Democrats are rejecting Joe Biden. Again.
The former president tried to make a comeback earlier this week, promising to raise funds and campaign for Democrats amidst some rock bottom polls. As MAGA takes the main stage and President Donald Trump eliminates programs that Biden helped create, the former president is telling fellow politicians to put him back in the game.
He met privately last month with new Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin, reported NBC, and promised to boost the Democrats’ credibility and funds, but it seemed like his offer fell flat. Party activists, donors, and other lawmakers all argue that Biden is too closely linked to the 2024 defeat.
Plus, at 82, he isn’t exactly a lively vision for the future, they say.
After the last election, a number of high-profile Democrats even expressed anger at the former president for putting Kamala Harris in a position to fail. They say he should have dropped out sooner and question his intellectual sharpness. Even though Biden passed the torch to Harris last summer, voters argued it was too little, too late.
Trump won in a landslide, with a majority of the electorate voting Republican for the first time in decades.
In a new NBC News poll, only 27 percent of registered voters said they had positive views of the Democratic Party, the lowest figure in polling since 1990.
As Democrats search for reasons why their policies aren’t resonating, they are also desperate for broader investments and a clearer path ahead. Regardless, they say Biden’s not the answer.
Former first lady Jill Biden also offered to step-up, saying that she would raise money for fellow Democrats and help in any way she can, reported NBC.
Some Democrats still rally behind Biden. DNC Vice Chair Jane Kleeb told NBC that if you were to call any state party chair and ask them if they wanted Biden to be a speaker for their dinner, “the answer would be yes. He is beloved by the party and beloved by the voters.”
But others say that the party is desperate for younger, fresher faces. A March 16 CNN poll showed that only 1 percent of those surveyed felt like Biden reflected the party’s core values, compared to more progressive leaders—10 percent backed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 9 percent preferred Kamala Harris, and 8 percent favored Bernie Sanders. But the numbers still show a significant decline compared to when the poll was conducted in 2017 and 18 percent of participants stood in support of Barack Obama.
The poll also revealed that only slightly more than a quarter of surveyed U.S. citizens had a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, compared with 33 percent in January, 39 percent last October and 49 percent in January 2021, when Biden first took office. Both the rapid decline and the lack of support for key leaders is testament to an appetite for party-wide transformation.
But while Democrats are eager to forget Biden, Trump is keeping him relevant by constantly referencing him and implementing policies to counter his. Trump announced this week that he was ending Secret Service protection for Biden’s two children, with no warning. Biden did the opposite when Trump took office, ensuring that Trump’s children had extended protection for six months.
Trump also referenced his predecessor more than 400 times since the inauguration. He’s often become a foil for the president or someone for the Republican Party to point fingers at when their plans go awry.
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, had an explanation for why the party’s casting so much blame: “We are still very much fixing so many of the problems created or started by the Biden administration.”
But Biden left office two months ago, and key issues persist—or, in the case of the economy—even worsen.
