Leading Democrats, as well as rank-and-file members, are growing increasingly concerned about the party’s chances during this fall’s midterm elections amid President Biden’s cratering poll numbers.
CNN interviewed three dozen members who, collectively, are worried that the Biden White House is “unprepared and unresponsive even to basic requests for help or information.”
“Senior Democrats, including some White House aides, describe a West Wing lacking both a political strategy and the discipline to execute one. Focus groups are giving party operatives nightmares. Biden is coming across as old and absent, they say,” CNN reported, according to The Daily Wire.
“Real and perceived fumbles play into deep fears that he’s not up to the job and that Democrats are incompetent. Few Americans can say what was in the massive bills he’s signed, though many have heard about Democratic infighting and failure in what he hasn’t signed,” the report continued.
Quotes given to CNN by some of the Democrats include:
- Senior elected official who wished to remain anonymous: “It’s hard for me to believe that the President knows how little his political shop is doing to support Democratic majorities in the Senate and the House. All of us believe that the President would be shocked to learn how little the White House political team is doing. We just know Joe Biden, and we know how much he cares about this stuff.”
- Operative: “What is the plan to fix that? They can’t tell us what they’re talking about next week.”
- Operative: “It doesn’t strike me as they’re dealing with the politics with the urgency of what’s currently at stake.”
- Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT): “We haven’t talked about our accomplishments near enough. The accomplishments by definition will delineate who’s for what, and who’s not for what. I point the finger at myself as much as everybody in the Senate, as much as everybody in the House, as much as everybody in the executive branch.”
- Democrat House member who wished to remain anonymous: “Who is in charge? Who is running the thing?”
- Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO): “People are really, really grumpy. I’m grumpy too. I’m not grumpy about the White House not being involved on the political side of things. I’m grumpy because we haven’t been able to pass legislation that I think would be good for the country, and that we should be able to tell people about so that we can hold off a beginning of a return to Donald Trump. He’d be a lot better off and we would be having him spend his time out in the country talking to people than stuck in Washington talking to people about legislating.”
CNN’s report comes amid cratering polling numbers for both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as Americans continue to grapple with food inflation, supply chain disruptions, and rising energy costs.
In November, two Democratic names rose to the top of the Democratic Party’s list of preferred candidates for the 2024 presidential nomination, should Joe Biden decide not to run again, according to a new survey.
“Vice President Kamala Harris and former first lady Michelle Obama are the top two picks for the Democratic presidential nomination if President Biden decides not to seek re-election in 2024,” the New York Post reported, citing The Hill-HarrisX poll.
“Harris leads all potential candidates with 13 percent of support from voters, while Obama came in a close second with 10 percent,” the outlet continued, adding:
Other likely candidates included Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and former 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
They all received 5 percent or less in support from registered voters.
However, a sizeable portion of respondents – 36% – also noted they were “unsure,” while 13% said they would not go with anyone on the list.
Over 60% of Americans said that President Biden’s policies were at least somewhat responsible for the accelerating inflation in the United States, an October survey found.