Democratic Insiders Are Sounding the Alarm About Biden: 'This Is Grim'
Has the Democratic Party been saddled with a doomed presidential candidate?
That’s the question party elites are raising about President Joe Biden less than a year before the 2024 election, according to The New York Times.
The Times’ Thomas B. Edsall said Biden is in “a dangerous situation” as voting blocs that Democrats usually have firmly in hand start to slip from their grasp.
A poll conducted by Stan Greenberg and James Carville’s Democracy Corps found that “the base of Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, LGBTQ+ community, Gen Z, millennials, unmarried and college women give [Donald] Trump higher approval ratings than Biden.”
The poll also places Biden in a 5-point hole in the crucial swing states likely to determine the outcome of the 2024 election.
“This is grim,” Greenberg said of the results.
In what Edsall described as another “body blow” for Biden, recent NBC News polling showed that Democrats and Republicans are now almost tied among voters on middle-class issues, with Democrats clinging to a 2-point lead.
Biden’s Democratic detractors are also pointing to his shaky standings in polls forecasting a rematch with Trump.
The president currently trails Trump by 2 points in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls.
What’s fascinating about the current Trump vs. Biden polling is that Biden actually isn’t dropping — Trump is picking up undecided votes. Biden has been stagnant in the polls for months, and his polling now is near prior highs. But Trump is regularly breaking his supposed… pic.twitter.com/Wpy3bJ2gVr
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 6, 2023
By contrast, Biden handily led Trump in nearly all 2020 polls — projections that Trump ultimately outperformed, despite losing the election.
One November poll showed that a generic Democratic candidate would have better standing in the 2024 election, with voters giving an unnamed Democrat a 6-point edge over Trump.
Biden’s polling woes haven’t escaped the notice of other Democratic elites.
Former Obama administration adviser David Axelrod said a recent survey that showed Trump leading in five battleground states would “send tremors of doubt [through] the party.”
It’s very late to change horses; a lot will happen in the next year that no one can predict & Biden’s team says his resolve to run is firm.
He’s defied CW before but this will send tremors of doubt thru the party–not “bed-wetting,” but legitimate concern. https://t.co/g6zeWF0T87— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) November 5, 2023
Axelrod questioned the 81-year-old Biden’s chances in 2024, pointing out that “the age arrow only points in one direction,” and seemingly urged him to consider dropping out of the race.
“The stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore,” Axelrod posted on X.
The president allegedly responded by calling Axelrod a “p***k” in a private conversation.
Biden is all but guaranteed to be the Democratic Party’s nominee, with the Democratic National Committee having sidelined primary challengers by refusing to schedule debates.
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