As per the analysis of David Axelrod, the strategist who oversaw the triumphant campaign of President Barack Obama against Hillary Clinton in 2008, it is recommended that President Joe Biden contemplate conceding defeat in view of recent polling findings that reveal a substantial disadvantage for the Democratic president in five of the six swing states against former President Donald Trump.
According to Axelrod’s analysis of X, President Biden ought to consider the potentiality of vacating his position and allowing the younger Democratic cohort to vie for the nomination of their party.
“Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?” Axelrod asked in a thread on X obtained by Fox News.
The @POTUS is justly proud of his accomplishments. Trump is a dangerous, unhinged demagogue whose brazen disdain for the rules, norms, laws and institutions or democracy should be disqualifying. But the stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore.
— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) November 5, 2023
Axelrod continued, “It’s very late to change horses,” but he implied that recent polling indicates that Biden is clearly having problems.
The president, who was overwhelmed in states he won in 2020 (Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania), is presently ranked below President Trump. In the state of Wisconsin, Biden leads by precisely 2%. Surprising data morsels within the numbers suggest that although Biden and Trump are virtually tied among youthful voters, Black voters favor the Republican candidate by up to 22 percent in states where he leads. This amount is extraordinary for a Republican candidate competing in the era following the Civil War.
Axelrod oversaw Obama’s 2008 strategy to appoint Biden as his campaign companion in an effort to compensate for the lukewarm support of white working-class voters. Among white voters, notably those with less than a four-year college degree, President Biden, a native of Scranton, Pennsylvania, currently trails Trump by dozens of points, despite having spent decades in public attesting to his blue-collar heritage.
Axelrod continued, “Biden’s biggest liability is his advanced age.” Being the oldest U.S. president in history, Biden has made a terrible lot of mistakes, travels, and other senior moments that have solidified voters’ fears about his age and led them to feel, by large proportions, that he is unfit to serve a second four-year term. Even while voters disapprove of President Trump in large numbers, according to Axelrod, President Biden would be gravely misguided to think that the same people will not defect to his likely opponent.
“[T]he stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore,” wrote Axelrod.