As of right now, Joe Biden is losing the 2024 election. The Republicans cannot get complacent in its ground operation, its messaging, or the Democrats' propensity to engage in electoral funny business. But for now, Joe Biden is looking at an Electoral College blowout, and Hill Democrats, some of Biden’s most vocal critics after his June 27 debate, are bracing for total disaster should the Delaware liberal selfishly try to cling onto a job that he was never qualified for in his entire career.
While the national polls have Biden within a few points of Donald Trump, he needs to be polling significantly higher to have a clear path to 270 or at least one that is not as uncertain or labored as the one he’s facing now. It’s no shoo-in either; Biden’s camp has lost all hope in holding the Sun Belt gains they achieved in 2020. They hope to win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania again—all three states have the president trailing Trump. The Keystone State is the most likely of the trio to flip. If that happens, it’s the ballgame. Most congressional Democrats want Biden to go, and even Nancy Pelosi has reportedly said she wished Biden would step aside in private.
The dysfunction and disunion among Democrats around 16 weeks from Election Day was unforeseeable, but that June 27 debate imploded the whole operation. Instead of drawing more critical voices into his inner circle, Biden has opted for more family members and ‘yes’ men who have wrapped him in a cocoon of delusion. In Politico’s piece about the mayhem, one aide is quoted regarding his party’s 2024 chances. It was succinctly wrapped into two words: “It’s over.”
As President Joe Biden’s support continues to crumble, his party is reckoning with the possibility of a punishing defeat in November — a potential GOP wave that would not only elect former President Donald Trump but also sweep away Democrats from power in Congress.
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Democrats are realizing that Biden’s path to victory is narrowing. His chances in critical Sun Belt states like Arizona and Nevada are dwindling, some Rust Belt states are at risk and blue safe zones like New Hampshire are suddenly in play.
Some big donors are threatening to withhold millions of dollars in pledges to pressure Biden to step aside, and rewarding lawmakers who urge the president to let someone else take his place.
All these forces are fueling a panic within the party that Biden’s meltdown could catapult Republicans into a trifecta in Washington. Some worry that Biden could drag down the rest of the ticket so badly that they not only fail to win back the House, but Trump and Hill Republicans could be handed big-enough majorities in both chambers to actually carry out huge GOP priorities.
“They are nervous about the upcoming election,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said of his Democratic colleagues who are calling for Biden to step down from the ticket. “If anybody tells you they’re not, they’re lying.”
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Inside the Capitol, Democrats who fear Biden can’t win make up a majority of the party and a growing number are willing to say so publicly.
“It’s over,” one aide to a battleground Democrat said of the fight to flip the House. “It doesn’t matter if they’re outperforming him by 35 fucking points. The math doesn’t work."
And Biden is not going anywhere, so some Democrats are resigned to a second Trump presidency, with many wondering how they can accomplish the hastily drawn up secondary protocol for the party this late in the cycle: shoring up a congressional check on a second Trump term.
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