Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun. It is a fight between two very old men.
After Biden's bad debate performance last week, there has been off-the-record talk about replacing him on the Democratic ticket. Some Democrats have gone on the record, but some are supporting him.
Until he stumbles again.
For all their riches and ambitions, many Democratic contributors and their big-money advisers have become resigned to the notion that their influence is fairly limited, and are trying not to be naïve. A sense of powerlessness pervades.
After all, Mr. Biden is not, as one major Democratic donor put it, subject to a vote by the wealthy. And he and his team have bristled against wealthy “elites” who are trying to force him out of a Democratic nomination that he won democratically, heightening concerns from major donors who are already nervous about their efforts backfiring if they are seen as bullies.
Alex Thompson and Andrew Solender at Axios:
Since his disastrous debate last month, President Biden has embraced a laundry list of left-wing policy proposals, strong-armed the party's nomination process and still tried to limit spontaneous, unscripted moments.It's saved his candidacy — for now.
Why it matters: Biden's moves have kept top Democrats from stampeding away from him — even as many remain privately uneasy with the 81-year-old president staying at the top of the ticket and serving another term.Amid worries he could lose and drag down Democratic House and Senate candidates with him, just 20 Democrats in Congress have called on him to step aside.
Driving the news: That's partly because of promises that Biden — long a centrist Democrat — has made to his party's progressive wing.Biden said this past week that if he's re-elected, he'd call for legislation to cap landlords' ability to hike rent prices, push for a large-scale elimination of medical debt, and pursue other plans that have been applauded by progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Biden's chosen leadership at the Democratic National Committee also is pushing to use an electronic roll call to lock him in as the party's presidential nominee weeks before its convention begins Aug. 19 in Chicago.
