Good Thursday morning, I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing.

The last debate of the presidential election is tonight in Nashville, and election day is 12 days away.

We've spilled much ink over the last four years, painstakingly detailing President Donald Trump's governing challenges.

But with the transition kicking into high gear, it's larger and more aggressive than Obama's in 2008,

it's time to turn our attention to the power and personal dynamics of President Joe Biden would

face. This does not amount to a prediction to win, but rather an exploration of the challenges

and opportunities he'd have. Biden would come into power facing a Democratic Party with high

hopes, anxious for change, wary of centrism, and full of demands after four years of Trump in the White House.

The House will certainly be led by Nancy Pelosi, who, given her long experience as speaker,

will immediately become the most powerful leader in Washington.

But she'll be atop a Democratic caucus filled with lawmakers who would loudly look to blow up

the system after two or four years of serving alongside

Trump. The Senate should Democrats win would be led by Biden's former colleague Chuck Schumer of

New York, a savvy but cautious leader, blowing up the filibuster and expanding the Supreme Court

to the most obvious fights he'll face. Schumer, a brand new majority leader, would be up for

re-election in 2022. Running the Senate while in cycle is extraordinarily challenging. He would need to govern with one eye on a potential primary challenge from the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. If Republicans keep the Senate majority, Biden's troubles would be compounded, if not insurmountable. Biden imagines a Washington that doesn't exist, at least at the moment, a town where partisan affiliations fall away. Should Republicans lose the majority, Biden would face a minority led by Mitch McConnell,

a ruthless capital knife fighter who would, if passed as president, be looking to undermine

Biden and win back the majority in 2022.

Biden would face early governing challenges, too, a government funding fight at some point in the

first six months, a battle over weather to blow up the filibuster, more COVID relief, and a federal bureaucracy plundered by Trump. This is not the Democratic

Party of 2008, nor the government of that era, and these challenges are far steeper than those

Obama faced in 2009. Not to mention, Biden would face an early challenge in filling a cabinet that

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