Democrat strategist David Axelrod suggests Biden drop out

The Democratic strategist credited with leading former President Barack Obama’s 2008 victory has suggested that President Biden drop out of the 2024 presidential race after a damning poll showed him trailing behind former President Donald Trump.

David Axelrod pointed to Sunday polling from the New York Times and Siena College that shows the president lagging behind Trump in the five key battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania — states which Biden won when he faced Trump in 2020.

Axelrod wrote on X that the data “will send tremors of doubt thru the [Democratic] Party” and will create “legitimate concern” about having the president seek re-election.

“Only Joe Biden can make this decision,” he said of having the president run in 2024.

“If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party,” he posted.

“What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”

Axelrod noted there is a “risk associated with changing course now, as there is little time left for a primary campaign — and campaigns are how we test candidates.

“But there is a lot of leadership talent in the Democratic Party poised to emerge,” he wrote.

“The POTUS is justly proud of his accomplishments,” Axelrod said before bashing Trump as a “dangerous, unhinged demagogue whose brazen disdain for the rules, norms, laws and institutions of democracy should be disqualifying.

“But the stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore,” Axelrod said.

The poll of 3,662 registered voters in the swing states showed Biden was ahead of Trump in only the swing state Wisconsin, and falls to Trump by a margin of four to 10 percentage points among registered voters in the other five states.

The voters overwhelmingly preferred Trump over Biden on issues of immigration, national security and on the current war in Israel, it found.

Two-thirds of the respondents said the country is moving in the wrong direction under Biden, and just 37% say they trusted Biden with the economy — compared to 59% who said they trusted Trump, making it one of the largest issue gaps the poll found.

Biden is also losing support from much of his base, according to the survey.

Young voters under the age of 30 are only favoring Biden by a single percentage point, and his pull with Hispanic voters is down to single digits.

Meanwhile, traditionally Democratic Black voters are registering 22% support for Trump.

Many of the respondents cited Biden’s age as a factor, with a staggering 71% saying they felt that Biden is “too old” to be president, including 54% of his own backers, while only 39% felt the same way about Trump, including 19% of Trump’s backers.

Biden’s campaign has been trying to undercut the concerns about his age over the past few weeks by spotlighting Trump’s various flubs and mishaps on the campaign trail — such as not knowing which Iowa city he was in last month.

“There is nervousness among the donors and some of the elected officials that Joe Biden won’t be a strong candidate because of doubts Americans have about his health. And those doubts have been expressed in the polls,” former Democratic National Committee Chairman Ed Rendell acknowledged in a WABC 770 interview with John Catsimatidis.

Still, Rendell was optimistic about Biden’s prospects over Trump’s.

“If you ask them … ‘If it’s Joe Biden running against Donald Trump who would you vote for?’ they are almost unanimous that they vote for Joe Biden,” he said on “Cats Roundtable.” 

“I think Joe Biden will run, can win, and will win — especially if the candidate is Donald Trump.”