Top Dems: Biden has losing strategy

Axios ^ | June 19, 2024 | Alex Thompson

[lasereye]

Senior Democrats, including some of President Biden's aides, are increasingly dubious about his theory for victory in November, which relies on voter concerns about Jan. 6, political violence, democracy and Donald Trump's character.

Why it matters: Biden's core inner circle hasn't lost faith in that approach, the product of Biden and his longtime aide, Mike Donilon.

• But that puts them on an island within much of the party about what will decide the election, as polls consistently have shown Biden tied or behind even after a slight bump following Trump's criminal conviction.
• Several polls have indicated voters are deeply concerned about democracy but they are most worried about inflation and the economy. They've also shown Biden's support slipping among key Democratic voting groups: Blacks, Latinos, young adults and union members, but the Democracy message is resonating with older voters.
• Biden's former chief of staff Ron Klain, who has known Donilon for decades, told Axios his view is: "In Mike I trust."

What they're saying: A Democratic strategist in touch with the campaign told Axios: "It is unclear to many of us watching from the outside whether the president and his core team realize how dire the situation is right now, and whether they even have a plan to fix it. That is scary."

• People close to the president told Axios they worry about raising concerns in meetings because Biden's group of longtime loyal aides can exile dissenters.
• "Even for those close to the center, there is a hesitance to raise skepticism or doubt about the current path, for fear of being viewed as disloyal," a person in Biden's orbit told Axios, speaking on condition of anonymity because of those dynamics.
• "There is not a discussion that a change of course is needed."

Driving the news: Donilon, Biden's top political aide, privately has reassured people that voters will "do the right thing" in November by embracing democracy and rejecting Trump, according to a Biden aide who has heard Donilon say it.

• "Joe Biden is a great president, and great presidents get re-elected," is another common Donilon refrain.
• Donilon — one of the most experienced and understated Democratic operatives in the country — has worked with Biden since 1981. He has argued that polls aren't fully reflecting voters' concerns about democracy.
• In response to questions for this story, Biden advisers told Axios: "These people have clearly not heard from Mike or anyone on the team the president's detailed case for re-election."

Donilon articulated a nuanced version of this to The New Yorker's Evan Osnos earlier this year, saying that Jan. 6 would affect the 2024 election much like 9/11 was central to the 2004 election.

• "The Democratic Party didn't want to believe it was a 9/11 election," Donilon told Osnos. "…I decided, after the election, I would never be part of a presidential campaign that didn't figure out — with clarity — what it wanted to say and stick to it."

By Election Day this year, Donilon believes "the focus will become overwhelming on democracy. I think the biggest images in people's minds are going to be of January 6th."

• The Biden advisers told Axios: "This is Joe Biden's strategy — and Mike Donilon and his top advisers are in agreement with the president. The polling shows that democracy ended up a top issue of concern for voters in 2022, and it will be in 2024."

Biden's inner circle is cohesive but insular: Aides joke that there's an unofficial "no new friends rule."

• The group includes First Lady Jill Biden's top aide, Anthony Bernal, and new Deputy Chief of Staff Annie Tomasini — low-profile but powerful aides who have worked mostly for the Bidens since 2008 and are known for their focus on loyalty.
• When Tomasini was still head of Oval Office operations last year, she and Bernal surprised people by sitting in on interviews for Biden's campaign manager, a person involved in the process told Axios.
• A source familiar with the interviews told Axios: "This was not a surprise. Annie and Anthony are part of the senior advisers group, and every senior adviser was part of the interviews."

Zoom in: Despite a year head start, a larger campaign team and spending more than twice what Trump's team has spent on ads since early March, Biden's numbers against Trump have largely stayed the same the past few months, with the slight bump after Trump's conviction.

• During the ad campaigns and Trump's trial, however, Biden's average approval rating hit an all-time low on June 9 of 37.4%, with 56.7% disapproving, according to FiveThirtyEight. His current approval rate is 38.4%.

Longtime Democratic strategist Howard Wolfson, who worked for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the 2020 primary against Biden, told Axios: "If the election were today, we would lose. Can that change? Yes. Is it on the path to do so? I don't see that yet."

• "The stakes for the debate" on June 27 between Biden and Trump "are sky high," he said.
• Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz responded: "Everything this campaign is doing is for the election in November."
• He added: "Winning campaigns focus on voters, not the chattering class. We are heads down, doing the work we need to do to win again this November."

Reality check: The angst among many Democrats is about the larger narrative Biden's team is telling rather than its tactics, as it's poured money into field programs and zeroed in on key voters.

• Democrats close to the campaign told Axios that morale and management have largely improved since Jen O'Malley Dillon left the White House and joined the campaign earlier this year.
• Donilon frequently talks about democracy, but the campaign's most-run TV ad so far is about Obamacare, according to an analysis by NPR and AdImpact.
• And polls do show there are many voters concerned about democracy after Trump tried to overturn the results of the last election.

The intrigue: Biden aides worry that they didn't take full advantage of the head start they had in 2023.

• Biden's inner circle often makes decisions by committee. That slowed down the campaign's decision-making, people familiar with the dynamic told Axios.
• There also has been internal second-guessing over the team spending $25 million-plus on an ad buy last fall that didn't move Biden's numbers.

Zoom out: Many Democrats think the president and his closest aides learned the wrong lessons from Democratic wins in 2020 and 2022, and it's causing them to misread 2024.

