” the Republican National Committee said in a statement without waiting for the speech to be delivered. “Joe Biden promised unity but has instead demonised and smeared Americans, while making life more expensive for all.”

But not every Democrat thought it was helpful for the president to make the speech when candidates are trying to distance themselves from Mr Biden, whose approval ratings are in the mid-40s, and voters in polls are focused on issues like inflation as well as immigration, crime and abortion.

“Issues of democracy are hugely important at this moment and in next week’s election. Totally appropriate for @POTUS to address them,” Mr David Axelrod, the former senior adviser to president Barack Obama, wrote on Twitter. “Still, as a matter of practical politics, I doubt many Ds in marginal races are eager for him to be on TV tonight.” BLOOMBERG, NYTIMES