A younger generation of Democrats have shelved their presidential ambitions to support President Joe Biden next year despite mounting concerns over his age.
Biden, who turned 81 on Monday, announced he would run for reelection in April, ending months of speculation about whether he would pursue a second term, but he continues to be dogged by hand-wringing about his fitness to serve.
Biden has drawn one reasonably influential Democratic challenger, 54-year-old Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who is attacking Biden’s electability while promoting his own relative youth, and party insiders such as David Axelrod have questioned publicly whether Biden can win in 2024.
Yet, by and large, the president has kept his would-be successors at bay.
All of the bigger names, such as Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD), and Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), have gotten in line behind Biden and insist he’s their pick for next year.
That has not stopped the worrying headlines, such as a Messenger/HarrisX poll released Tuesday that found 40% of Democratic voters believe Biden should not run for another term, while just 25% of Republican voters said the same for former President Donald Trump. A weekend NBC News poll found that 70% of voters aged 18-34 disapprove of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
But party strategists insist that the question of who’s next can wait until after 2024.
“I’m very confident about Biden and his prospects,” Democratic strategist Michael Stratton said. “He demonstrates every day that he’s a strong, steady leader. People are going to be asked to make a choice between leadership and something else, and I think people are going to choose leadership.”
Meanwhile, Republicans are salivating over the prospect of a second Trump term and eyeing the polls too. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Democrats are growing desperate as each subsequent survey brings fresh headaches.
“What you are seeing on the Left is a desperation that’s literally a survival function,” Gingrich said on Fox News. “We have never seen this, maybe the South in 1860, but other than that, we have never seen this level of desperation in American politics. It’s going to get worse. They have a candidate that’s hopeless. You look at Joe Biden. No, he’s not going to win and they can’t get rid of him.”
But just as Republicans focus on Biden’s unpopularity, Democrats shine the spotlight on Trump. Biden’s successful 2020 campaign and his party’s overachieving midterm results hinged largely on an anti-Trump, anti-“MAGA” message.
“If Trump is on the ballot, young voters will turn out,” said Sasha Tirador, a Democratic strategist in southern Florida. “They will not be voting for Biden, they will be voting against Trump.”
Tirador said she would be more worried if the GOP candidate were former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who consistently outpolls Biden, or even Trump-bashing spoiler candidate Chris Christie. But so far, Trump is more than 40 points above any of his competitors, and Tirador sees The Donald as a polarizing figure against which Biden will seem the safe, centrist choice.
“Just because moderate voters don’t have a party any more, that doesn’t mean we’re not here,” Tirador said. “It doesn’t mean we cease to vote.”
Biden will eventually leave the stage, though, and the next round of left-leaning stars are busy building resumes to be the next name up in 2028.
“You’ll have an incumbent vice president in Harris, you’ll have the governor of California [Newsom], a host of other governors like Gov. [Roy] Cooper (D-NC) and Beshear,” Stratton said. “I think the Democratic bench is quite strong for ‘28.”
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Harris, as vice president, would be the natural choice, though she consistently polls worse than Biden and does not seem to be connecting with the party’s base. The name getting the most attention, Newsom, is doing so for good reason, according to Tirador.
“I think he is a rock star in politics,” Tirador said. “Our last rock star was Barack Obama. So when people take a look at Gavin Newsom in Florida, where his campaign placed ads against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), I think that motivated a lot of Democratic voters who have been calling for a more aggressive stance from the party against Republicans.”
