As a series of historic challenges pile up in Joe Biden’s presidency, he faces growing dissatisfaction from his own party and questions about his eligibility just months before crucial midterm elections.
Historic, global inflation and high gas prices have brought its popularity to a minimum that could threaten Democrats ’chances of maintaining control of Congress this fall.
Amid calls by activists for Biden to show more urgency on issues such as abortion and gun reform, the White House has received fire, calling on those who want more action on abortion “outdated.”
But a large majority of Democrats in a New York Times / Siena College poll published this week, 64%, said they want someone other than Biden to represent them in the 2024 presidential election.
Among these Democrats, the main reason they wanted another flagship was because of Biden’s age (33%), followed by his job performance (32%). At the bottom of the list, 4% cited their ability to win and 3% noted their mental acuity.
President Joe Biden listens during a meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the White House Oval Office in Washington on July 12, 2022.
Susan Walsh / AP
Age issues
At 79, Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history and his age has raised concerns not only within his own party, but across the aisle, with non-stop negative coverage in the conservative media of his perceptions. goggles and constant questions about his mental fitness. .
Fox News hosts constantly portray the president as a weak, big man as they play short music videos that say they show him confused in the face of events, shuffling words and relying on notebooks with basic instructions, such as “Grab your seat.” (Former President Donald Trump used similar notes.)
While these attacks are amplified through the slow partisanship of Fox News, Biden clearly doesn’t have the energy he had as the youngest vice president and senator before, often walking steadily and often stumbling over his words.
In 2018, before launching his most recent campaign for the presidency, Biden said it was “totally legitimate” for voters to consider the age of a candidate and “in what kind of way are you,” he reported. CNN at the time.
“I think it’s totally appropriate for people to look at me and tell me if I run for office again, ‘Well, my God, you’re old,'” he said, according to CNN. “Well, chronologically I’m old.”
A White House official said “much younger” aides than Biden “have to struggle to keep up” with the president, who works late into the night and “never takes a day off, either.” wherever”.
“We see him throwing himself into the toughest parts of the job,” the official said, noting that Biden recently spent “hours comforting the families” of the victims of the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde. , Texas.
President Joe Biden poses for selfies during the Congressional picnic on the southern lawn of the White House on July 12, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Excessive Biden tells ABC, “They want me to run”
In a passionate exchange with ABC News this week, Biden defended his popularity among Democrats, noting that the same New York Times / Siena College poll showed that if he ended up facing former President Donald Trump in 2024, 92 % of Democrats said they would vote for Biden.
And among all voters, according to the poll, Biden would outperform Trump by 44% to 41%.
When that reporter asked him what his message was to Democrats who don’t want him to run again, Biden replied, “They want me to run.”
“Read the polls,” he replied, lit up and changing direction. “Read the polls, Jack. You’re all the same. That poll showed that 92% of Democrats, if I ran, would vote for me.”
This reporter noted that most of the Democrats surveyed, in fact, said they wanted someone else to run.
“But 92% said that if they did, they would vote for me,” Biden replied, before leaving.
The president told ABC News in December that he plans to run for re-election. “If I’m in the health I have now, from good health and in fact I would run again,” he said then.
Vice President Kamala Harris has also made it clear that she would run with him.
President Joe Biden talks about ABC News ’Ben Gittleson as he walks out of the Congress picnic on the south lawn of the White House on July 12, 2022 in Washington.
Patrick Semansky / AP
Biden’s message: Vote
Following the Supreme Court’s setbacks on abortion rights, arms restrictions and climate change, progressive activists – and many of their allies in Congress – have vocally called on Biden to take more drastic measures to protect the rights of Americans.
Your message? Vote for Democrats in the November midterm.
“This fall, Roe is on the ballot,” he said the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month. “Personal freedoms are in the vote. The right to privacy, freedom, equality, they are all in the vote.”
