Some Democrats are worried that President Joe Biden‘s campaign is focusing on the wrong issues in its 2024 campaign, possibly costing the party the White House.
Biden has centered much of his reelection campaign message on Jan. 6, 2021, political violence, democracy, and former President Donald Trump’s character. These topics are of varying degrees of importance to voters, but two indisputably important matters do not appear to be featured as prominently in campaign messaging — the economy and immigration.
Trump consistently ranks much higher among citizens on the economy and immigration, often beating Biden in polls by double digits.
Mike Donilon, Biden’s top political aide, told New Yorker magazine earlier this year that Jan. 6 will decide the election, going so far as to compare it to 9/11.
“The Democratic Party didn’t want to believe it was a 9/11 election,” he said in March. “… I decided, after the election, I would never be part of a presidential campaign that didn’t figure out, with clarity, what it wanted to say and stick to it.”
Donilon predicted that by November, “the focus will become overwhelming on democracy,” adding that he thinks “the biggest images in people’s minds are going to be of Jan. 6.”
According to insiders speaking with Axios, new polls showing voters care more about inflation and the economy than a fight for democracy have not affected the Biden campaign’s belief.
“This is Joe Biden’s strategy — and Mike Donilon and his top advisers are in agreement with the president,” one anonymous adviser reportedly told the outlet. “The polling shows that democracy ended up a top issue of concern for voters in 2022, and it will be in 2024.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Biden campaign for comment.
Concerns over democracy often rank relatively high, but Jan. 6 appears to have largely receded from most voters’ concerns. A May New York Times/Siena College survey found that just 5% of respondents primarily associate Trump’s presidency with Jan. 6.
A Democratic strategist familiar with the campaign reportedly voiced his concerns to the outlet that the situation with the campaign was “dire.”
Defenders of Biden point to his victory in 2020, which was pulled off largely with a message focusing on the “soul of the nation,” despite Democratic pollsters urging him to focus on the economy. Other victories in the 2022 midterm elections also helped the Democrats feel vindicated.
Concerns over democracy have come up in some polls. A recent NPR/PBS News/Marist College national poll, which had Trump and Biden tied at 49%, found that preserving democracy was voters’ second biggest concern, with 29% saying it was at the top of their mind behind inflation, at 30%, and ahead of immigration, at 18%.
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The impact of Trump’s conviction has also split analysts among those who think it will spur Republicans to vote for him out of feelings of righteous indignation, those who think it will spur voters to vote against him in order to prevent a convicted felon from being in office, and those who believe voters will be largely unaffected. Republicans largely hope for the first option.
“If that judge compounds the unfairness of the trial with a jail sentence or that otherwise restricts his freedom to campaign, righteous anger at the injustice will wash away Biden and the corrupt establishment in November,” Republican National Committeeman Richard Porter said.