OPINION: This article contains commentary which may reflect the author’s opinion
With devastating polling numbers among Democrats and particularly young voters, the likelihood of Biden being challenged is on the rise.
It has been increasingly difficult for him to defend himself against the negative headlines. The critics say he inherited a mess left by the former president and that some lawmakers who were supposed to help him with this haven’t delivered.
There has been a weariness to supporting the sinking president. The Democratic Party is mulling over a new scenario: challenging the current president in 2024.
“Unless Biden comes to his senses and announces that he won’t run again, a contentious battle for the nomination seems very likely,” said RootsAction founder Norman Solomon to The Hill.
“The president may not realize or care that the trajectory of his policies has been taking him farther and farther from the Democratic Party base, but his distance from that base would likely be catastrophic for Biden if he tries to get nominated again,” he added.
Some of Biden’s former supporters began considering what the next two years could hold once his popularity dropped to the low 30s. In spite of his public or private assertions, the tacit pact that implied others in the party would step aside for him is eroding.
“The tone-deaf and self-centered thing for him to do would be to soldier on, insisting that he should be president until January 2029, while damaging the party’s prospects in the process,” Solomon stated.
In an interview with Newsweek, activist Jerome Segal, who was ninth out of 10 Democratic candidates seeking the Maryland governor’s office, said he will run for president in 2024.
“I was planning to delay the announcement of my candidacy until after the mid-term elections,” Segal said. “My decision to go public right now was triggered by Joe Biden’s embarrassing trip to the Middle East.”
“Segal, who founded the socialist Bread and Roses party, criticized Biden for “fist bump[ing] a psychopathic killer,” in reference to Biden’s controversial greeting to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,” the Western Journal reported.
Biden, 79, has said he will run for a second term, but that has not dampened speculation that others such as Vice President Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Sens. Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar might run.
A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that only 26 percent of Democrats surveyed want Biden to run in 2024.
The poll found that 94 percent of voters under 30 want a different Democrat to run.
“I’m just going to come out and say it: I want younger blood,” says Nicole Farrier, a preschool teacher in Michigan.
“I am so tired of all old people running our country. I don’t want someone knocking on death’s door,” she opined.
In Greensburg, Indiana, Kelly King, an ex-factory worker, said Biden “hasn’t done what I think he’s capable of doing as president to help the American people. As a Democrat, I figured he would really be on our side and put us back on the right track. And I just feel like he’s not.”
As a maintenance specialist in Foley, Alabama, Clifton Heard was not picky about the alternatives he considered.
“Anybody could be doing a better job than what they’re doing right now,” he stated, continuing that Biden, “wasn’t prepared to do the job.”
“Solomon’s group was so angry that it put together an official campaign to stop Biden from running again and is already commissioning signatures, according to The Hill.
A lot of that frustration reflects the paralyzed state of the country under his party’s control.
For months, Democrats have grumbled about Biden’s lack of traction and spoken about who could step up if the president chooses not to run, but most have been hesitant to say outright someone else should replace him.
That’s beginning to change.
The deluge of problems — from the war in Ukraine to surging gas prices, more mass shootings, the dismantling of Roe v. Wade and, most recently, a frightening inflation figure — has added to the perception that the president has taken his hands off the wheel.
Wednesday’s inflation rate of more than 9 percent, the highest in recent history, made matters worse. In response, the White House maintained that the figures were “out-of-date” since gas prices have recently declined.
Turning things around has, however, proved difficult.
“A New York Times-Siena College poll released this week offered a startling data point for those starting to make the case for a Democratic challenger. According to the survey, well over half of Democratic voters sampled — 64 percent — said they wanted another candidate to be the party’s nominee, The Hill noted.
“I don’t think it’s a given, frankly, that he would win the primary,” said Steve Phillips, a progressive Democratic strategist who works on issues related to race and democracy. “I don’t think a primary and or its outcome is cataclysmic.”
“He could win, but he might not,” he said.
A serious primary challenge to a sitting president is rare, but Democrats have two examples from relatively recent history to look back on.
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) ran against former President Carter in 1980, and Pat Buchanan challenged George H.W. Bush in 1992. Neither of them won, but both Bush and Carter lost the general elections.
Source: The Republic Brief