Although Biden has used his bullying pulpit to speak forcefully on these issues, he and his advisers insist they are limited by legal limitations on what they can do, especially when it comes to protecting access to abortion. .
Her outgoing communications director, Kate Bedingfield, criticized activists who have been critical of Biden’s response to the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which found that women have no constitutional right to abortion.
“Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been constantly out of step with the mainstream Democratic Party,” he said in a statement to The Washington Post earlier this week that sparked a setback. of the progressives. “It is to offer help to women who are in danger and to gather a broad coalition to defend the right of women to choose now, just as it gathered such a coalition to win during the 2020 campaign.”
At a press conference in Madrid last month, a journalist asked Biden if he was the best messenger to fight for abortion rights when his own views on abortion had evolved over the years. Many progressives want him to do more, the journalist noted.
“I am the only president they have,” Biden replied, “and I feel very strongly that I will do everything in my power that I can legally do in terms of executive orders, as well as push Congress and the public.”
But he also said the “conclusion” is that people should “present and vote.”
“Vote during the year out and vote, vote, vote,” Biden said. “That’s how we’re going to change it.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks with Sen. Debbie Stabenow at the U.S. Capitol on July 14, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Alex Wong / Getty Images
Young Democratic candidates speak of disconnection with the party
But the New York Times / Siena College poll showed that younger Democrats, in particular, want a different candidate from Biden in 2024, with 94% of Democrats under 30 expressing that sentiment.
Odessa Kelly, a millennial Democrat who ran to represent the Nashville, Tennessee area of Congress, told ABC News that she traced the apprehension of those young Democrats to a more deeply rooted disappointment that began before Biden took office.
As the founder of the nonprofit Stand Up Nashville, Kelly explained the distribution of more than 300 boxes of food a day to people “who still wore work uniforms because they came between work shifts to survive another day.” “. Among them, he said, were primary school staff, including younger teachers who demanded food supplies for their families and classrooms.
“The Democratic Party always talks about helping the next generation, but I realized that child caregivers are struggling from pay to check,” Kelly said.
He said economic pressures became especially acute in Nashville during the coronavirus pandemic.
“The people of Nashville are at their breaking point,” he said. “I understand when people say we don’t seem to have chosen people who come from those shared experiences we’ve had.”
Another millennial Democrat running for Congress in Texas, Greg Casar, told ABC News that he thought the disconnect felt by younger voters stems from a generational difference in how to address prominent political issues, such as climate change.
“A lot of Generation Z voters don’t want to expect things to improve in any way,” said Casar, who is currently a member of Austin City Council. “Younger voters want action. That’s the kind of energy our politics often lacks.”
Both candidates support Biden – Kelly said he would “vote for Biden any day on Trump” – with some reservations. Casar urged Biden to move faster to protect access to abortion.
“Jeans can’t sit back and wait for another election while being denied health care,” he said. “The president can speak urgently, but he needs to act more with that same urgency to help black voters.”
Governors are pushing for action and sparking speculation for 2024
Amid Democratic discontent with Biden, other Democrats have sparked talk about possible 2024 races.
Biden says he will run again, but that hasn’t stopped speculation that California Gov. Gavin Newsom might have ambitions for a senior position, though on Wednesday he said emphatically that he would support a 2024 bid for Biden. .
Newsom, however, has criticized Democratic leaders for not facing Republicans more aggressively. And this week, he visited Washington, where he delivered a speech in which he spoke on national issues.
And Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who traveled to New Hampshire last month to campaign for Democrats and present Chicago as the venue for the 2024 presidential nomination convention, and plans to raise funds for Florida Democrats this week of the week, he has fed the talk about his highest aspirations. (He has insisted that he has focused on his re-election as governor).
After a July 4 shooting left seven dead in Highland Park, Illinois, Pritzker’s intense, confrontational response garnered widespread praise.
“If you’re angry today, I’m here to tell you you’re angry,” he said that day. “I am furious. I am furious that even more innocent lives have ended in armed violence. I am furious that their loved ones are …