President Joe Biden‘s closest supporters are calling on Democrats to end the debate over whether the party needs an alternative candidate after a former Obama adviser’s warnings about the incumbent’s 2024 viability.
Biden is facing tremendous uncertainty over his 2024 reelection prospects as recent polls show him trailing former President Donald Trump in a potential presidential faceoff next year. David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist and onetime adviser of former President Barack Obama, has issued a string of warnings about Biden’s reelection chances, saying Sunday that there is a “50-50 shot” Biden can win in 2024.
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Now close allies of Biden, such as former New York Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley, are attempting to rally his party back around the president, telling Democratic naysayers of Biden to “pipe down.”
“We gotta pipe down the moaning and groaning and all the whining. There’s too much of that,” Crowley, a onetime House Democratic Caucus chairman, told the Hill. “I think that leaches into the psyche of the voters as well. That’s got to stop and I think at that point, you’ll start to see Biden’s numbers improve, certainly amongst Democrats, but I think voter-wide they’ll start to improve.”
Uncertainty surrounding the president’s 2024 prospects comes as he heads into a Democratic primary next year against opponents including Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) and author Marianne Williamson. Rumors have also swirled for months that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) could see Biden’s slumping polls as a sign to run against him in the primary season, as Biden will already have to grapple with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
Steve Elmendorf, deputy campaign manager for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential run, appeared to agree with Crowley, arguing Democrats griping about Biden may only diminish his reelection prospects even further.
“He’s running for reelection. People need to understand that. And so as a party, everybody should figure out how do we get him reelected. Like, that’s pretty simple,” Elmendorf said, according to the outlet. “I’m in the [former Obama campaign managers] Jim Messina, David Plouffe school of ‘People need to stop bed-wetting and focus on how to win.'”
Recent polling has shown Trump is leading Biden in five swing states, including an Emerson College poll that showed the former president leading Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin.
One of the biggest concerns among Democrats disenchanted by Biden is his age, with the president turning 81 on Monday, bringing attention to his status as the oldest person to be the commander in chief.
Biden’s support of Israel in its war against Hamas also may weaken him among essential parts of his voting base. Another factor playing into pessimism over a second Biden term is the public’s position on economic strains and wars in Europe and the Middle East, according to recent polls.
Despite Biden’s negative trend in the polls, his campaign has argued the current polls don’t show the full picture and there is still a long road ahead before the 2024 election. Likewise, the lack of heavyweights in the Democratic primary shows the incumbent is likely to achieve the nomination easily, as Newsom has said publicly he wouldn’t attempt a run in the 2024 general race.
“You see days, weeks, months of breathless predictions about how terrible things are gonna be for Joe Biden followed by an Election Day with historic victories,” communications director Michael Tyler told reporters earlier this month.
“Time and again, Biden beats expectations,” Tyler said, referring to each previous election since Biden unseated Trump in 2020.
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Still, Axelrod has been vocal and cautionary ahead of the election year as Democrats have a narrow lane to float an alternative to take on Trump, who will likely be the GOP nominee, warning that Biden’s attitude is reminiscent of Hillary Clinton ahead of her 2016 defeat.
“He thinks he can cheat nature here and it’s really risky,” Axelrod said of Biden’s campaign. “They’ve got a real problem if they’re counting on Trump to win it for them. I remember Hillary doing that, too.”
