{ Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) said Sunday he wants President Biden to stand down on his 2024 Democratic presidential primary bid to give another Democrat a shot at the White House.
Why it matters: Phillips has previously called on others to challenge Biden in the 2024 Democratic nomination but is not committing himself to running as of yet.
- “I would like to see Joe Biden, a wonderful and remarkable man, pass the torch — cement this extraordinary legacy,” Phillips said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.
- “And by the way, this is not how everybody thinks, but I do believe the majority wants to move on,” he added.
- Phillips said his views on Biden stepping down are not based on the president’s age but rather “how people feel.”
By the numbers: 56% of U.S. adults said they had an unfavorable opinion of Biden, compared to just 32% of those with favoring opinions on the president, according to a CNN poll in June.
- Prospective voters in the CNN poll also had an unfavorable view of former President Donald Trump at 59%.
- An April poll from NBC News revealed that 70% of Americans think Biden should not seek another term. Of those responses, 51% came from Democrats.
- 60% of those polled by NBC also thought Trump shouldn’t run for president again. Of those, a third identified themselves as Republican voters.
- “Joe Biden right now is down seven points in the four swing states that will decide the next election,” said Phillips, who also pointed to Biden’s historically low approval numbers.
- Phillips added that he’s not saying Biden is “not up to a second term,” but that the numbers reflect that Americans want change and a new Democratic candidate. }
In a vacuum, sure. Biden is way older than I’d like to have in the white house. We desperately need younger politicians with fresher ideas.
But like. Let’s be serious. It is just as important at this moment in history that Trump not win, and Biden has already shown he can beat Trump. That’s the only important thing right now. We can figure out who runs to replace Biden after term two.
This is my understanding as well. No one voted for Biden. He’s just the person that was bland and white enough to beat knot head.
Yup. He’s simply not an exciting person or candidate. He’s not really even all that liberal. Just fine when your target voters are moderately conservative swing voters who fancy themselves principled enough not to vote for an obvious criminal. Democrats will already vote for him because he’s the democratic candidate. He’s trying to appeal to never-trumpers. And it worked.
Biden beat trump in 2020, now he is polling neck and neck with Biden, we Need to Run Someone Else or Trump is Going To Win.
Polling is volatile and things move quickly in elections, especially when they’re over a year apart.
This time in 2011, Obama was polling about the same as Biden is now: low 40s approval, low 50s disapproval. Gallup’s Aug 8-14 2011 poll had Obama at 40 approve/52 disapprove. For that matter Trump in 2019 was seeing similar numbers. In early fall 2020 and 2016, Trump was polling in the complete dumps and the polls were predicting landslide dem wins. Early fall 2008 showed McCain slightly more likely to win than not. Fall polling in 2012 showed a bare Obama advantage, but there was enough data there saying that Romney was going to win that without sites like 538, it wasn’t at all obvious who was favored.
It could be that Biden will remain weak. But people were predicting that Biden’s weak approval numbers were going to hurt in the 2022 midterms, and it was easily the best dem midterm in decades. If not for CA and NY dropping the ball dems would have even held the house! Which is basically insane. There’s no reason to be confident that the polling data will stay the same. In fact, it’s almost certain that polling numbers will change, and dramatically, in the months ahead. In which direction is far less certain.
The point being… Polling, today, of an election in fifteen months, is borderline worthless. We also have one data point suggesting Biden’s weak numbers aren’t actually an albatross at the ballot box.
Very True, we cannot prediction the future, that’s why I think by this time next year Cornel West will be the front runner 😎
I want some of whatever you’re smoking!
true and justice my dear brother/sister
polls and Jokes Aside, what would make you think that Biden’s popularity is actually going to increase? Biden is no Obama. Especially if there is both Cornel West and Joe Manchin who will be chipping away at both his left and centrist support. It could even be the GOP splits and runs 2 or more candidates. I Don’t think there even is precedent for this, and well, I’m just gonna say I don’t think Biden has the kind of political acumen to navigate that kind of chaotic and unprecedented election year.
West is a nothingburger. If you think he’ll impact anything other than a 2000-redux, you’re spending too much time on online politics. Same deal for the GOP splitting. Manchin, quite simply, won’t run for president. He likes attention but he’s not dumb. He might be an asshole but dumb is the last thing he is, and if he wanted to sabotage the democratic party he’s had far better opportunities to do just that for years.
