Democratic party officials are becoming increasingly more terrified that President Joe Biden is going to cost them the 2024 election, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Concerns regarding 80-year-old Biden’s age and stamina have continued to increase with 73% of voters viewing him as “too old to run for president,” according to a poll by the WSJ. While Democratic officials publicly back the president, in private, some are getting frustrated with aging Biden, the WSJ reported.
“It would be irresponsible for us to not be concerned at this point,” a Democratic National Committee official told the outlet. “People can be hopeful about what the result is going to be. But we don’t have any evidence as to why we should be hopeful. The polling is bad. The approval ratings are bad. We know about concerns about both the president’s age and about the vice president if she were to take over.”
A sense of worry continues to linger regarding the 2024 presidential election, while some Democrats compare the upcoming election to the 2016 race when Democratic party officials dismissed Hillary Clinton’s weaknesses because she was challenging former President Donald Trump, the WSJ reported after interviewing more than a dozen leading members within the party.
“I want to see Bidenism continue but I think the best way to make sure that happens is to perhaps have a different candidate than Joe Biden,” another Democratic National Committee member told the outlet.
Many of the concerns with Biden relate to his age as a majority of Americans, 77%, believe the president cannot govern effectively because of his age, according to an Associated Press/NORC poll. Sixty-seven percent of Democrat-leaning voters want a different candidate other than Biden on the ballot for the 2024 election, a CNN poll showed.
“It is a little bit like your grandfather running the company and you know that he’s at a point now where the heirs could suffer value if we don’t change management at the top,” Philip Levine, a former Democratic mayor of Miami Beach, Fla., told the WSJ. “And this is very difficult. How do we get grandpa to relinquish the CEO role?”
US President Joe Biden arrives to deliver remarks on the bipartisan bill to fund the government, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on October 01, 2023 in Washington, DC. The Senate passed a short-term funding bill to avert a government shutdown with less than three hours to the deadline. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Biden aides continue to dismiss concerns that the president may not be fit for a second term, pointing to the bad polling former President Barack Obama suffered during his first term, the WSJ reported.
The president addressed concerns about his age during a Labor Day speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“Someone said, ‘You know, that Biden, he’s getting old,’” Biden said during his September speech.
“Well, Guess what. Guess what … the only thing that comes with age is a little bit of wisdom,” Biden continued. “I’ve been doing this longer than anybody, and guess what? I’m going to continue to do it, with your help.”