A number of political strategists have sounded off on President Joe Biden and his reelection chances as inflation worsens and the mood among voters in both major parties sours.
Fox News :
The White House made clear this week that President Biden plans to run for reelection in 2024, but questions and concerns continue to mount over whether Biden will receive support for another term from some leading members in the Democratic Party.
Questions also remain about how active Biden will campaign for his party’s candidates in the midterms, and whether Democrats will even want his help, if offered. To date, the president has only endorsed three congressional candidates, including Rep. Kurt Schrader — who lost his primary election to progressive Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner.
“I don’t think anyone’s talking seriously about a replacement for President Biden. There ARE genuine questions about what it means to have a President who’s approaching 80, and that would be true of Donald Trump in 2024 as well as President Biden,” said Christy Setzer, Democratic strategist and the founder of New Heights Communications.
“But so long as he can keep doing the job and wants to, I don’t see those conversations going anywhere substantive,” she added.
However, she admitted: “No doubt, Biden is a pull on candidates in the field right now, who — unless they’re in very blue districts — are running away from Washington rather than running toward it.
“That extends to who they want on the campaign trail with them. That said, it may very well be a mistake. There is such a clear contrast between the AR-15-loving, abortion-criminalizing GOP right now, and sanity in the Democratic Party. Why wouldn’t candidates lean in on that?” she offered.
Alternately, Mike Shields, founder of Convergence Media and former RNC chief of staff, said “Biden has no actual base of support.”
“Who are the Biden Democrats who have been pining for him all these years? The left-wing acceded to his desires so long as he did what they wanted and was seen as a competent alternative. He tried very hard at the first and clearly failed miserably at the second,” Shields continued.
“Democrats are running from Joe Biden like scalded dogs. Joe Biden’s presidency is an utter disaster with crises from baby formula to gas prices to retirement funds disappearing. And the voters are in a mood to punish him for it,” he said.
“Just this week, Mayra Flores, an outstanding candidate in Texas’ 34th congressional district, became the first Republican to flip a majority-Hispanic Democratic seat in South Texas in over 100 years,” Shields continued.
“This same congressional seat was won by former Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela by 13 points in 2020. Joe Biden will preside over historic losses for his party this year,” he noted.
Meanwhile, a brutal new survey has found that the vast majority of respondents do not think that President Joe Biden should run again in 2024.
According to the Yahoo/YouGov survey released on Saturday, 64 percent said Biden shouldn’t run, or 9 points worse than Trump.
What’s more, the same survey found that Trump beats Biden in a head-to-head rematch, according to Mediaite, though 55 percent said they did not want the former president to run again, either.
In the ‘yes’ column, Biden polled at 21 percent versus 31 percent for Trump.
There is more bad news for Biden in the survey as well. Even among Democrats, most would not encourage him to seek reelection: Just 42 percent want him to, while just over one-third, or 36 percent, said he shouldn’t.
Kevin Walling, Democratic political strategist and Vice President of HGCreative, said of Biden: “In 1982, many Republicans said the same thing about Ronald Reagan and in 1994, Bill Clinton faced similar calls even before the 1994 midterms.
“Both incumbent presidents — one Republican and one Democrat — would go on to win landslide elections,” he said, though Reagan won in 1984 by a historical margin — 525 out of 538 electoral votes.
“I think we have a tendency as Democrats to complain and wring our hands when the leader of our party shows even a small drop in the polls or any kind of adversity in public opinion, rather than rallying behind our president like Republicans do,” Walling added.
Lisa Boothe, Republican political strategist and a Fox News contributor: “[The Democrats] have no choice but to cut him loose. He’s the worst president potentially in history.”
“He’s turned our beautiful country into an absolute dumpster fire. Americans were sold a lemon with Joe Biden,” Boothe continued.
“The promise was normalcy. Instead, it’s been self-inflicted disaster after another and complete chaos. It’s easy to see why they hid him in the basement during the 2020 election,” she said.
“He’s radioactive. Everything he touches turns into a flaming pile of garbage. Who wants the endorsement of a guy with a 33% approval rating? Putin’s endorsement is probably more popular at this point,” Boothe added.
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