Trump wasn’t Obama either, and his popularity went up. Obama wasn’t even “Obama” (as we think of him today) at this stage stage in his presidency. The year three slump is not some historical aberration or oddity. All three of them had near identical polling numbers (~40 up, ~50 down) at this stage in their presidency. Clinton wasn’t looking much better at this stage either: mid 40s approve, low 40s disapprove at this stage. He went on to have the largest popular vote win (nine points!) we’ve had since Reagan’s win in 1984.
Polling now is borderline worthless.
2000 redux
Why are Democrats Lying about the 2000 election? Gore Won, the Bush Bros sabotaged the election, Bush’s victory was declared by the supreme court.
Likewise far more registered Dems voted Bush than all green voters combined.
Stop rewriting history and legitimizing the Bush Administration.
If there is one thing that should be your takeaway from the last decade of US politics and media coverage, it should be that polls are not to be trusted.
A good pollster can make their data say whatever they want.
What we need is for people to get out and vote. The threat of Trump should be enough to mobilize voters. It’s not like Biden was an inspirational candidate last time. And all he’s done is go out and do probably a bit better than most thought he would.
I’ll agree with you there that polls generally can’t be trusted, and I agree people need to get out and vote, but It makes our job a lot easier if you have a candidate that people actually like. So I really hope – for the sake of the republic – that they convince Joe to step down and open up the primaries.
Biden is doing a much better job than I thought he would, but also I would really like to see someone 40 years younger in the role.
I don’t care how old he is himself, he has brought in a shit ton of younger progressive people in his administration, and that’s what matters.
What young progressives are in the Biden Administration? from what I’ve been reading, Biden has actually brought in a bunch of old neoconservatives like Elliot Abrams of Iran-Contra infamy whom Biden has nominated for a key diplomatic position
I probably shouldn’t have limited it to just the administration. Because the first thing I did was Google progressive judges submitted by Biden, then got bored of copying and pasting. You can Google the same way I did,
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Yeah I mean who is there to replace Biden? Hilary again? No thanks. It seems the Dems don’t really have anyone, especially for this election aside from Biden. And no don’t say Sanders, we need someone effective who can actually win and get things done. Bernie is yet another dinosaur who should retire and is completely ineffectual.
I’m not suggesting Sanders should run again but your critique of him as ineffectual is complete nonsense.
This is a common sentiment for people to have, but their preference runs into a major problem. There is no magic “young Biden” candidate out there that can unify the party.
If Biden announced tomorrow that he was going to retire rather than run for reelection, there would be an absolute clusterfuck circus of everyone and their mom’s roommate’s cousin’s dog jumping into the dem primary. Sanders — who is even older than Biden — has even implied that he would run in this scenario. Harris would get a lot of institutional support, but nowhere near enough to clear the field. Newsom would jump in. A solid half dozen house representatives with no real chance would jump in. As would some other has-beens or insufficiently qualified people. A few governors would take the chance too. It would take months for the race to whittle down to the core 5-6 people with any real chance, and by that time >$100m would have been pissed down the drain. Any establishment candidate that won would be met with instant distrust from large parts of the progressive left, and any progressive candidate that won would be met with similar levels of distrust from the rest of the party.
The primary would be acrimonious, expensive, and long. Dems would toss aside one of their biggest advantages going into next year — money — as Trump is more likely than not to tie up the republican primary comparatively early.
“We need a younger, popular person to be our nominee” is a trivial thing to wish for. It’s an exceedingly non-trivial thing to make happen. Every person pining for such a person is imagining very different democrats as fitting that description.
The time for new is 2028. We picked Biden in 2020 and picking a candidate one year comes with an implicit outcome of picking them in the next election, if they win the first time.
I’m just not seeing the problem with having a real battle of a primary and the chance for a decent candidate to emerge on top for the general. I’m really not.
You say money, but I’m sure a lot of people are more likely to donate for someone they like in both the primary and then the general (even if that’s different candidates)I agree that it’ll be a challenge. On the other hand, the dude is just too fucking old. I’ll absolutely vote against him in the primary.
We can do better, and we should.
I’ll absolutely vote against him in the primary.
Who’s running against him in the primary?
You’re right about what a clusterfuck it would be, I’m glad you are well aware of the Sad Sorry State of the Democratic Party.
The Easy Solution for that ClusterFuck is to maybe not try to rig the primary against Sanders. But of course they won’t do that. They will waste hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure they get another corporate puppet in there who has as much of a chance of winning as Biden.
