President Joe Biden is looking beyond the 2024 Republican presidential primary with his second GOP debate counter-programming.
With former President Donald Trump the primary’s undisputed front-runner, Biden is starting to make his general election case against the presumptive nominee, contending democracy is at stake.
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Biden’s address Thursday at the Arizona Heritage Center in Phoenix is expected to speak to the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain‘s legacy and “the work we must do together to strengthen our democracy,” according to the White House.
Amplifying the “above the day to day” issue of democracy is “definitely helpful” for Biden, the White House, and his reelection campaign, per Democratic strategist Stefan Hankin, because the incumbent and his predecessor are not “two wholly loved candidates.” Simultaneously, Trump is distancing himself from strict anti-abortion policies, even though a Supreme Court with three of his appointees overturned Roe v. Wade, a development that won many Democrats elections last year.
“There’s not much you’re going to really talk about Trump that people don’t already know,” Hankin told the Washington Examiner. “If the dynamic is, ‘Here’s this corrupt old guy vs. the older older guy, what can you do to change the dynamics? If you can successfully make this election about a ‘yes or no’ on democracy, that’s good for Biden.
“It’s not about Biden, it’s about protecting our democracy,” he said.
Suffolk University Political Research Center director David Paleologos cited a national poll he conducted in July in which he surveyed respondents about the “most important issue” determining their vote for the general election.
In that survey, 10% of respondents told pollsters that “threats to democracy” were their most determinative consideration, compared to 22% who said the same about inflation and 11% who said the same regarding immigration. Gun control (8%), healthcare (7%), education (7%), abortion (7%), jobs (6%), climate change (4%), crime (4%), Ukraine (3%), China (3%), and drugs and opioids (3%) were other factors.
“Appears to be more of a compelling issue for Democrats,” Paleologos said. “For [independents], education was the No. 3 issue tied with ‘threats to democracy’.”
Biden’s address was previewed as a response to the second Republican primary debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. His remarks come after Democratic National Committee prebuttal press conferences that featured, among others, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). In particular, Newsom described the differences between Democrats and Republicans as being like “daylight” and “darkness,” in addition to “forces of restoration” and “transformation.
“Those that want to send America in reverse, those who want to take us back to a pre-1960s world, those that are attacking long-settled rights,” he said. “We’ve seen a party, the Republican Party, that’s on a cultural perch. Just ask the folks at Target or Bud Light, not just Disney and elsewhere. They’re banning books, banning speech. In certain states, they’re banning, quite literally, travel.”
Trump did not take part in this week’s debate as he dominates the primary and amid tensions with the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Institute after the organization did not invite him to participate in its Time for Choosing speaker series, which is partly about democracy. Anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project also emphasized the comparison between the 45th president with the 40th commander in chief.
“It’s only fitting the debate takes place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, contrasting the legacy of one of democracy’s biggest champions and the current GOP presidential field who all still pledge their loyalty to Trump, despite being an insurrectionist who just insinuated the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff be executed for treason,” the Lincoln Project wrote in a statement.
Biden spoke about McCain this month during a ceremony marking the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, after earlier that day visiting McCain’s memorial in Hanoi, Vietnam.
“John and I disagreed like hell. Like two brothers, we’d argue like hell on the Senate floor, and then we’d go to lunch together,” he said. “One thing I always admired about John was how he put duty to country first, and that’s not hyperbole. He did, above party, above politics, above his own person.”
Biden was also in California earlier this week for a meeting of his President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, as well as a series of fundraisers. During a fundraiser Tuesday in Atherton, California, the president mentioned Trump and democracy.
”Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy this democracy,” Biden said. “I’m optimistic that people in America know what’s at stake, and they’re going to step up. We’re always going to have ideological fights, and that’s legit. That’s appropriate. But there’s a set of rules called the Constitution.”
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“I’m looking forward to the race,” he added. “I’m looking forward to getting this underway.”
Trump has a 1.1 percentage point edge over Biden in hypothetical head-to-head polling, 45.4% to 44.3%, according to RealClearPolitics.
