BY KRISTINA KARISCH AND ALEXIS SIMENDINGER
📉 A year ahead of Election Day, Biden faces seriously bad poll numbers in five battleground states and some Democrats let their panicky reactions show Sunday.
Former Obama-Biden White House adviser David Axelrod took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to call on the president to drop out of the 2024 race, something he knows Biden is not going to do in the current circumstances.
DROP OUT, CAMPAIGN DIFFERENTLY, CHANGE MINDS?: “Only @JoeBiden can make this decision,” Axelrod wrote. “If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”
Axelrod’s assessment, not unlike others in the Democratic Party, is that Biden’s electoral odds as the incumbent against likely GOP nomineeTrump are headed in the wrong direction, according to voters.
“Trump is a dangerous, unhinged demagogue whose brazen disdain for the rules, [norms], laws and institutions or democracy should be disqualifying,” Axelrod wrote in a separate post. “But the stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore.”
Axelrod reacted to polling by The New York Times and Siena College, in which Trump leads Biden in five of six critical states. Voters said they have doubts about the president’s age at 80 and have more trust in Trump, 77, on the economy, foreign policy and immigration. The poll results show Biden losing to Trump, his likeliest Republican rival, by margins of three to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. The president is ahead only in Wisconsin, by two percentage points, The New York Times reported. (Estimations among likely voters illustrated Biden’s problems.)
Dan Pfeiffer, also a former political adviser to Obama during his campaigns and in the West Wing, took a different tack, arguing on X and The Message Box on Sunday that “instead of panicking,” Democrats need to focus on voters who say they’re underwhelmed by both Biden and Trump (“double haters”) — and mobilize to try to shift them into Biden’s column.
Bottom line: Democratic Party angst about its 2024 ticket is real and publicly palpable. And polling history is ominous: Biden’s job approval at this point is lower than his six immediate predecessors who ran for reelection. Two lost. As measured by Gallup, his approval is on par with that of former President Jimmy Carter, who lost in a landslide. For all these reasons, Tuesday’s off-year election results will be under a microscope as a bellwether.
DISSATISFIED ELECTORATE: The Times’ analysis pointed out the obvious: the presidential race in the next 12 months will change. How it will change is the question. In contrast with four years ago, the surveys find a disengaged, disaffected and dissatisfied electorate, suggesting a potentially volatile campaign. Many undecided voters will remain on the fence until holding their nose to cast ballots, analysts predict. Some may not vote. Long-festering vulnerabilities tied to Biden’s age, economic stewardship, and appeal among young, Black and Hispanic voters have grown severe enough to imperil his reelection chances, the Times notes.
The Hill: Disillusioned Muslim voters angered by the White House’s position on Israel are facing difficult choices in how they cast their ballots in 2024, with many saying they would withhold a vote for Biden, but also see no option in Trump.
GOP PRIMARY INTRIGUE: Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds plans to endorse Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis for president tonight in Des Moines. Trump’s reaction? Unhappy. Reynolds’ thinking: She was a Trump ally while he was in the White House, but she withheld any endorsement of him early in the 2024 race. She will help raise campaign cash for the Florida governor, who lags well behind the former president in Iowa polls and could be overtaken there by rival Nikki Haley.