President Joe Biden‘s 2024 general election campaign is a marathon, not a sprint, according to Democratic strategists.
But as the White House disputes reporting Biden is concerned about the prospects of his reelection bid, he does only have eight months to change the trajectory of his race against former President Donald Trump, a challenger who is no stranger to the electorate.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan denied Biden started to “shout and swear” during a meeting in January when he was told his position on the Israel–Hamas war was undermining his polling in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia amid other reporting he is concerned about his campaign’s strategy and message.
“There’s a report that when President Biden was told his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas was starting to affect his poll numbers, the quote is, ‘He began to shout and swear,’” one reporter asked Sullivan on Monday of the NBC article. “So when he does that, is he shouting and swearing about Netanyahu or about Hamas or about his poll numbers?”
“This is the ‘When did you stop beating your spouse’ question because I don’t think he ever did that,” Sullivan replied. “You use that as the premise of your question, which is when he does that, he, I’ve never seen him do that — shout or swear in response to that. So from my perspective, that particular report is not correct.”
But Biden is behind Trump in early polls of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, according to RealClearPolitics, states that, with the exception of North Carolina, helped him win the 2020 election. And Biden’s average 39% approval rating is lower than that of Trump, in addition to former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, at the corresponding point of their presidencies before they lost their own respective reelection campaigns, per FiveThirtyEight.
Although the Biden campaign did not engage with questions about the president’s reported concerns related to his bid, it publicly projected confidence, previewing his trip this week to Arizona and Nevada.
“With abortion on the ballot in both Nevada and Arizona, new, good-paying jobs to tout in clean energy and chips manufacturing, and organized labor behind us, the Biden-Harris campaign is in a strong position to continue to win these voters across the Southwest,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote Monday in a memo. “Meanwhile, Republicans in both states are deeply divided and far behind in shoring up their party apparatus as Trump and his MAGA allies remain fixated on election denialism and toxic abortion bans that continue to alienate the voters they need to win back after losing in 2018, 2020, and 2022.”
Reports, such as the “shout and swear” one, tend to indicate “someone is angry that their point of view was not being listened to,” Democratic strategist Stefan Hankin told the Washington Examiner.
“It’s never surprising that there’s disagreement among senior leadership and things like that because there’s never perfect decisions, never perfect answers, until you actually win, and then everyone’s a hero and everyone’s smart,” Hankin said.
For Hankin, the “core” of Biden’s concerns are “understandable,” as he has not received the political and policy credit he deserves, particularly when there is a “narrative” surrounding his age that renders the idea of campaigning “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
He also said eight months is a long time in politics. “This is a marathon, not a sprint,” he said. “We’re not trying to win March. We’re trying to win October.”
Another Democratic strategist, Mary Anne Marsh, argued it was “good” the Biden campaign was “picking up the pace” since the 2024 State of the Union because Trump is a “political accelerant” and the president needs to be “in the mix and in the coverage.” Marsh compared the Biden team to being in “spring training” with its combination of smaller and larger events.
“Let Biden be Biden because it’s still better than any version of Trump,” she told the Washington Examiner, adding she was “bullish” about Democrats’ chances this November because women continue to be “angry” toward Republicans over abortion.
Meanwhile, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt emphasized to the Washington Examiner that polls demonstrate the former president’s popularity, even among some independent voters.
“Joe Biden no longer has a base as key Democrat constituencies such as African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and women are supporting President Trump because they are sick and tired of Crooked Joe’s record-high inflation, open borders, crime, and chaos,” Leavitt said.
The Biden campaign defended the president’s smaller events last week in Michigan and Wisconsin, even though a lack of planning meant reporters traveling with him could not hear him during his Saginaw, Michigan, stop.
A campaign aide described the events as opportunities for Biden to speak and connect with supporters and potential voters in “a very personal” capacity, one that can be amplified on social media afterward.
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“The crowds in Milwaukee and Saginaw were thrilled to see the president,” the aide said. “They were fired up, and the president was, in turn, thrilled to see them, and he was fired up. I think everyone got a handshake; everyone got a picture with the boss.”
“These events are really important to us because, one, they’re about investing in the volunteer infrastructure, investing in the long-term organization that we’ve built to be able to talk to millions of voters this election,” he went on. “Secondly, the ability to have direct and personal engagement with the president is such a strength and such an advantage to do that. Sixty-five, 75, 85 people seeing him personally and not just behind a podium makes it much more intimate and makes it much more real.”
