WSJ: While Biden Worries About the Left, the Voters He Needs Are in the Center

Biden has the record, but voters aren't hearing it

The 2024 election will be decided by swing voters. Yet the Biden administration seems focused on courting the online left, even as he is losing voters in the center. It’s a theme we’ve previously discussed here, and we were thrilled to discuss it recently with Molly Ball, the Wall Street Journal writer who recently completed an epic biography of Speaker Pelosi. 

Here’s how the piece starts: 

President Biden’s announcement last week that his administration would seek to forgive billions of dollars’ worth of federal student loans was cheered by progressives, the latest in a string of actions he has taken to shore up support from the left—annoying the center in the process. 

That has some Democrats worrying he is making a big mistake. Despite much recent hand-wringing about the unpopular president’s need to shore up his base with liberal appeals, polls show Biden’s principal weakness isn’t with the left but with the middle of the electorate. The president, some centrists argue, isn’t doing enough to appeal to the moderate and independent voters who tend to decide elections.

“The voters that elected Biden in the first place are the center-left voters that liked his centrist policies, not the Bernie Sanders-Elizabeth Warren slice of the electorate,” said Lauren Harper Pope, who co-founded a group called WelcomePAC that urges Democrats to make pragmatic, big-tent appeals. “Yet the administration seems to have a fear of talking about things people actually care about if it might offend a small group of ideological activists.”

The analysis has data to back it up: Poll after poll shows that Biden is losing strength with independents and moderates, even as millions of moderate voters go to the polls to reject Trump in the Republican primary by voting for Haley (indeed, significantly more voters have chosen Haley than “uncommitted”). Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to make news with its Sisyphean attempts to cancel student debt for an increasingly shrinking percent of the population. And avoid news on popular accomplishments like record energy production and lower gas prices.

The result: Voters are more worried that Biden is too liberal than that he is too conservative. Ball writes:

The Democratic strategy group Blueprint found in a recent national poll that 52% of voters are concerned that Biden is too liberal, including 61% of independents. Blueprint also analyzed a spate of recent polling to determine which 2020 Biden voters have switched to say they will vote for Trump this year. Among that group, 53% call themselves moderates and 33% identify as conservative; just 14% consider themselves liberals.

It is a misconception, Pope says, that left-wing appeals are the key to mobilizing the young and minority voters that have cooled on Biden. In fact, Black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters tend to be more moderate than other Democrats. The Blueprint analysis found that 38% of voters who have switched to Trump since 2020 are age 18-34, while just 13% are 65 or older.

You can read the full thing here:

Record, Time

The good news is that there’s still time. Biden has six months to embrace the center and win over Haley voters and the Trump-to-Biden voters that put him across the finish line in 2020.

And Biden has a record that can win the middle. He can tout historic domestic energy production, reducing healthcare costs for seniors and bringing down the deficits that exploded under Trump. He can show that it’s Democrats who want a secure and orderly border, while the GOP simply plays politics on border security. 

The sub-headline of the Ball writeup should be motivating. Biden is falling behind with independents, but:

“The thing voters want is basically what the president is actually doing,” (Blueprint pollster Evan Roth Smith) said. “But when you ask what they think is going on, they don’t see the White House for what it’s actually doing.” 

Voters don’t see the Real Joe Biden, or hear about his record. The campaign needs to Let Biden Be Biden, and Joe needs to say the words about his record that independent voters aren’t hearing. There’s still time.