Officeholders and strategists previously optimistic about the prospect of Biden defeating former President Donald Trump on Election Day are now said to be in a state of trepidation, according to more than a dozen Democratic Party leaders and operatives who spoke with POLITICO. All of the individuals were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about the issue. One source described as being in close contact with the White House said there is a huge gap between what Democrats are saying in interviews and what is being stated privately. “You don’t want to be that guy who is on the record saying we’re doomed, or the campaign’s bad or Biden’s making mistakes. Nobody wants to be that guy,” he stated. Biden’s consistently poor polling and worries over the stakes of the election “are creating the freakout,” he said, adding, “This isn’t, ‘Oh my God, Mitt Romney might become president.’ It’s ‘Oh my God, the democracy might end.’” Overall, Biden’s approval rating has seen a steady decline since 2021, plunging from nearly half the country backing him, to just 38 percent nearly five months before the election — the lowest approval rating at this stage for any U.S. president in modern history, going all the way back to Harry Truman. Adding to Democratic worries is Trump’s massive fundraising haul last month, with a record-setting $50.5 million raised. That figure is nearly double the amount the Biden campaign took in during the same period. An adviser to major Democratic Party donors said that a list is circulating showing nearly two dozen reasons why Biden could lose, including border security, inflation, his age, the unpopularity of Vice President Kamala Harris, and third-party candidates appearing on the ballot, POLITICO reported. “The list of why we ‘could’ win is so small I don’t even need to keep the list on my phone,” the adviser said. Speculation has mounted in recent weeks over whether Biden would be swapped out at the Democratic National Convention in favor of some other, more appealing candidate who might be more likely to defeat Trump in November. Part of that thinking was driven by controversy over the timing of the convention, which was scheduled after the Aug. 7 deadline for Biden’s name to appear on the ballot in Ohio. Lawmakers in the Buckeye State were recently blasted by Gov. Mike DeWine after failing to pass legislation pushing the deadline to after the convention, which would allow Biden’s name to appear on the ballot. Some speculated that Democrats were doing little to address the issue because they were secretly plotting to ditch Biden and nominate someone else. However, on May 28, the Democratic National Committee announced it will hold a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden in order to meet Ohio’s ballot access deadline. A Michigan state representative said that Biden’s standing is so questionable that down-ballot candidates cannot rely on him to pull them along. “In 2020, there was enough energy to get Donald Trump out and there were other things on the ballot that brought young people out in subsequent elections,” Democratic state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky told POLITICO. “That’s not the case this time,” she explained. “I worry that because we’ve had four years with a stable White House, particularly young voters don’t feel that sense of urgency and might not remember how disastrous 2017 was right after the Trump administration took over.”Senior-level Democrats linked to the Biden campaign and the White House are quietly expressing growing fears that President Joe Biden’s chances of winning the 2024 election are dwindling.
