Joe Biden still outperforms Trump in most head-to-head polls, but that is not stopping a majority of Democrats in the latest New York Times poll from saying they would like to have someone else at top of the national ticket for 2024.
Just 26% of Democrats said they would prefer Biden as their party’s candidate, with 64% saying they want to see someone else head the ticket, according to The New York Times/Siena College Research Institute survey of registered voters.
While that finding is potentially very bad news for the 79-year-old incumbent’s reelection hopes, the poll has even worse news for Biden when it comes to younger Democratic voters and for how all voters see the country’s direction.
A whopping 94% of Democrats who are less than 30 years old said they want someone besides Biden to be their nominee, the survey found.
The president’s age and job performance were the top reasons cited by Democratic respondents why they wanted a candidate other than Biden to be the party nominee. Thirty-three percent cited Biden’s age, while 32% cited displeasure with the work he has done while in the White House.
Just 13% of voters of all kinds say the United States is “on the right track,” while 77% said it was “headed in the wrong direction.”
Yes, a substantial part of progressive inaction on Capitol Hill can be tied to Sens. Manchin and Sinema, not President Biden. He can’t do much when two Democrats are sabotaging every effort at truly progressive legislation. That can only be rectified with the election of two more Democrats who might make Sinema and Manchin irrelevant.
And much of our current malaise can be tied to unforeseen pandemic side effects.
But Biden and his administration — along with many centrist Democrats — seem to lack a sense of urgency about the existential threats facing the country and, in particular, its young people.
This administration is largely run by people who are not apart from Washington, but of it. They travel in the insulated world of legislators, aides, policy analysts, lobbyists and political consultants. Even the interns tend to come from the rarefied environs of Newport, Chevy Chase and Wellesley,
These are not people who, should someone they know need an abortion, could not find one locally or be unable to travel somewhere to get a safe one.
These are primarily not people who will be saddled with education debt for the rest of their lives, if they have any education debt at all.
These are not the people who are one paycheck away from not being able to pay their rent.
These are people for whom being paid to work from home can be a reality, rather than just being laid off and not getting any money at all.
The same is true of the Republicans, probably even more so.
But the difference is that I voted for the Democrats because they acted as if they, largely populated at the top by well-to-do types, understood that they would be the proxies for everyone who is poor and voiceless and desperately trying to keep their heads above water.
That they would run an administration that understood the urgency of the moment and would work to fashion a bold economic populist agenda that might even attract disaffected working class folks who’ve been voting Republican.
But the Biden people have instead acted pretty much like who they really are: people whose next job is always just an election away. If Biden loses they will all land on their feet with another campaign, another elected official, another lobbying gig, or another highly paid consultancy.
They have been timid and careful and calculating to the point of inaction.
I’ll vote for him if he’s the nominee again because if Trump gets one more term, the future will be far more bleak and awful than it would be otherwise.
But I want to vote for someone again. Not just against Trump and the Republicans.
