WASHINGTON • Staring at midterm elections that could cost them control of Congress, Democrats are trying to sculpt a 2022 legislative agenda that would generate achievements and reassure voters that they’re addressing pocketbook problems and can govern competently.

Last year, President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats notched two massive accomplishments: a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill and a $1 trillion infrastructure package. Yet also imprinted on voters’ minds are the months of Democratic infighting over priorities that saw holdouts embarrass Biden and party leaders by scuttling two goals: their roughly $2 trillion, 10year social and environment measure and voting rights legislation.

Resurrecting the social and environment bill tops the 2022 wish list for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. It’s a risky endeavor because Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.VA., has already derailed the legislation once, but Biden has conceded he’d accept a smaller package and Democrats could still claim victory with a more modest version.

“People want to see government work and expect us to help move things forward,” said Rep. Suzan Delbene, D-wash., chair of the New Democrat Coalition, a House centrist group. She said voters will assess Democrats’ agenda for “the impact it has on their communities, on their families. That’s going to be what people think about when they vote in November.”

To achieve that, Democrats are looking to claim election-year wins in a Congress they steer with almost no votes to spare, often against solid Republican opposition. They’re also debating the value of crafting other popular bills and essentially daring GOP lawmakers to defeat them, producing fodder for campaign ads but reminding constituents of Democrats’ 2021 failures.

Other Pelosi priorities include benefits for veterans who served near toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars, a measure addressing the computer chip shortage and other competitiveness issues, and a bill combating Russia’s threatened invasion of Ukraine with sanctions and other steps.

An early focus will be a $1.5 trillion bill financing government through September and perhaps providing further aid to cope with omicron, the highly contagious COVID-19 variant.

But revisiting the social and environment measure — which initially contained popular programs to restrain prescription drug prices, send monthly checks to families with children and curb global warming — is seen as a political imperative by many Democrats.

“We have to put everything to the metal for the next six weeks” to rewrite and pass that bill, said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-wash., who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus. She said Biden should issue executive orders easing pharmaceutical prices and student debt, and House Democrats should send popular bills to the Senate, where Republican-inflicted defeats would let “people understand that Democrats are fighting on these particular issues.”