The fear runs deep of another unfavorable comparison of Biden to Jimmy Carter, who survived a primary challenge from Ted Kennedy in 1980, but not of the lingering wound going into the general election. Democrats, who are privately hoping that Biden might reverse course and not run, are petrified of smearing their way into allowing Trump and Trumpism to return to power.
According to four aides familiar with the talks, that hasn’t stopped hushed concerns circling the West Wing that someone could still emerge before the president’s re-election campaign officially begins in the spring of 2023. Biden advisers expect to stick to that no matter what happens, including if Trump decides to jump in early.
“Nothing about our timeline is changing, but we’re prepared if he decides to run,” a person familiar with Biden’s team’s political planning said of Trump.
But even Congressman Ro Hanna, a California congressman and former Bernie Sanders campaign co-chairman who first won his seat by defeating an incumbent in the primary, said he would not entertain the thought of jumping on Biden, even though is aware that he is the one being whispered about – so much so that a close friend dreamed over the 4th of July weekend that he did it.
“Absolutely not,” Hanna told CNN. “I plan to support (Biden) because of the danger that Donald Trump represents. I certainly wouldn’t do anything to weaken it, and I hope no one else does anything to weaken it. He’s still the safe brand in the Midwestern states to make sure Trump is out of the Oval Office.”
That’s also true of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has drawn the most petulant whispers from the Biden orbit with his comments highlighting a lack of Democratic action and energy and his purchase of a Fourth of July ad in Florida bashing Gov. Ron DeSantis, a would-be candidate for GOP 2024 Newsom, who faces re-election in November, compared the Democratic Party dynamic to the one he initially faced in his recall election last year, when he and advisers worked to scare away several Democrats who they wanted to jump at him.
“The success of our recall was about rallying around our party and defining the opposition. We need to unite the Democratic Party, not destroy ourselves from within,” Newsom said. “We have to watch our president’s back. But we also have to get out on the field. He needs troops. He must rule. Our job is to organize and it’s to watch his back.”
The same goes for JB Pritzker, the billionaire first-term governor of Illinois, who also drew some backstage lines from the world of Biden, giving a speech about his exhaustion with the Democratic status quo in the famously first-party state of New Hampshire. The Democrat, who is running for a second term in November, fueled further speculation with his response to the Highland Park shooting in his home state earlier this month, which was stronger than Biden’s.
Biden “said he’s running for re-election, and I support that,” Pritzker told CNN, adding that while he thinks another challenger could still emerge, Biden “will win the nomination and still be Ted Kennedy, who will run against Jimmy Carter … They will lose and take away from the president. That’s not what we need right now.”
Speculation is high enough that when Pete Buttigieg’s PAC reactivated Twitter in late June to endorse several candidates for the U.S. House and state legislature, several operatives involved began to wonder if it was the first step in transporting a secretary who is renewed as a candidate. His attendance at Democratic National Committee events and meetings with several potential future donors only sparked more conversation.
But there’s nothing to it, according to a Department of Transportation spokesman, who said, “Buttigieg has not been involved with Win the Era PAC since his nomination for secretary. He is 100 percent focused on his work at DOT, including implementing President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law.”
Some have talked about Jared Polis, the Colorado governor known for departing from what has become Democratic orthodoxy on the Covid-19 lockdown, and is facing voters this fall. He has personal wealth, several operatives noted, and while not enough to fund himself, enough to launch an eventual campaign and feel confident he won’t have to worry about jeopardizing future job prospects . Polis campaign spokeswoman Amber Miller said he is “not considering anything like that and is focused on governing the state of Colorado. If re-elected, he plans to serve out his entire term as governor of Colorado.”
