President Biden is struggling to find his footing for the 2024 campaign, and a parade of prominent Democrats is warning that he risks losing reelection.
The reasons for fears about Mr. Biden’s chances for reelection include bleak job approval numbers, widespread voter concern about his age and eroding support from the party’s base.
The willingness of Democratic Party players to sound the alarm underscores the severity of Mr. Biden’s political problems.
Among the Democrats who vented about Mr. Biden’s reelection campaign are longtime ally Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, former President Barack Obama and strategist David Axelrod, a key adviser to Mr. Obama’s wins in 2008 and 2012.
The 2024 presidential election looks increasingly like a rematch between Mr. Biden and former President Donald Trump. Polls show Mr. Trump in a dead heat or ahead of Mr. Biden in the states expected to decide the race.
“Democrats are frantic. They know that if they don’t do something — and quick — the odds of them winning control of any branch of government will fade away. Their goal is control, and Biden is getting in their way,” said James Keady, a Republican Party strategist.
David Dix, a Democratic Party strategist, said the Biden campaign should heed critics within his party because they helped Mr. Obama win two elections.
“I think every campaign has its interparty criticism. It’s just public conversation and rhetoric,” he said. “But the Biden campaign would do well to listen to experts who won campaigns to make adjustments and be more effective.”
Mr. Biden says he won’t step aside and pass the torch to another Democrat. His campaign also doesn’t seem to be worried about polls that show him losing to Mr. Trump in five of the six swing states that sealed his 2020 victory.
The polls, coupled with Mr. Biden’s all-time-low approval ratings, have Democrats wringing their hands about the effectiveness of the president’s campaign.
Mr. Biden also is struggling with his party’s bedrock constituencies. Black voters have soured on the president because of the economy, Hispanics are frustrated with his failure to address the border crisis, and young liberals are angry about his unabashed support for Israel in its war with Hamas.
Mr. Biden now has the support of just 63% of Black voters, a sharp drop from the 87% he carried in 2020, according to data compiled by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University.
He trails Mr. Trump among Hispanics by 5 percentage points, 39% to 34%, despite capturing 65% of their vote in 2020. Mr. Trump leads with voters younger than 35, a generation primarily opposed to the Republican stance on abortion and climate change, 37% to 33%.
Mr. Biden recently held a half-dozen meetings with big-dollar donors and supporters at the White House to address their concerns about his age, cognitive abilities and whether he has a plan to defeat Mr. Trump.
“Democrats have a massive problem at the top of their ticket, and they should be concerned,” Mr. Keady said. “We have all seen the poll numbers, and they are not good for Biden — particularly in key swing states like Michigan.”
The Biden campaign did not respond to multiple questions from The Washington Times about the mounting concerns.
Mr. Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, recently addressed the issue on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said the poll numbers are low because voters are just now starting to pay attention to the election.
“That is why we’re making the choice. The president’s speech at Valley Forge was the first of that,” he said.
Mr. Fulks was referring to Mr. Biden’s speech in Pennsylvania that opened the 2024 campaign and framed the election as a fight to save American democracy and freedom from Mr. Trump.
Mr. Clyburn, a close friend of the president, warned that Mr. Biden’s campaign messaging wasn’t powerful enough to take on Mr. Trump.
“My problem is that we have not been able to break through that MAGA wall in order to get to people exactly what this president has done,” he said on CNN.
Mr. Clyburn said he was “very concerned” about Mr. Biden’s standing in the Black community.
Mr. Obama asked Mr. Biden about his campaign structure during a private lunch at the White House. In an “animated” conversation, according to The Washington Post, Mr. Obama told the president that he needed to bolster his campaign with more “top-level decision-makers.”
Mr. Axelrod has repeatedly criticized Mr. Biden’s campaign strategists. He said Mr. Biden’s 37% approval rating bodes “very, very dark” for his reelection chances. He even suggested Mr. Biden would drop out because he has a “50-50 shot” of winning in November.
Mr. Axelrod told Democrats that circling the wagons won’t help Mr. Biden.
“I think that’s deeply, deeply unhelpful because sometimes there’s reason to be concerned. And there are a lot of really smart and committed supporters of Biden who have concerns,” he said in a Politico interview published Friday.
Some evidence suggests that Mr. Biden is taking the criticism to heart. In back-to-back speeches, Mr. Biden tore into Mr. Trump as never before and called him “a loser” and “sick.”
“Losers are taught to concede when they lose, and he’s a loser,” Mr. Biden said during a speech in South Carolina.
In the 24 hours after his speech at Valley Forge, Mr. Biden raised more than $1 million. That suggests the argument that Mr. Trump and his Make America Great Again Movement threatens democracy is a winning issue for Democrats.
Mitch Landrieu, who served as the administration’s infrastructure czar for two years, left the White House to join the campaign as a national co-chair.
The campaign is also beefing up its staff in Wilmington, Delaware, and scheduling more campaign events.
“These are all things critics said he wasn’t doing enough of,” Mr. Dix said. “It’s unfair not to give him time for adjustments because some of these modifications take a while for the electorate to see.”
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