The Campaign Woes of President Biden

The forecast is headwinds upon headwinds this election season for the incumbent Democrat.

“Behind the Curtain: Trump’s exponential power surge,” explained Jim VandeHel and Mike Allen for Axios on Thursday.

“The once-mighty Reagan-Bush GOP establishment, committed to a muscular foreign policy and unfettered trade, has given way to a Trump Republicanism that’s skeptical of large companies and institutions, hawkish on trade and modest in foreign policy,” they wrote in a surprisingly positive piece about former President Donald Trump.

“Nearly every person of consequence at the federal and state levels fell in line by New Hampshire,” they noted of Trump’s recent primary campaign win and overall improving odds. “Even those who’d been ridiculed by Trump stood on stage with wide smiles.”

Since Trump’s unexpected surge in polling, the Democratic Party and its analysts have been going in a dozen different directions trying to explain it away or dismiss it.

The growing consensus in progressive media circles seems to be that tweaking the Democratic Party’s campaign message and censoring Donald Trump into oblivion will be enough to push incumbent President Joe Biden over the finish line in November.

Not everyone is a fan of these strategies, however.

“CNN and MSNBC are slammed for muting Trump’s mic to chime in with fact checkers — as Jake Tapper speaks over the former president to condemn his ‘anti-immigrant rhetoric,’” gloated Will Potter for the UK’s Daily Mail on January 24, 2024.

“It comes after the prime-time broadcasts faced backlash a week ago after previously halting Trump’s Iowa caucus speech to interject with their own analysis,” clarified Potter.

In some cases, muting Trump seems to be backfiring completely. Democratic Party analysts and media progressives are forgetting how much Trump’s harsh communication style and bullying rhetoric alienates independents and persuadable moderates of both parties.

“Donald J. Trump, the once and presumably future Republican nominee, is showing the sort of gracious coalition building campaign we can expect now that he won New Hampshire,” joked journalist Nellie Bowles for the Free Press on Friday. “Here he is speaking about any Republicans who donate to the Nikki Haley campaign: ‘Anybody that makes a “Contribution” to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them, and will not accept them, because we Put America First, and ALWAYS WILL!’ Sometimes I think, wow, Trump has been quiet and restrained recently, maybe at long last Presidential Trump is emerging from a chrysalis, and then I realize I haven’t been checking TruthSocial. Haley Hive, we stand united.”

Some media progressives even seem convinced that the answer to Biden’s poor polling is simple: Stop polling. And barring that, stop publishing Biden’s bad polls.

“Panicking over polls showing Donald Trump ahead of President Biden?” Please stop,” begged Cornell Belcher for the LA Times this week.

“Over the last several election cycles, polling has increasingly become a central focus of media reporting on campaigns, particularly presidential contests,” Belcher wrote. “And that’s unfortunate. Average voters should rarely see or hear about polling because it’s not particularly relevant or actionable for them.”

“The trouble is that horse race numbers can drive almost any narrative that politicians or journalists find expedient regardless of whether it’s accurate; see the great ‘red wave’ media frenzy of the 2022 midterm elections, which of course proved to be the opposite of the truth,” he chided. “The mainstream media’s coverage of campaigns from such a standpoint is not only mistaken but also irresponsible.”

President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign seems to be responding to Trump’s recent polling improvement fiasco, be it real or imagined.

“Biden’s top White House advisers will move to campaign,” revealed a cadre of CNN’s top political reporters for the outlet on Tuesday.

“Biden’s 2020 campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, will transition to his reelection efforts as campaign chair, according to a senior Biden adviser,” they wrote. “Her departure from the White House could come sooner than previously thought, another senior Biden adviser told CNN, because of what the Biden campaign sees as Trump’s quick move to the Republican nomination.”

“According to the adviser, another top Biden White House adviser who is in the president’s inner-most circle of aides, Mike Donilon, will also move over to the campaign, becoming its chief strategist,” they added.

It’s a good thing for the Democratic Party and not a moment too soon. Biden faces new dangers in states and districts he didn’t face in 2020.

“Youngkin’s surging approval threatens unpopular Biden in Virginia,” Paul Bedard predicted for the Washington Examiner.

Youngkin has the capacity to cash in on a bumper crop of new Republican Party converts the way Gov. Ron DeSantis has done in Florida.

Florida, once reliably blue, is now red and getting redder. DeSantis’ failed presidential bid aside shouldn’t distract from his successes in capitalizing on disaffected Democrats in Florida.

There are also third-party candidates to consider.

“RFK Jr.’s PAC raises $5.8 million at birthday gala in West Hollywood,” Brittany Gibson for Politico on January 23, 2024. “Mega donor Gavin de Becker was also in attendance.”

Though Biden has received some key endorsements in recent weeks, not all the news on that front has been good.

“Biden Is Endorsed by United Auto Workers, Key Union in Michigan,” Ken Thomas wrote for the Wall Street Journal on January 24, 2024. “Influential union backs president following New Hampshire primary.”

“UAW President Shawn Fain announced the union’s endorsement of Biden in his remarks to a UAW political conference in Washington ahead of the president’s address to the conference Wednesday afternoon,” Thomas revealed. “Biden and Trump are preparing for a fierce general election battle for voters in states such as Michigan, where the UAW has a large presence of workers and retirees.”

Fain also reluctantly admitted that most union members would not be voting for Biden. They aren’t the only ones abandoning Biden.

“Black Voters Abandoning Joe Biden in Georgia: Poll,” reported Kate Plummer for Newsweek on January 25, 2024.

Biden faces other headwinds as well. The economy, immigration, crime, and a messy foreign policy picture aren’t his only hurdles. There are also the usual party malfunctions and internecine feuds that always come to the fore during primary season.

“Biden wins a New Hampshire write-in campaign,” Elena Schneider and Holly Otterbein reported for Politico on January 23, 2024, before noting oddly that “The president did not enter the race.”

“A write-in campaign for President Joe Biden won the New Hampshire Democratic primary Tuesday, after the state was stripped of its delegates by the Democratic National Committee,” they added. “Voters who wrote in Biden’s name beat out Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and self-help author Marianne Williamson, according to three news networks, with early counts of unprocessed write-in ballots outnumbering votes for Phillips by a more-than-three-to-one margin.”

Though Biden’s win in New Hampshire has been categorized as “decisive”, not everyone has deemed it so.

At this point, Biden’s chances of staying in the White House past 2025 don’t look very decisive, either.

(contributing writer, Brooke Bell)