Biden is bracing for a Trump rematch and faces four thorny challenges

As he prepares to deliver the State of the Union address on Thursday, President Biden faces four persistent political issues that could threaten his re-election campaign.

Concerns about his age, discomfort over his stewardship of the economy, frustration over his alliance with Israel during the Gaza war and an openness to outside and independent candidates have emerged as central reasons why his Democratic coalition appears somewhat smaller and less enthusiastic. than in 2020.

Biden still has spring, summer and fall to turn things around — and Democrats have won a string of elections in recent years by focusing their campaigns on abortion rights.

But together, these political hurdles threaten his ability to advance the case that his aides have made central to his campaign strategy: making 2024 a binary choice between the president and his predecessor, former President Donald J. Trump.

“It’s very clearly a vibes election and not a math election, right?” said Tory Gavito, the president of Way to Win, a liberal advocacy group. Her organization warned last week that the “uncommitted” vote against Mr. Biden in the Michigan primary, protesting his Gaza policy, “was not something to be ignored, taken lightly or dismissed as isolated to Michigan.” “Uncommitted” captured 19 percent of the vote in Minnesota on Tuesday.

Mr. Biden’s campaign has argued for months that his political position will improve once voters recognize that the 2024 election will be a choice between him and Mr. Trump.

“President Biden enters the general election from a position of strength and with the right ingredients to win,” campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said. “Our base is uniquely motivated and united by Roe and Donald Trump’s threats to our democracy.”

Here we take a closer look at the four challenges:

Biden faces persistent concerns about his age.

Mr. Biden, now 81, has fended off such concerns since announcing his presidential campaign in 2019.

Last month, America watched as a special counsel called Mr. Biden a “well-meaning, older man with a bad memory.” A recent poll by The New York Times and Siena College found that 73 percent of all voters said he was too old to be an effective president.

What can Mr. Biden do?

“I think he should take a pill and become 40 years younger,” said Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who at 82 is just over a year older than Mr Biden. “And if he has that pill, I hope he shares it with me.”

In all seriousness, some Democrats have been pushing Mr. Biden to show voters he is still ready for the job.

Mr. Sanders expressed confidence and said he expected Mr. Biden to wage “a vigorous campaign” to sell his achievements and lay out an agenda for the second term. He said that in his own conversations with Mr. Biden, he had encouraged the president to emulate President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1936 campaign, which culminated in a second inaugural address in which he did not shy away from the reality of the Great Depression, declaring, “I see a third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clothed, and ill-fed.”

Biden’s allies in key battleground states have also tried to defend him against criticism and speculation about his future.

During a recent interview, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper recalled being forced to convince a local CEO that Mr. Biden would indeed be the Democratic nominee.

Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin, who is considering seeking a third term in 2026 when he turns 74, said he aims to retire well before he reaches Mr. Biden’s age.

“If I told you at the age of 82 that I was going to run, I would tell you, ‘That’s not going to happen,’” Mr. Evers said.

Israel’s war in Gaza has turned some Democrats against Biden.

The war in Gaza has alienated key parts of Biden’s 2020 winning coalition, including young voters, progressives and some black voters.

The Biden campaign dismissed the 13 percent of Michigan Democratic primary voters who voted “uncommitted,” as within the state’s historical norms.

But the percentage was much higher Tuesday during Minnesota’s primaries and only slightly lower in North Carolina, where there was no organized protest campaign. A new push by left-wing groups during the Washington state primaries next week means Biden will continue to face Democratic opposition over the war.

“He looks weak in this conflict because he is unable to uphold what we said are American values,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “I said this directly to the White House: I think we could literally lose this election to Donald Trump because of this war.”

Ms. Jayapal and other Democrats argue that every day the conflict continues is a day their party will struggle to deliver a message about how Mr. Biden is superior to Mr. Trump, because voters angry about the war nowhere to listen to him. otherwise.

Some progressive Democrats say that to win back support, Biden must go beyond calling for a ceasefire and end unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel.

“Just demanding a ceasefire would have worked a few months ago,” said Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general. “People are looking for a relational change, because after 30,000 deaths and how many displaced people there are, I think it’s like this: look, we can’t go on like this anymore. We can not. The world cannot continue like this.”

Voters do not appreciate Biden with improvements in the economy.

Economic indicators largely point in the same direction. Inflation is cooling down, consumer confidence is increasing. Many Americans generally feel good about their own economic circumstances.

They just don’t think Mr. Biden has much to do with it, and believe the overall economy is worsening. Only 19 percent of respondents in the latest New York Times/Siena College poll thought the economy was better than four years ago — when Trump was in power — while 65 percent said it was worse now. Looking back just one year, 23 percent said the economy was better now, while 40 percent said it was worse and 36 percent about the same.

“There is a hole here,” said Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey, a Biden ally who has predicted for months that Mr Biden will earn credit for an improved economy this summer, just in time for the general election. “I’m not suggesting it’s going to be a magic wand moment, but I think it’s literally only a matter of time before the president gets the credit he deserves.”

Mr. Biden has tried a series of measures to claim more credit faster. He has described his domestic agenda as “Bidenomics,” a phrase that few in the upper echelons of his circle have embraced, but which has nevertheless occasionally stuck in the White House brand. Thursday’s speech presents Mr. Biden with one of his biggest stages of the year to brag about his achievements — something even former supporters say they need to hear him do more.

Adrianne Shropshire, the executive director of BlackPAC, an African American political organizing organization, described leading a recent focus group in which participants were surprised to learn about the legislation Mr. Biden passed and how the economy had improved during his presidency.

“Someone said, ‘I didn’t know anything about this. Why are the Democrats so bad at messaging?’” Ms. Shropshire said. “That is a feeling that is felt quite widely.”

Third-party candidates can pose a real threat.

The Biden campaign has aimed to frame the 2024 election as a binary choice between the president and Mr. Trump. One problem with that strategy is that voters may have other options.

For months, Democrats feared that No Labels, the centrist group that claimed to have a $70 million war chest, would field a brand candidate. But now that the key targets have been passed, Democrats’ concerns about independent third-party candidates have shifted to the prospect of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could siphon votes away from Mr. Biden.

“Everyone in the Democratic coalition is worried about Kennedy,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist group Third Way, which has led the party’s efforts to block independent and third parties.

Candidates like Kennedy, and to a lesser but still significant extent Cornel West and Jill Stein, could splinter the fragile coalition that elected Biden in 2020.

That year, Biden united left-wing Democrats with center-right Republicans who opposed the prospect of a second Trump term. But now that many of those voters have a soft spot for both major party candidates, Democrats fear that more votes will come from Biden’s column than Trump’s.

In the coming months, the battle over whether candidates like Mr. Kennedy and Mr. West will qualify for election in key battleground states will be over. So far, Mr. West is on the ballot in Alaska, Oregon and South Carolina, and Mr. Kennedy is on the ballot in Utah. Late Tuesday, his campaign announced that he had collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in Nevada, which would be his first battleground.

“Third-party presidential candidates generally pose a major threat to the presidency,” said Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn, the liberal activist group. “In this election, the result will be that they will swing the election toward Donald Trump, and this country cannot have him in office for another four years.”