Amid dismal polling and some voter anger, don’t expect Biden to change his strategy
Polls have shown for weeks that President Biden is trailing his likely challenger, former President Donald J. Trump. Protesters have surged through Washington demanding that Mr Biden call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Groups of key voters, including young people and voters of color, have suggested they may not support Mr. Biden in the 2024 election.
What should a president who wants to be re-elected do now that there are so many disturbing signs? The answer, according to people close to Biden, is to stay the course.
Several officials in the Biden campaign and White House are convinced that unflattering polling and vocal criticism from key voters on Gaza, immigration and other issues simply hasn’t been enough to change a strategy aimed at boosting the Biden agenda against policies favored by Republicans. .
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations, said Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris would turn up the volume on that rallying cry starting in 2024.
The polls — and the piles of what officials see as negative reporting — have at times frustrated everyone, including Mr. Biden. But the polls have not changed the president’s mind on the issues that could pose political danger next year, including his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza or impose conditions on military aid to Israel, according to the report. the officials.
“They’re not panicking,” Ted Kaufman, a longtime confidant of Mr. Biden, said in an interview about the president and his team. “When you signed up for this, you didn’t sign up to be at 80 percent of the polls. These are true veterans, and they are chosen for their ability to remain calm in difficult times.”
This thinking is unlikely to satisfy a cacophony of voices outside that small circle. Immigration has been one of Mr. Biden’s biggest political vulnerabilities. In recent weeks, the White House has considered major new restrictions on migration to appease Republicans who refuse to approve aid to Ukraine or Israel without a crackdown on the border.
Although members of Congress have yet to reach an agreement, the White House’s openness to even some of the policies has drawn enormous criticism from progressives in his own party and immigration advocates who have supported him in the past.
“For the White House to support such a brutal policy would be a betrayal of millions of Americans who believed that President Biden’s campaign promised to restore our humanitarian leadership and the rule of law,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, Lutheran’s president Immigration and Refugee. Service, an interest group for refugees.
Democrats are calling on the president to do more and say more about the threat Mr. Trump poses to democracy. Others want Mr. Biden to encourage the Israelis to end their massive campaign in Gaza. Still others say he is running out of time to build the strongest possible case for himself against an opponent skilled at controlling a news cycle.
A poll published Tuesday by The New York Times showed widespread disapproval of Biden’s decisions surrounding the war in the Middle East. But the polls also showed that respondents care much more about the state of the economy than about foreign policy, and that a majority of them still support providing military and economic aid to Israel.
“The very real investments, resources and work we are putting in now are not for the next poll of the day — they will win the election in November,” said Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz.
He also pointed to several other polls released this week that show better chances for Mr. Biden in 2024, including polls from The Times that showed Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump among likely voters.
The plan for Mr. Biden to dig out of the bad news swirling around him in Washington, his advisers say, is to focus relentlessly on his agenda during visits to key states, like the one he made to Wisconsin on Wednesday .
The state is crucial to Mr. Biden’s re-election prospects — he won there by about 20,600 votes in 2020 — and recent polls point to a close battle in 2024. Ms. Harris chose the state as the starting point for a nationwide tour in support of reproductive rights, starting in January.
During a visit to Milwaukee on Wednesday, Mr. Biden did not focus on foreign policy, immigration or polling. Instead, he spoke about investing in business during remarks at a black chamber of commerce.
Mr. Biden also said his administration had made efforts to cancel student loan debt — another point of criticism among Democrats — despite a Supreme Court decision that gutted his plan for even more relief. According to figures released this month by the Ministry of Education, the government has been wiped out $132 billion in debt for more than 3.6 million Americans.
During his remarks, Mr. Biden highlighted Mr. Trump’s recent comments about immigrants “poisoning” the blood of the country, words that echoed Adolf Hitler’s comments about Jewish people.
“Well, I don’t believe, as the president — former president — said again yesterday, that immigrants pollute our blood,” Mr. Biden said. “The economy and our nation are stronger when we tap into the full range of talent in this country.”
Ben Wikler, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said in an interview that the coming year would be about addressing the concerns of different groups of voters, but also drawing a clear comparison with Mr. Trump .
“Our job will be to make sure people know they have been heard,” Mr. Wilker said, but also to present a comparison between Mr. Trump and “a seasoned leader who really knows how to get to people listening, bringing people together. and get things done.”
In Wisconsin, the Biden campaign has done so hired a state campaign manager And set up a volunteer program, with a focus on colleges and black neighborhoods in Milwaukee. The program, which is also piloting in Arizona, will focus on leveraging volunteers’ social networks rather than the door-knocking campaigns of past elections. (A graphic designer, Mr. Wilker said, is on hand to create shareable memes and images around topics — essentially an emoji-friendly version of a bumper sticker.)
This week, the Biden campaign spent money on ads targeting Mr. Biden’s visit, promoting local investments created through infrastructure legislation. When Wisconsin residents Google political news coverage, the Biden campaign will have paid for search results to surface local stories about the president’s visit.
But Mr. Biden’s advisers know he is a more important messenger than any campaign ad. On Wednesday, the president stopped twice to talk to reporters.
In one conversation after landing in Milwaukee, Mr. Biden deviated from his usual tendency to abstain when asked about the latest story swirling around Mr. Trump — a Colorado court ruling that declared the former president was ineligible to be placed on the primary ballot because he had rioted during the January 6 attacks. Mr Biden said it was “self-evident” that his opponent was an insurgent, although he said it was up to the court whether Mr Trump was on the ballot.
“You’ve seen it all,” Mr. Biden told reporters. “And he seems to be focusing on everything.”
Then he acknowledged that his day job was calling.
“Anyway,” he said, “I have to do this event.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting from Washington.