BOSTON — His health care plan in peril, President Barack Obama planned a last-minute campaign trip to Massachusetts for Democrat Martha Coakley on Sunday, with polls showing her struggling in an unexpectedly close race to fill the Senate seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy.
Vice President Joe Biden, trying to turn the focus of the race away from the president’s embattled health care bill, joined the fray. He sent an e-mail to Democrats assailing Republican Scott Brown for opposing Obama’s just-announced plan to tax large Wall Street firms.
The White House’s aggressiveness reflected a deep concern among Democrats that they could lose a seat the party has controlled for more than half a century — and with it the 60th Senate vote that has kept alive the health care overhaul Obama has spent his first year pushing toward passage.
Beyond that, a poor outcome for Coakley on Tuesday would make moderate Democrats more nervous about backing Obama on other issues out of concern about their own re-election chances in November, undercutting his presidency.
If Coakley wins, she has said, she will vote as Kennedy did, with the 57 other Democrats and two independents who side with them. Brown has made clear he would vote against the health plan, giving Senate Republicans the 41st vote they need to block the bill.
