In case you’ve been understandably distracted from domestic news and have not followed the presidential race, it is not going very well for the Democrats. The RCP polling average now has Donald Trump leading President Biden by a point. If you recall, Biden beat Trump by four and a half points in 2020, and — because Trump fared especially well in the closest states — needed about four of those points to carry the Electoral College.
Some initial evidence has suggested that Trump’s Electoral College edge might be shrinking and that Biden’s popularity decline is occurring disproportionately in deep-blue states. But two new state polls suggest otherwise. A Michigan poll shows Trump leading Biden 42 to 35 percent. One in Pennsylvania has Trump leading 45 to 36 percent.
Yes, the election is a year away, and yes, polling this far out has limited value. But this is looking dire.
One finding both polls reflect is that the problem isn’t so much with the Democratic Party as a whole as it is with Biden specifically. In Pennsylvania, Democratic senator Bob Casey leads Republican David McCormick 41 to 33 percent. The Michigan poll shows that Biden’s job-approval rating is 31-58, while Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s is a sterling 53-37. It also tests a Whitmer-Trump presidential race and finds Whitmer leading Trump 46 to 40 percent.
Now, you can’t exactly take these numbers at face value. If Whitmer were the Democrats’ presidential nominee, she would have to run in every state, not just Michigan (though Michigan, and the Midwest in general, is especially important).
Still, these numbers provide at least some evidence that Biden is now running behind, rather than ahead of, other members of his party. In 2020, Biden was a comforting callback to the popular Obama presidency. He had the ability to attract even voters concerned about the Democrats’ leftward drift. But whatever positive differentiation he had then has been swamped by disapproval of his job performance. At the moment, he is anything but a safe choice.
A month ago, I wrote a column wondering why no Democrats were challenging Biden. Democrats have largely assumed that Biden is not going to receive a serious primary challenge, which gives them the incentive to muffle their doubts. Talking about Biden’s unpopularity can easily feed into Trump’s attacks on Biden’s performance. You can believe, as I do, that Biden is capable of handling his job while doubting he is up to the public-facing duties of a campaign, but when it filters down to the public, the distinction between the two is easily lost.
Jonathan Martin has a column revealing several disturbing aspects of the party’s thinking. One is that Democratic officials are privately very concerned about Biden’s ability to win. “Most House Democrats,” he writes, “are more anxious about Biden than they are about their colleague from Minnesota.”
Second, pollsters and consultants are finding that Biden’s age is an overwhelming drawback in the eyes of the voters:
Last month at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, many lawmakers watched livestreams of focus groups with voters in Nevada and Michigan. Nearly all of them responded to questions about Biden the same way voters do in every focus group: by bringing up his age. (Though one attendee was heartened that the voters also cited Trump’s age and complained that both are too old.)
Every Democratic consultant I’ve talked to in recent weeks said that’s the only refrain they pick up on Biden.
And third, fear of internal blowback is preventing them from speaking publicly. “Nearly every ambitious Democrat [is] falling in line behind Biden for fear of weakening him, and their own future prospects,” reports Martin.
Right now, the only Democrat mulling a challenge is Representative Dean Phillips, a House member from Minnesota. Phillips had to give up a leadership position simply because he is talking openly about a primary challenge. Yet Martin reports “the Democratic lawmaker group texts are filled with admiration that somebody is at least highlighting the donkey in the room — if acknowledging that they could never say so publicly.”
What all this suggests is that Democrats believe Biden may be fatally damaged, but everybody is hesitant to run against him for fear that the blowback will end their career. Say, Governor Whitmer — who might be the party’s best presidential material at the moment — is well positioned to win the nomination in 2028, so why would she take a gamble? Other Democrats have to weigh the chance of beating Biden against the risk they lose and are blamed for his eventual defeat, jeopardizing whatever career ambitions they have.
Yet this means Biden’s campaign ability is not going to be tested during the primary, and next summer, the party will more or less hand him the nomination and hope somehow the public’s opinion of him turns around.
Almost two decades ago, Tom Edsall wrote about his years of experience playing poker with political big shots in Washington. Edsall recounted that, as a whole, “Republicans are much less risk-averse than Democrats, and taking risks is crucial to poker.”
Now, an observation like this — vulnerable to bias and confined to a limited sample size — can only go so far. Still, it seems to explain the Democratic Party’s passivity in the face of a dire circumstance. Running a primary challenge against Biden is a high-stakes bet. The risks are large: A defeated challenger could possibly hurt Biden and probably damage their own viability. But a defeated challenger could also give Biden the chance to prove his ability to handle a rigorous campaign. And a successful challenger could rescue the party from the worst possible outcome.
Here is the most chilling passage in Martin’s story:
In their more honest moments, even the most dedicated Biden defenders not on his payroll will nervously wonder if in the future they’ll look back at this moment and realize that the electorate had concluded he was too old for another term — and he ignored the flashing red lights to barrel ahead anyway.
Martin’s reporting doesn’t make it sound like Democrats have calculated that an uncontested primary gives them the best chance to beat Trump. It makes it sound instead like the decision has been made out of a combination of inertia, self-interest, and fear.
