Barack Obama is concerned that President Biden won’t be able to stop Donald Trump from returning to the White House in 2024, according to a new report.
Obama “knows this is going to be a close race” and “feels that Democrats very well could lose” the contest, a source familiar with the former president’s thinking told The Wall Street Journal.
Moreover, Obama fears “the alternative is pretty dangerous for democracy,” the anonymous source said.
The 44th president’s comments illustrate growing jitters in the Democratic Party about Biden’s prospects of being re-elected.
David Axelrod, Obama’s former top political adviser credited with helping to shepherd his breakthrough 2008 victory, has been openly warning about Biden’s weaknesses, describing his low favorability rating as “very, very dark” news.
“Job approval down, ratings generally down, most of the comparatives with Trump not good,” Axelrod said on a recent podcast.
“What I worry about, you guys, from a Biden standpoint, is these are the kinds of things you get when people are starting to rationalize their votes.”
Axelrod’s blunt prognostications of Biden’s chances have seemingly roiled the president’s allies — though his campaign has openly said 2024 will be a tight race.
“Make no mistake, 2024 will be a close election. And we know that we can’t take anything for granted. We’ve been saying that from the beginning,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez stressed to reporters last month.
A mix of polls show Biden, 81, down both nationally and in battleground states, with voters expressing considerable concern about his age.
Nationally, Biden is trailing Trump by 3.5 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics aggregate. He is also down in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina, while the Wisconsin average shows Biden and Trump dead even, per RCP.
Some Democratic strategists have downplayed the flood of negative polling, arguing that Trump, 77, the runaway frontrunner for the Republican nomination, hasn’t been scrutinized as much lately.
Questions have also been raised about the validity of the polls, and some have pointed out that Trump’s 3.5 percentage point national lead may not be as significant since a GOP presidential candidate hasn’t won the popular vote since 2004.
Despite the bleak polling, Biden’s allies contend that he is the Democrats’ best shot of beating Trump in 2024.
“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden said at a fundraising event near Boston earlier this month. “We cannot let him win.”
Last month, the Biden campaign took a victory lap after Democrats eked out key wins in Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and elsewhere during the off-year elections.
“Time and again, Biden beats expectations. Happened in 2020, happened in 2022, happened on Tuesday night,” communications director Michael Tyler told reporters last month following the victories.
“You see days, weeks, months of breathless predictions about how terrible things are gonna be for Joe Biden followed by an election day with historic victories,” he added.
Biden is overwhelmingly expected to be coronated as the Democrat’s standard bearer next year. Should he win reelection, he will be 86 by the end of a second hypothetical term in office.
The Post contacted the Biden campaign for comment.
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Obama frets Biden 'very well could lose' in 2024: report - New York Post
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