Vice President Kamala Harris has repeatedly said that Biden intends to run and that she will be his running mate, and no one around her or anywhere else believes that she will be able to run a campaign that began by breaking up with him. Sanders, the Vermont senator who has twice sought the Democratic endorsement, told CNN last month that he would not run against Biden. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Sen. Elizabeth Warren told CNN that nothing has changed since the Massachusetts Democrat told NBC News that he would not run for president in 2024 and would support Biden. Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ top political adviser and former campaign manager, said trying to run by appealing to his wing of the party “is going to be an almost insurmountable climb to get to the top of that mountain, as it is understood that Bernie has said that he will support Joe Biden if he runs for re-election.”
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated a member of the House Democratic leadership to enter Congress, told late-night host Stephen Colbert in late June that she is more focused on preserving American democracy than presidential speculation.
But she also stopped short of saying she would support Biden for re-election, noting that the president has not said he is running alone.
Asked by CNN if that leaves room for her to consider running a young, progressive primary against him, a spokesperson for the congresswoman did not respond to requests for comment.
Facing “soft” primaries
Carter-Kennedy is not the only historical example in the minds of Democrats. There’s Ronald Reagan’s hard-fought 1976 campaign against Republican President Gerald Ford, which helped pave the way for Carter’s victory. Or George HW Bush, who never recovered from Pat Buchanan’s 1992 re-election campaign, which hurt him as the GOP base headed into the general election.
However, several senior Democrats cited 1968, when President Lyndon Johnson faced a primary challenge from Eugene McCarthy. Other candidates eventually jumped in, prompting the president to withdraw in March from seeking re-election.
Operatives around a number of presidential hopefuls say Biden already faces a “soft” primary challenge from many directions. The goal, they say, is not to run against Biden, but rather to indirectly reassure the president that Democrats have other good options in the next generation or two and that he should feel comfortable passing the torch to them.
The other goal is for Democrats to prepare as soon as possible for the possibility that Biden delays his decision to run for re-election and then changes his mind so late in the presidential cycle that other candidates have difficulty launching campaigns and raising money.
For all the free media attention that would come from announcing a campaign against Biden, no one seems to want to be seen as blowing a hole in the party for Republicans to come back through — especially at a time when apocalyptic sentiment is so high. This is also about future ambitions: these future candidates are aware that Democratic voters will never forgive a spoiler.
“This is about us having his back, not taking back a piece of the party,” Newsom said. “It’s about everyone disabusing themselves that we have the luxury of division from within.”
“I believe that after Donald Trump, there will be plenty of time to discuss the future of the Democratic Party,” Hanna said. “For people who have ambition for the future, they would prefer to run in a post-Donald Trump and post-Joe Biden world.”
Barack Obama was facing a flurry of primary speculation at about this point before his own re-election campaign 12 years ago — so much so that Gallup tested how well he would do if Hillary Clinton ran against him and Sanders began to rummaging through New Hampshire to jump against him.
Many of the Democratic Party leaders, officials and donors who spoke to CNN about the talks insist that it is their fear of Trump defeating Biden that is driving them to look for other possible options.
Not only does Biden now have a lower approval rating than nearly every Democratic governor and senator on the ballot in November, but several internal Democratic polls have shown him struggling against Trump in battleground states.
Asked if he understands what’s fueling talk of a major challenge he thinks could emerge, Pritzker paused. First, he reiterated his support for Biden. He then repeated his call for more energy and action, without specifically mentioning the president.
“We absolutely need to be louder and louder in our condemnation of the right wing and what they stand for, and in our defense of the liberties of women and those who are marginalized,” Pritzker said. “There is a noticeable change in attitude among Democrats.
Push back
Before he launched his 2020 campaign, Biden’s advisers scrapped the idea of a one-term pledge as a way to address questions about his age. Biden dismissed the idea, saying he would never be able to do something like instant lame. He made similar comments about what would happen to his power at home and on the world stage if he announced he would not seek re-election.
Few around Biden see that changing. Some have even suggested that a primary challenger could unwittingly help him recover from approval numbers remaining below 40% by giving him a foil. If this challenge comes from the left and allows him to argue, he is not…
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