(Headline USA) Former President Barack Obama is warning Democrats that President Joe Biden may very well lose the 2024 election, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Obama—who notably refrained from endorsing Biden back in 2020 until it was clear he would win the Democratic primary—“knows this is going to be a close race” and “feels that Democrats very well could lose” because of Biden, a source familiar with the former president’s thinking said.
The former president has also allegedly described the possibility of another Trump win as “dangerous for democracy.”
Though Obama hasn’t publicly mentioned his concerns, some of his close allies have. His former top political adviser, for example, was one of the first to come out against Biden’s reelection bid.
“Job approval down, ratings generally down, most of the comparatives with Trump not good,” former Obama campaign manager David Axelrod said on a recent podcast. “What I worry about, you guys, from a Biden standpoint, is these are the kinds of things you get when people are starting to rationalize their votes.”
Biden’s campaign has tried to downplay concerns about his poor polling, admitting that it knows 2024 will be a tough race.
“Make no mistake, 2024 will be a close election,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez stressed to reporters last month.
“And we know that we can’t take anything for granted,” she added. “We’ve been saying that from the beginning.”
However, most pollsters agree that former President Donald Trump’s new lead against Biden is unprecedented, since none of the polls leading up to the 2020 election had Trump ahead.
Now, Trump is leading by 3.5 percentage points nationally, according to the RealClearPolitics average, and he is leading Biden in several swing states that played a part in both men’s respective victories: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia.
Trump also has a lead in Nevada, which he lost both races; and in North Carolina, which he won both times—although economic growth in urban areas like Charlotte and Durham has inched it ever closer to becoming a “purple” state.
When asked about these numbers, Biden’s communications director Michael Tyler downplayed the concerns.
“Time and again, Biden beats expectations,” he said. “Happened in 2020, happened in 2022.”
Many continue to suspect that Democrats may seek to pull a last-minute bait-and-switch by substituting Biden with a more politically viable candidate during or after their convention next August—including, potentially, former first lady Michelle Obama.
