Top members of the Democratic Party are reportedly in a panic over the possibility that President Joe Biden will lose the 2024 election, according to Politico.
For the last several months, former President Donald Trump has dominated in the polls, both nationally and in key swing states. In April, the Republican National Committee outraised their opponents by nearly $25 million, though Biden’s team still has more cash on hand than Trump.
In light of these developments, even Democrats who were previously optimistic now have “a pervasive sense of fear” about the November election, according to Politico.
“You don’t want to be that guy who is on the record saying we’re doomed, or the campaign’s bad or Biden’s making mistakes. Nobody wants to be that guy,” a Democratic operative in close touch with the White House told Politico. The outlet granted the source anonymity in order to speak freely.
“This isn’t, ‘Oh my God, Mitt Romney might become president.’ It’s ‘Oh my God, the democracy might end,'” the source continued, adding that Biden’s consistently grim poll numbers “are creating the freakout.”
US President Joe Biden President Biden speaks to local supporters and volunteers at the office opening of the Wisconsin coordinated campaign headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on March 13, 2024. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Other Democrats expressed concern about the Biden campaign’s strategy, the outlet reported.
“There’s still a path to win this, but they don’t look like a campaign that’s embarking on that path right now,” Pete Giangreco, a Democratic strategist who’s worked on several presidential campaigns, told Politico. “If the frame of this race is, ‘What was better, the 3.5 years under Biden or four years under Trump,’ we lose that every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”
Democratic Rep. Laurie Pohutsky of Michigan, a key swing state that Trump won in 2016 but lost in 2020, told Politico she has concerns about voters’ motivations.
“In 2020, there was enough energy to get Donald Trump out and there were other things on the ballot that brought young people out in subsequent elections,” Pohutsky told the outlet. “That’s not the case this time. I worry that because we’ve had four years with a stable White House, particularly young voters don’t feel that sense of urgency and might not remember how disastrous 2017 was right after the Trump administration took over.”
A New York Times/Siena College survey from May 13 shows Trump leading Biden in Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by as much as 13 points. Winning those five swings states (assuming no major upsets elsewhere) would give Trump 281 electoral votes, 11 more than he needs to return to the White House.
Despite this polling, however, the Biden campaign is reportedly in denial about what the data shows, people familiar with the matter told Axios. (RELATED: Biden Struggling In Polls Despite Millions In Ad Spending)
One adviser to major Democratic Party donors told Politico that he keeps a running list of all the possible reasons why Biden could lose his reelection bid. The list notes the 81-year-old’s age, third party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vice President Kamala Harris and the border crisis. (RELATED: REPORT: Biden No Longer Feels Sense Of Urgency On Border)
“Donors ask me on an hourly basis about what I think,” the adviser told the outlet, adding that it’s “so much easier to show them, so while they read it, I can pour a drink.”
“The list of why we ‘could’ win is so small I don’t even need to keep the list on my phone,” the adviser continued.
Supporters attend a campaign event for President Joe Biden at Pullman Yards on March 9, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. President Biden and Former president Donald Trump are both campaigning in Georgia today ahead of the Primary election voting taking place on Tuesday. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)
Trump held a head-turning rally in the Bronx last week, with crowds of locals and other Trump supporters turning out to pledge their support ahead of the 2024 election.
“New York Democrats need to wake up,” Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine told the outlet. “The number of people in New York, including people of color that I come across who are saying positive things about Trump, is alarming.”
“I’m worried it’s going to be a 2022 situation, where everyone wakes up in the last seven weeks and has to scramble,” Levine added, referring to New York Republican Lee Zeldin’s near-upset of Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Despite the panic, the polls and the fundraising numbers, the Biden campaign is outwardly maintaining confidence.
“Trump’s photo-ops and PR stunts may get under the skin of some very serious D.C. people as compelling campaigning, but they will do nothing to win over the voters that will decide this election,” Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz told Politico. “The work we do every day on the ground and on the airwaves in our battleground states — to talk about how President Biden is fighting for the middle class against the corporate greed that’s keeping prices high, and highlight Donald Trump’s anti-American campaign for revenge and retribution and abortion bans — is the work that will again secure us the White House.”