• Biden's core team, including Donilon, believes Biden won in 2020 because his "soul of the nation" message resonated and he presented a clear "moral contrast" to Trump.
• In 2020, Donilon wanted to focus on Trump's character over the economy, even though "our own pollsters told us that talking about 'the soul of the nation' was nutty," he told the New Yorker.

Biden's closest aides also argue that framing Republicans as "ultra MAGA" — along with Biden's speeches about democracy, which were mocked by some Democrats at the time — helped prevent a predicted "red wave" in 2022.

• Biden and his close team have defied their doubters in the 2020 primary, the 2020 general election and the 2022 primaries. That's led them to be defiant toward those voices this time.

But many Democrats — including some in the administration — say the Biden team's view of itself is distorted:

• Biden won the 2020 Democratic primary largely because the party consolidated to stop Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and picked the candidate who polls showed as the most competitive.
• Even with a once-in-a-century pandemic, Biden barely beat Trump by less than 45,000 votes across three states. "Biden didn't win, Trump lost," one Democrat close to the White House put it.

One Democratic operative who worked on several close races in the midterms told Axios: "2022 was a classic case of running away from a president, and their takeaway was, 'Wow people really like us.' "

• "... I get why they spun it that way, but I also think many of them believe it."

[lasereye]

To summarize, the Biden team thinks they are headed for victory and Dem strategists that are not in Biden's team doubt it.

The other key takeaway is that the Biden team plans to make the election about "democracy" as of now. It sounds like abortion has disappeared from their strategy, based on this article. Possibly that's because Trump has neutralized the issue.

[Terry L Smith]

old democrat/republican ...stay in DC till its election time, perform circuituous travel, speak sonambulatory words, shake a few hands, kiss a few babies, run like heck for the plane, celebrate enroute, lock yourself in, and wait for the dummies to vote you back in.

[Terry L Smith]

old democrat/republican ...stay in DC till its election time, perform circuituous travel, speak sonambulatory words, shake a few hands, kiss a few babies, run like heck for the plane, celebrate enroute, lock yourself in, and wait for the dummies to vote you back in.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I don’t get this democracy is on the ballot thing. We have to vote Democrat to preserve democracy.

We have to vote only for one party to preserve democracy, etc. We don’t get a choice in elections, we are told we must vote a certain way. What the heck kind of reasoning is that?

[Liz]

Biden’s “strategy” is so he can say in November:
“Despite all the losing polls and my own people doubting me,
I won with 100 million votes.”

[blackdog]

Returning to the scene of the last crime I see?

[goodolemr]

A successful presidency runs on their accomplishments.

All this other noise does seem like poor tactics. I remember Clinton’s campaign wasting the final minutes of their campaign going after Trump the man and it didn’t amount for much.

Running back Trump on the GOP side makes it such an easy assessment for random ‘normies’... everyone knows firmly Trump’s actions as president/Biden’s actions as president. There’s nothing unknown (such as voting out Clinton in favor of Bob Dole as an example).

Biden was sold as a ‘return to normalcy/long time Democratic deal maker’, but instead has been as leftist a president ever. His policies have hurt working class and you can’t get around that.

[j.havenfarm]

Admittedly there is danger in lying to the people every single day when the recipients of the lies know they’re not true. Still that’s the strategy the Biden brain trust is going with

[laplata]

Biden is so full of BS and thinks BS is the truth that his mind is nothing but mushy BS.

[Track9]

“Preserving democracy” thru rampant voter fraud. Only a democRAT could reconcile that thinking.

[Liz]

Aint that the God’s honest truth?

[MrKatykelly]

Bidens guys seem blind to reality, but I can imagine why anybody would vote for Biden so I guess I’m just as blind.

[FamiliarFace]

*** We are heads down, doing the work we need to do to win again this November.***

Never forget what that really means. They will cheat again, in order to select the next president. They have the procedures and people in place to do this. It’s only a matter of execution.

[Repealthe17thAmendment]

This whole emphasis on democracy is puzzling to me. Trump is trying to win a (sort of) democratic election. He's not trying to do away with democracy. And if he wins, how in the world would he be able to end democracy? It makes no sense, and such an obvious scare tactic that it only fools those who are squeamish about Trump already.

It's noteworthy that Biden is not trying to run on his accomplishments, like runaway inflation, massive government debt, endless wars, and an open border that has given us some horrific crimes and caused havoc in many of our cities. The whole strategy is to make Trump appear unacceptable, highlighted by a rigged criminal trial and a barrage of phony charges.

While that strategy will work with a fair share of the voters, there's a definite ceiling on people who want to live in fear. People prefer hope and personal success, and as long as Trump emphasizes that, voters respond.

[43north]

Huh, Biden has surrounded himself with delusional people as stupid as he is . All the smart ones are stockpiling fake ballots.

[Track9]

The fib really ought to bill the DNC for all their cloak and dagger services. Those operations don’t come cheap. Especially now that its become brandon’s central campaign theme.

[uranium penguin]

Trump can just say.. “were you better under my administration than you are under Biden’s?”

It is like “are you better now than years ago, on steroids.”

Vote for Trump, you KNOW what it WAS like, you know what it IS now. Do you want more of now? or More of Trump?

The voters have 2 KNOWN situations, and they can pick.

[Alas Babylon!]

Basically:

Reelect the senile old dotard whose puppet masters are ruining the country, because Orangeman bad.

[Track9]

On second thought, the fancy new building they are getting now makes more sense.

[traderrob6]

Brings to mind that popular tongue in cheek tshirt slogan in the 70’s......”Fight for Peace”.