Barack Obama fears President Biden won’t be able to stop Donald Trump from returning to the White House in 2024, according to a new report.
Obama “knew this was going to be a close race” and “felt the Democrats could lose” the contest, a source familiar with the former president’s thinking told The Wall Street Journal.
Moreover, Obama worries that “the alternative is quite dangerous for democracy,” the anonymous source said.
The 44th president’s comments reflect growing concern within the Democratic Party about Biden’s prospects for re-election.
David Axelrod, Obama’s former top political adviser who was credited with helping sustain his 2008 victory, has publicly warned of Biden’s weaknesses, describing his low approval ratings as “very, very dark” news.
“Job approvals are down, ratings are generally down, most of the comparisons to Trump are not good,” Axelrod said on a recent podcast.
“What I worry about, you guys, from Biden’s point of view, is this is what you get when people start rationalizing their vote.”
Barack Obama has avoided capturing too much political attention since his departure from the White House. Getty Images
Axelrod’s blunt predictions about Biden’s chances has looked turbulent ally of the president — even though his campaign has publicly said 2024 will be a tight race.
“Make no mistake, 2024 will be a close election. And we know that we cannot take anything for granted. We’ve said that from the beginning,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez told reporters last month.
A mix of polls show Biden, 81, down nationally and on the battlefield, with voters expressing great concern about his age.
Nationally, Biden trails Trump by 3.5 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics aggregate. He’s also in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina, while the Wisconsin average shows Biden and Trump dead even, per RCP.
Some Democratic strategists have downplayed the flood of negative polls, arguing that Trump, 77, the runaway frontrunner for the Republican nomination, has not been under much scrutiny of late.
Questions have also been raised about the poll’s validity, and some have noted that Trump’s 3.5 percentage point national lead may not be significant because a GOP presidential candidate has not won the popular vote since 2004.
Despite the dismal polling, Biden’s allies argue that he is the Democrat’s best shot to defeat Trump in 2024.
Democrats have warned that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, something the former president’s supporters reject. Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
“If Trump hadn’t run, I’m not sure I would have run,” Biden said at a fundraiser near Boston earlier this month. “We can’t let him win.”
Last month, the Biden campaign took a victory lap after Democrats scored key victories in Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and elsewhere during the off-year elections.
“Time and time again, Biden has exceeded expectations. Happening in 2020, happening in 2022, happening on Tuesday night,” communications director Michael Tyler told reporters last month following the win.
“You see days, weeks, months of uncertain predictions about how bad things are going to be for Joe Biden followed by election day with a historic victory,” he added.
Biden is expected to be named the Democratic standard bearer next year. If he wins re-election, he would be 86 at the end of his hypothetical second term in office.
The Post contacted the Biden campaign for comment.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
