President Joe Biden is set to deliver a speech Wednesday warning that American democracy is under attack by election naysayers running for office at all levels, as he tries to make defending democracy a top issue in next week’s midterm elections.   

  “This is also the first national election since the events of January 6, when an armed, angry mob stormed the US Capitol.  I wish I could say that the assault on our democracy ended that day.  But I can’t,” Biden will say, according to excerpts released by the Democratic National Committee ahead of the speech.  “As I stand here today, there are candidates for every level of office in America: for governor, for Congress, for attorney general, for secretary of state who will not commit to accepting the results of the elections in which they are running.  ”   

  “This is the road to chaos in America.  It is unprecedented.  It’s illegal.  And, it’s un-American.  As I’ve said before, you can’t love your country only when you’re winning.”   

  The speech — a political event hosted by the DNC, not the White House — will underscore the points Biden has been making for weeks since his first hour speech in Philadelphia.  That speech, which covered many of the same topics the president is expected to address Wednesday night, was criticized by Republicans and others as too political for an official White House event.   

  “Biden has been talking about democracy throughout his tenure,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, the president’s deputy chief of staff, told Axios.  “You can expect to hear from him tonight, similar to what he’s been saying for the past few months, that there’s a lot at stake, including democracy, and that everyone has a role in it.”   

  He said Biden would stress that the results may take time to come in, but that that should not undermine confidence in the results.   

  “That’s how democracy works, to make sure every vote counts, so it’s going to highlight that as well,” added O’Malley Dillon.   

  The setting of the speech near the Capitol is intended to refer to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol building to disrupt the certification of Biden’s victory.   

  “On January 6, we saw violence aimed at subverting democratic processes there.  So it’s, you know, the right place to make these remarks tonight,” said Biden adviser Anita Dunn.   

  Advisers to the president tell CNN that Biden and his team have been considering giving a speech on this very topic for some time — but that their decision-making and thinking in recent days have been shaped by what they see as the rise of opponent.  -democratic rhetoric and threats of violence.   

  “This is not an ordinary year.  So I’m asking you to think very carefully about the moment we’re in,” Biden will say.  “In a typical year, we are not often faced with the question of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy or endanger it.  But we are this year.”   

  One recent headline in particular has deeply troubled Biden and his top advisers: the violent attack on Paul Pelosi last week that authorities say was politically motivated.   

  The shocking home invasion and attack on Pelosi landed the 82-year-old in hospital for surgery and has since been recovering from a fractured skull, among other injuries.   

  Advisers say Biden felt it would be important for him to immediately condemn these kinds of threats and acts of violence.  He will also want to speak directly to election naysayers, they said, in an effort to counter, in part, Republican elected officials and candidates who have openly said they may refuse to accept the results of the upcoming election next week.   

  The issue of protecting the nation’s soul – and the pillars of the country’s democratic system – was central to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Since then, the President has spoken about these issues throughout his presidency, but her speech Wednesday will mark an effort to emphatically highlight what is at stake ahead of the midterms.   

  Defending democracy has been a vivid feature of Biden’s thinking this political season and has come up most abundantly in his off-camera conversations with Democrats.  The day before his speech in Washington, Biden warned a group of Democratic donors in Florida that “democracy is on the ballot” this year — and offered a preview of his message for a day later.   

  “How can you say you actually care about democracy when you deny the existence of a victory?  The only way to win is to either win or be cheated,” he said at the event, held on an oceanfront patio of a mansion in Golden Beach, Florida.   

  “This hasn’t happened since the Civil War.  It sounds like an exaggeration, but it hasn’t been as bad as it is now,” he said.   

  Biden’s reference to the Civil War did not seem accidental at all.  was seen this week carrying a copy of historian Jon Meacham’s new book, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle, which explores how America’s 16th president dealt with secession and threats to democracy.   

  Meacham is an informal adviser to Biden and has helped write some of his most high-profile speeches.   

  In remarks at the Florida fundraiser, Biden noted the attack on Paul Pelosi and said it was not at all surprising given the Republican rhetoric.  The attack on the House speaker’s husband is one of the reasons Biden decided to give Wednesday’s speech, officials said, although plans have been in the works for some time.   

  “Look at the response — the so-called response — from Republicans, making jokes about it and/or saying, ‘Well, you know, it’s not because of what’s being said and not being said,'” Biden said of the attack.   

  “The reason why people do what they do – there are a lot of unstable people in a population as large as ours.  When they hear every day these outrageous lies — these outrageous lies across the board about everything,” Biden said.   

  “How can you be surprised?”  asked.  “The guy is buying a gavel to kneel No. 3 in line to be President of the United States of America – No. 2 in line, I should say, to be the… president of the United States of America.  And no one in this party condemns it for exactly what it is.”   

  Biden previously laid out the stakes two months ago, traveling to Philadelphia, where he urgently rebuked former President Donald Trump and those aligned with his efforts to undermine democracy.   

  “As I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under attack,” Biden said at the time.  “We do ourselves no favors to pretend otherwise.”   

  Biden unequivocally warned at the time about what he called “extremism that threatens the very foundations of our democracy.”