Why Democrats Are in ‘Breakout’ Mode Over Biden’s Re-Election Chances

Politics

By Olivia Land

President Biden’s consistently poor polls are fueling panic among Democrats more than five months into his re-election bid against Donald Trump.

The outlook has worsened, Politico reported TuesdayA consultant to major party donors is touting nearly two dozen reasons why the incumbent is in trouble — including his age, frustrations over immigration and inflation, and the unpopularity of Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Donors ask me on an hourly basis what I think” The consultant told the store“It’s really easy to show them, so when they’re reading it, I can pour them a drink,” he added.

“The list of why we ‘could win’ is so short, I don’t need to have a list on my phone,” the man continued.

“You don’t want to be the person on the record saying we’re doomed, or the campaign is bad, or Biden is making a mistake. Nobody wants to be that person,” a Democratic operative with close ties to the White House told Politico, asking why the president’s allies are privately “obsessed” about the stakes of the election. He explained that they were putting a brave face on the situation.

“It’s not, ‘Oh my God, Mitt Romney could be president,'” the activist added. “It’s like, ‘Oh my God, democracy might end.’

In addition to polls showing Trump, 77, ahead of Biden, 81, in battleground states that decide the presidency, the 45th president is also in the money race.

In April, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee boosted the Biden campaign and Democrats by $25 million — including $50.5 million in cash from an April 6 event in Palm Beach.

When Biden visited Boston for a pair of fundraisers last week, the cash gap prompted an urgent plea from Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey.

“To those who opened your wallets, thank you,” Healy told donors. “We want you to open them up a little more and find more patriots — more patriots who believe in this country, who recognize and understand the challenge that’s being presented at this time.”

The Republican candidate wasn’t shy about pandering to traditional Democratic voting constituencies, including black and Hispanic voters, at a rally in the South Bronx last week.

“New York Democrats need to wake up,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levin. “The number of people in New York, including people of color who I would say positively about Trump, is alarming.”

“I’m worried that this will be the situation in 2022, when everyone will have to stand up and fight in the last seven weeks.”

“Given the plight of who Donald Trump is, the election is more competitive than it should be,” admitted South Bronx Rep. Richie Torres (D-NY). “In a properly functioning democracy, Donald Trump should not have a viable path to the presidency. The reality of a competitive race is troubling.”

The Biden campaign dismissed the former president’s recent events in New York and New Jersey as “photo-ops and PR stunts.”

“The work we do on the ground and on the airwaves in our battleground states every day — to talk about how President Biden is fighting for the middle class against the corporate greed that keeps prices high, to highlight Donald Trump’s anti-American campaign of revenge and abortion bans — is the work that will once again protect the White House.” spokesman Kevin Munoz told Politico.

“We need to run a campaign where, honestly, we send home the message that Donald Trump is taking us back to the 19th century. Biden is taking us further into the 21st century,” admitted the representative. Don Gildy (D-Mich.) declined to say whether he thought the president’s campaign was doing well enough to make that point.

“There’s still a path to winning this, but they don’t seem like a campaign that’s going down that path right now,” dissented Pete Giangreco, a longtime Democratic strategist.

“The framing of this race is, ‘Which was better, 3.5 years under Biden or four years under Trump?’ We miss it every day of the week and twice on Sunday,” he added.

“In 2020, there was enough energy to oust Donald Trump and other things on the ballot that brought out young people in subsequent elections,” suggested Michigan State Representative Larry Pohutsky, a Democrat.

“Not so this time. I worry that because we’ve had four years with a stable White House, young voters in particular may not feel that sense of urgency and may not remember how disastrous 2017 was after the Trump administration took office.

California RNC committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon supported Pohutsky’s diagnosis, saying no Democrat had expressed enthusiasm for the octogenarian commander-in-chief.

“The most diplomatic thing I hear from Democrats is, ‘Oh my God, these are the choices we have for president?’