As Biden tries to project strength, his position is weaker than ever
Zachary Faria
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As President Joe Biden prepares to project the strength of his administration during the State of the Union address, the blood is in the water for any Democrats who want to jump into the candidate pool for 2024.
An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that the share of Democrats who want Biden to run for a second term has dropped from 52% last October to 37%. Among Democrats 45 and older, support for a second Biden campaign has dropped from 58% to 49%. Among Democrats under 45, support has tanked from 45% to 23%.
STATE OF OUR UNION: BIDEN NEVER EVEN TRIED TO BE THE UNITY PRESIDENT
General election voters have soured even further on Biden, dropping from a paltry 29% supporting a second run to 22%. An ABC News/Washington Post poll perhaps offered the bleakest outlook: Not only is Biden’s approval rating 11 points underwater, but he trails former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical rematch among registered voters.
Biden’s weakness was temporarily masked by the 2022 midterm elections, in which terrible GOP candidates lost winnable races and convinced Democrats that Biden was actually in a strong position. Now, reality is setting in once again, and Democratic politicians are beginning to notice it. Julian Castro, who was part of the Obama administration and ran for president in 2020, called out Biden’s weakness on Monday, noting that trailing Trump in a poll “undermines Biden’s central argument for re-nomination.”
Biden and the Democratic Party certainly recognize it, too. Under the cover of “diversity,” the party reorganized the primary calendar to dump Iowa and New Hampshire, where Biden performed terribly in 2020. Now, South Carolina is at the top of the order, and it also happens to be the state that Biden won decisively, which helped him pull away from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and the rest of the field. Biden is vulnerable, and he and the Democratic Party both know it.
The only question left is whether or not any Democrat decides to do something about it. Democrats have presented a united front with the 80-year-old president, but candidates such as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg may not sit out forever if Biden continues to trail Trump (the less popular of the GOP’s two front-runners) in polls.
Would someone like Newsom, with clear presidential ambitions, be willing to wait another four years for his opportunity (giving more Democrats time to rise and steal his thunder), knowing that he would likely be running against an incumbent GOP president if he escapes a brutal primary?
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All the talk from the Biden administration about his “wins” is more wish-casting than anything else. Biden will be weak in a general election, and he will be weak in a competitive primary if a legitimate Democratic candidate jumps in. Every Democratic politician toeing the party line knows it, including Biden himself.