The controlling establishment of the national Democrat Party, despite numerous alarm signals from its grassroots supporters and many of its older strategists, is insisting on re-nominating President Joe Biden for re-election in 2024.
It has become obvious that Mr. Biden, 81 years old, has become frail both physically and mentally, and since it is happening due to the natural process of aging, and not due to curable disease or condition, this frailty inevitably will continue its diminishing course.
Both Biden’s supporters and his opponents see this plainly, but the Democrat establishment, including those around the president in the White House, argue that Mr. Biden’s decline is not sufficient to prevent him from serving as president for another four years.
The power of this establishment has been able to prevent any major opponent from entering the contest for the nomination against him. There are two other candidates in the race, but they are polling in single digits.
The more serious of the two is Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips, who is very rich and can self-fund his campaign. Despite receiving much media attention, he trails Mr. Biden by a large margin, including in New Hampshire where the president is not even on the ballot but is expected to win handily with write-in votes.
Virtually all opinion polling, however, indicates that Mr. Biden has historically low approval among all voters, and alarmingly low favorability among Democrats — most of whom want a younger and more active nominee.
The president also trails each of his three possible Republican opponents in most polls, which reflect the popular vote for president, and is behind in almost every swing state. Since the Democrats’ presidential nominee usually wins the popular vote, Biden would seem on course to lose the all-important Electoral College vote in a landslide in 2024.
Establishment Democrats appear to believe that the Republican nominee for president in 2024 will be Donald Trump. This expectation was just reinforced by Mr. Trump’s decisive victory in the Iowa Caucuses, and by his ongoing large lead in most upcoming primaries. Establishment Democrats argue that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020, so he can do it again in 2024. They point out that Biden spent most of the campaign in his Delaware basement — although now he is president and presumably cannot hide from the voters.
Because Biden has appeared so unsteady in public and makes blunders when he speaks, his campaign advisors are already signaling he won’t participate in any debates with Mr. Trump or whomever is the GOP nominee. But this strategy will only magnify the president’s frailty in the autumn campaign leading to Election Day.
While the Democrat establishment has been successful so far in insisting on Joe Biden’s nomination and preventing major Democrats from running against him, there are serious questions about how Democrats’ base and Independent voters will respond to Biden come November. The latter, of course, are key to any presidential election win —a recent Gallup Poll indicates that as many as 43 percent of all voters self-identify as independents.
Other polling signals a notable drop in support for Mr. Biden among black, Hispanic, Jewish, and rank-and-file union member voters — groups which make up a significant part of the Democrats’ voter base.
This gradual voter revolt, begun before Mr. Biden became president in 2021, is likely only to intensify if he is his party’s nominee in 2024.
Most Democrats who will vote next November will vote for Joe Biden. Few Democrats would vote for Donald Trump or any Republican nominee. But insisting on the president’s re-nomination against the widespread opposition of many Democrats could well cause many liberal voters to stay home or vote for a third party candidate. This would be even more likely for moderates and independents who voted for Biden in 2020 but now see him as a weak figure.
Establishment Democrats argue that many Republicans and moderates will not vote for Mr. Trump in 2024, but as the Iowa caucus vote indicated, the GOP base continues to be enthusiastic about the former president. As well, as already cited, he is gaining voters among blacks, Hispanics, Jews and rank-and-file union members. And very importantly, he is not perceived as physically or mentally frail.
Should the upcoming criminal trials and the efforts to keep Mr. Trump off some state ballots succeed in preventing his nomination, voters may become even more disenchanted with Biden, seeing these efforts as blatant partisan schemes to rig the election, and make it very likely they will elect a Republican president, whomever is the conservative nominee against him.
The Democrat establishment and its favored nominee Joe Biden are on a collision course with their own base of voters. In the coming weeks and months, this will become clearer and clearer.
