Biden’s Finally Talking About Student Debt Relief -- Weeks Before Midterms

President Joe Biden has begun aggressively promoting his student debt relief plan with less than three weeks before midterm elections, after all but avoiding the subject on the campaign trail while the government worked out kinks in the program.

Biden will promote the initiative Friday at Delaware State University, following a White House event Monday to officially launch the application website. About 12 million people have applied for loan forgiveness as of October 18, according to the president, who said more than 40 million stand to benefit.

But multiple legal challenges, including a lawsuit from Republican-led states, are moving through courts, threatening to halt the effort and throw millions of applicants into limbo. Biden’s late blitz to sign up borrowers also has some Democrats worried the president waited too long to make an impact in the election.

For weeks after the relief was announced, Biden barely mentioned it in speeches -- even when the setting seemed to invite comment. Speaking at a community college in Irvine, California, on October 14, Biden did not mention the initiative. Later that same night, the US Department of Education began beta testing the website, allowing people to begin submitting applications.

“I certainly think there was an argument that it could have been done earlier,” said Chris Scott, chief political officer at Democracy for America, a progressive PAC, noting his group was among those pushing the White House to act sooner.

He said development of the application portal may have led Biden to hold off from pushing the program on the trail. In 2013, Democrats were stung after then-President Barack Obama’s healthcare.gov site to enroll people in health insurance crashed within hours of its launch, drawing widespread criticism.