Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here| Email Alex | Email Eli | Email Lauren They say it’s not how you start but how you finish. Consider where President JOE BIDEN was at the end of his first year in office in 2021: He had passed a massive Covid-19 relief bill less than two months in and notched a bipartisan win with an infrastructure overhaul — but that summer’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan knocked him off course. Then, just days before Christmas, Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) derailed his big domestic spending package with investments in climate and bolstering the social safety net. Twelve months later, it’s a completely different story. While Biden’s second year got off to a slow start, it is ending at what is — to this point — the high water mark of his presidency. “Biden’s biggest problem in 2021 was that people thought he couldn't get things done. And then he got a bunch of things done,” JOHN ANZALONE , Biden’s 2020 campaign pollster, told West Wing Playbook. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, Biden has led a unified transatlantic alliance committed to defending the country. After enacting more bipartisan laws to boost semiconductor manufacturing, strengthen gun safety laws and improve health care for veterans, Biden signed a scaled-down version of his domestic spending bill that ultimately included the country’s biggest ever climate investment after Manchin finally struck a deal with Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER. In November, Democrats averted the usual midterm wipeout, narrowly losing the House but gaining a seat in the Senate. December has already seen Biden make same-sex marriage the law of the land, and an omnibus spending package is likely to land on his desk before year’s end. In a memo circulated to administration allies Monday and first scooped by CNN’s PHIL MATTINGLY and MJ LEE, Biden’s long-time aide MIKE DONILON acknowledged the Supreme Court’s rollback of abortion rights in June and the extremism of countless GOP candidates molded in the image of former President DONALD TRUMP were key factors in the midterm results. “But what hasn’t been fully reported on — or fully understood — is how important a role the achievements and the agenda of the president and the Democrats played in the midterms,” Donilon wrote. Biden and top aides took a lot of crap in October from nervous consultants, pollsters and pundits questioning why the president focused so much on his accomplishments — including in this newsletter from STAN GREENBERG, who called all the bragging about legislative wins Biden’s “worst performing message.” So you can understand all the football-spiking and memo-writing in that context. But Democrats’ legislative accomplishments were a factor in them holding on in so many frontline races. Anzalone pointed to his recent post-election polling of the top 50 swing districts for AARP. As Biden and Democrats spent the final month of the campaign touting how the Inflation Reduction Act would lower prescription drug costs for seniors, voters 65 and older went from preferring Republicans on the generic ballot by 10 points to a three-point edge for Democrats. “That’s two cycles in a row that Joe Biden kept seniors dead even and we narrowly won them this year,” Anzalone said. “People don’t see how much direct mail gets sent to seniors but they read it all, so it’s really important to have those accomplishments on prescription drugs and insulin.” Even with shockingly poor Republican candidates and the Dobbs backlash, Democrats still needed a positive case to make on the economy to swing voters, Anzalone said. “Late deciders usually go 80 percent to the opposition party. This year, they were dead even.” Of course, it’s not how you start but how you finish — and 2024 is still political light years away. Although the year-end triumphalism seemingly gives momentum to Biden’s likely reelection bid, aides note they’d likely be celebrating such a run of accomplishments regardless of whether a campaign was on the horizon. In his memo, Donilon noted the popularity of the component pieces of the IRA and other new laws — pieces Biden plans to spend much of the next year touting as they take shape by drawing attention to factory groundbreakings, new bridge openings and the like. How much mileage Biden can get out of 2022’s accomplishments in 2023 and beyond remains to be seen. But Democrats inside the White House and out are used to the doubts, and increasingly confident about defying them. “There seems to be a consistent theme: Political observers doubt President Biden and then he defies expectations and delivers,” said BEN LABOLT, a Democratic operative and veteran of the Obama White House. “The Biden agenda has proven popular at the polls, and the president now heads into 2023 with a significantly united Democratic Party and the wind as his back.” MESSAGE US — Are you a recipient of MIKE DONILON’s memo? We want to hear from you. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. | 
