Devastating new polls that grabbed outsized attention this weekend appear to be fueling fear among some Democrats over President Biden’s ability to win re-election next year.
That has led some top political pundits to ring the alarm bell as they urge the 80-year-old president to drop out of the 2024 race and pass the baton to a new generation.
The poll grabbing the most headlines — a survey from Siena College and the New York Times — indicated former President Trump edging Biden in hypothetical matchups in five of the six crucial battleground states that Biden narrowly carried in 2020 on his way to capturing the White House.
“This will send tremors of doubt thru the party — not ‘bed-wetting,’ but legitimate concern,” veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod wrote on X as he pointed to the poll.
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Axelrod, the top political adviser to then-President Obama, who in recent years has made headlines with high-profile critiques of Biden, wrote, “Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”
The survey suggests Biden losing support among Black and Hispanic voters, as well as younger voters who have long been key parts of the Democratic Party’s base of support.
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Additionally, while the survey indicates Biden losing to Trump, it also suggests that an unnamed generic Democratic nominee tops Trump by eight points in the 2024 presidential election.
The Siena College/New York Times survey did not live in a vacuum. A CBS News poll also released over the weekend pointed to Trump edging Biden in a likely 2024 showdown.
People supporting the president in the survey said they are nervous and frustrated by the prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch.
Trump is the commanding frontrunner in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination as he makes his third straight White House run. He saw his lead expand over his numerous rivals during the spring and summer as he made history as the first former or current president in American history to be indicted for a crime. Trump’s four indictments — including in federal court in Washington, D.C., and in Fulton County court in Georgia on charges he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss — have only fueled his support among Republican voters.
The CBS News poll also reiterates what plenty of other surveys this year have spotlighted — that a majority of Americans do not want to see a Biden-Trump rematch.
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The president’s re-election campaign took aim at the latest surveys, pointing to the Democrats’ poll-defying success in last year’s midterms and to Obama’s 2012 re-election despite polls a year earlier predicting defeat for the incumbent.
“Predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later,” Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said.
“Don’t take our word for it: Gallup predicted an eight point loss for President Obama only for him to win handedly a year later,” Munoz added. “Or a year out from the 2022 midterms when every major outlet similarly predicted a grim forecast for President Biden.”
Axelrod is not the only well-known Democratic strategist hitting the panic button.
Longtime Democratic consultant James Carville — who helped boost former President Clinton to the White House in 1992 — has been warning for a couple of months that Biden could lose to Trump next year.
“Somebody better wake the f‑‑‑ up,” Carville emphasized earlier this autumn in a podcast with well-known political commentator and host Bill Maher
Carville also claimed in a recent interview with The Atlantic that “leading Democrats” have been telling him to keep quiet about Biden’s 2024 prospect.
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A veteran Democratic strategist, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, acknowledged that the latest polling was “devastating” for the president and told Fox News that it would likely “raise more questions” about Biden’s durability and a possible 2024 alternative.
It is not just Democrats urging Biden to bow out.
Bill Kristol, the longtime conservative writer and commentator and a top “never-Trumper,” argued on social media that “President Biden has served our country well. I’m confident he’ll do so for the next year. But it’s time for an act of personal sacrifice and public spirit. It’s time to pass the torch to the next generation. It’s time for Biden to announce he won’t run in 2024.”
The president is currently facing long shot primary challenges from a pair of Democratic rivals.
Three-term Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who launched a primary challenge against the president a week and a half ago, has been arguing that Biden cannot beat Trump in 2024. The new polls gave Phillips plenty of fresh ammunition.
“I’m saying the quiet part out loud. Biden/Harris isn’t viable against Trump,” he said in a social media post.
“I could offer no statement more powerful than the one made by suffering Americans in today’s NY Times poll,” Phillips added. “That’s why Trump beats Biden 48-44 in the battleground states, while a ‘generic’ Democrat beats Trump 48-40.”
Both Phillips and bestselling author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson, who is making her second straight White House run, face steep uphill climbs to defeat Biden for the Democratic nomination.
However, with poll after poll indicating Biden faces rising concerns from Democrats over his age and that many Americans, including plenty of Democrats, do not want the president to seek a second term in the White House, the question going forward is whether party leaders will begin pressuring the president to reconsider his re-election bid.
Then, there is the constant speculation that well-known Democrats who may seek the White House in 2028 could jump into the 2024 race should Biden hang up his re-election campaign, even with Vice President Kamala Harris as the logical next-in-line.
A growing number of stories in recent months characterize high-profile trips and moves by Govs. Gavin Newsom of California, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, and Rep. Ro Khanna of California as potential shadow campaigns should Biden bow out.
