President Joe Biden is seeing out the end of 2023 with multiple crises across a variety of fronts – political and personal – causing some at the very zenith of his own party to doubt his ability to hold the White House in 2024.
Former President Barack Obama is reportedly among the doubters.
He increasingly questions the incumbent’s prospects for next year’s election and “feels that Democrats very well could lose,” according to a report by Annie Linskey citing an anonymous source in the Wall Street Journal.
File/President Joe Biden (L) and former U.S. President Barack Obama (R) rally for Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro at the Liacouras Center on November 5, 2022 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Mark Makela/Getty)
With former President Donald Trump forging ahead in polls, and concerns about the president’s age, immigration, Israel policy, and economic plan denting confidence all while son Hunter Biden appears to be providing an endless media distraction, the quoted source familiar with Obama’s thinking described the former president as troubled.
Trump has the edge over Joe Biden in seven crucial swing states in hypothetical match-ups with the 2024 general election less than a year away, according to a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.
He is also increasingly seen as the stronger, better leader of the two.
Obama “knows this is going to be a close race,” the source told the WSJ, and “feels that Democrats very well could lose” the 2024 election while also fretting “the alternative is pretty dangerous for democracy,” the person said.
The reportedly private expressions of doubt align with members of the Democrat Party who have called for Biden to avoid reelection and pass the torch to the younger generation in fear that he could lose to Donald Trump. As the Hill noted last month:
Former President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod on Sunday suggested President Biden drop out of the 2024 presidential race in the wake of a new poll showing the incumbent trailing former President Trump.
Pointing to a New York Times and Siena College poll published Sunday, Axelrod wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: “It’s very late to change horses; a lot will happen in the next year that no one can predict & Biden’s team says his resolve to run is firm.”
Arguing Biden is “justly proud of his accomplishments,” Axelrod said Biden’s poll numbers will “send tremors of doubt” through the Democratic Party. “Not ‘bed-wetting,’” but legitimate concern, Axelrod wrote.
Bill Maher is another to have called on Biden to drop out of the 2024 race, making his fears public more than 12 months ago.
“Someone has to convince President Biden that if he runs again, he’s going to turn the country back over to Trump and go … down in history as Ruth Bader Biden, the person who doesn’t know when to quit and so does great damage to their party and their country,” Maher then said again last month.
Hardcore Never Trumpers like Bill Kristol have also called for 81-year-old Biden to step down.