That again, does not disprove the fact that Biden is deeply unpopular and his election is not a safe bet. Especially if the long predicted economic crisis comes to pass or any other number of things could happen. I would be happier if Biden himself just made more commitments to progressive issues, ending the blockade or cuba or freeing political prisoners could be done with a strike of the pen. But we know he won’t do anything like that.
We picked Biden in 2020 and picking a candidate one year comes with an implicit outcome of picking them in the next election, if they win the first time.
This is strange logic honestly, as the DNC said in court in 2017 about having fair and impartial primaries “There’s no contractual obligation” for us to elect him again.
That bit about waiting about 2028 is rich, why would the DNC change then? I doubt the threat of fascism would go away, they probably would have made more gains by then. They will say ‘not this year, next time’ forever. Maybe send that back to the thinktank and see if you can be not so transparent lol
The DNC is going to do this charade of trying to browbeat and guilt trip young and minority voters into getting out the vote like they did in 2016, and I don’t think it’s gonna work. because that’s not how you win elections. You win elections by mobilizing voters, offering them things they want and delivering - the dems want to do everything but give people what they want and then wonder why they lose to a party 75% of the country hates
Let me guess… Only dean Phillips can save us?
no. Phillips has no chance.
He’s just saying the quiet part out loud. Biden is the compromise canidate nobody likes but everybody voted for precisely because he’s milquetoast and soooo much better than the turnips the pubies put forwardeverybody voted for precisely because he’s milquetoast
I voted for him in spite of him being milquetoast.
well, kinda, yeah. My point is he wasn’t particularly offensive to anyone (which is exactly why he was chosen as Obama’s VP… you don’t pick controversial VP’s, generally.) which is exactly the reason he became the nominee in 2020, and will be again.
I appreciate him having the courage to say what everyone thinks, I don’t now who it would be, I’m sure there are many viable candidates who would step forward, but Biden is not a safe bet in 2024.
The incumbent president always runs. Just being the president gets them a ton of votes. If he was going to step down, he’d have to do it after winning the next election, making his VP the president
The incumbent president always runs.
Not always. Yes, usually, but definitely not always. See, for example, in the last 100 years:
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Johnson in 1968 (he knew he had no chance against RFK and had alienated a lot of the base with the escalation of the war in Vietnam)
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Truman in 1952 (low polling because of the war in Korea and other domestic issues)
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Coolidge in 1928 (“The Presidential office takes a heavy toll of those who occupy it and those who are dear to them. While we should not refuse to spend and be spent in the service of our country, it is hazardous to attempt what we feel is beyond our strength to accomplish.”)
Granted, all three of these men served more than one full term in office because they each had taken over after the previous president had died, but each had the ability to run for an additional term and chose not to. Anyway, it is no more true that the incumbent president always runs than it is true that the VP always runs for the presidency at the conclusion of that term.
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Well, I’d hate to break it to you but Kamala is a worse choice
If the DNC didn’t hate the idea of a progressive candidate that would follow through with all the progressive policies that the American people overwhelmingly support on both sides of the aisle then you might get a good candidate and blow the GOP out for a decade or two.
Instead the DNC realize their only way to continue to exist and get money is to sell out the public good for the rich, which makes them no better than the Republicans.
That’s exactly it. They seem to think never losing another election is a realistic option without also embracing a FDR style populism.
It’s like Cornel West says:
Milquetoast Neoliberalism Can Never Defeat Fascism
If they’re so threatened by this guy, maybe they should embrace medicare 4 all or marijuana legalization, the Green New Deal etc. That’s ^^ the bare minimum really
It would be a lot easier for dems to do anything if there weren’t 47 democratic senators (+ Manchin), 49 Republicans and 3 independents…
Absolutely, which is why the Democrats need to embrace progressive policies that are supported by the vast majority of americans like Universal Healthcare and Marijuana Legalization.
Also, how did LBJ pass the Civil Rights Act when half of his own party were Dixiecrats?
Why in the bloody hell should he?
He’s done a fantastic job guiding the country through some extremely trying few years.
So what’s Phillip’s angle?
Is he another spoiler Democrat like that clown JFK Jr who has right wing/Russian backing to cause problems within the party?
Is he another traitorous Democrat like Manchin who is probably going to jump parties when it suits him?
Or is he just another clueless Democrat that doesn’t understand that unity is how we defeat the Red Menace?
I don’t like JFK Jr, at all but how is he a “spoiler” if he’s running in the primaries? I thought 3rd parties are spoilers.
He’s funded and managed by right wing/GOP donors some with ties to Russia.
yes, but that’s not what a ‘spoiler’ is
Julian Castro!
