Biden’s path to re-election
The president looks vulnerable, but there is plenty he can do to win a second term
As the seeming inevitability of another Trump nomination becomes clearer—his primary victory in New Hampshire clinching what was long obvious—a sense of dread has begun setting in for Democrats. The fear is that President Biden’s stubbornly dreary approval rating, which at this point in his first term is lower than for any president since Harry Truman, could portend disaster this November. Calls have been proliferating, even in mainstream media, for Biden to step down for the good of his party and let another candidate succeed him.
But this pessimism misses a couple of key points. First, as our increasingly polarized politics have produced ever-closer results in presidential elections, candidates today can expect to have a high floor of support regardless of their perceived strength or weakness. Second, there are still a little over nine months until Election Day, and a lot can change between now and then. As Trump re-enters the daily lives of many Americans who have tuned out of politics since he left office, Biden has a chance to draw a clear contrast between himself and his predecessor—and remind voters why they chose him the last time and rejected Trump. Biden will have to keep several things in mind as he charts a path to a second term.
Follow the Blue Wall
A key part of Biden’s victory in 2020 was his ability to win three states in the industrial Midwest that voted for Trump in 2016: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—collectively known as the Democrats’ “Blue Wall.” Of the five total states he wrested from Trump, these three are older and whiter, but they went for him by the largest margins. All three also have a long history of voting for Democrats at the presidential level.
In some Democratic circles, however, several southern states seem to be sexier targets these days, as they are younger and more racially diverse—in other words, more reflective of what many observers see as the future of the party. This includes Arizona and Georgia, both of which Biden also flipped in 2020, though he won them by less than a half-point each. Moreover, both voted Republican at the presidential level from 2000 to 2016, a sign that they may not yet be as reliable for Democrats as the Blue Wall. The Biden campaign has additionally indicated it could target states like Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio as part of its path to victory, though all three backed Trump in each of the last two elections.
As tempting as it may be to look to the South and even expand the map from last time, Biden’s team should not lose sight of the bigger picture. The Blue Wall is a more tried-and-true path, as his campaign itself recognized in 2020 with its dialed-in focus on those states. If he secures the three Blue Wall states while carrying all of the other states that already lean his way, he will hit 270 electoral votes—the minimum number required to win the Electoral College. At that point, winning additional states such as Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada is just icing on the cake.
Focus on the working class
In 2019, Biden kicked off his campaign at a union hall in Pittsburgh, PA, a sign of his commitment to American workers. During his speech, he championed several policies aimed at benefiting the working class, including raising the federal hourly minimum wage to $15, ending non-compete clauses for lower-wage workers, and easing licensing requirements for some jobs. Research has shown that working-class voters are attracted to candidates who focus on kitchen-table issues and employ economically populist rhetoric. The success of candidates like Barack Obama and John Fetterman offers concrete proof of this.
So it is a bit perplexing that Biden’s re-election campaign has decided to primarily emphasize another topic entirely: protecting democracy. There’s no question that sustaining America’s democracy through and beyond the Trump era is of the utmost importance, especially as the former president employs increasingly alarming rhetoric. But a first step toward doing that is for Biden to win re-election, and that means he can’t take his eye off the ball. Voters continue to identify economic issues as far more pressing than democracy protection. Recent polling in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, for example, found that some of the constituencies that will matter most to Biden’s re-election—black voters, independents, and young people—have highlighted economic issues like cost of living as the most urgent problem facing the country.
Fortunately for Biden, Americans’ attitudes about the state of the economy have started to rebound recently, offering him an opening to tout his administration’s accomplishments in a way he has struggled with for much of his first term. Trump has also offered up fodder for Biden to hit him on, including coming out yet again in support of repealing the Affordable Care Act (or “Obamacare”) and toying with another round of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Democracy protection is of course important, and voters who care about it (alongside other animating issues like abortion) will likely show up in substantial numbers to vote for Biden—or, at least, against Trump. But to get over the hump and win re-election, Biden will need to speak directly to the anxieties of swing voters about cost-of-living issues and tell them what his administration has been doing to make their lives better. Candidates—especially incumbents—must give voters something to vote for, not just tell them whom to vote against.
Treat voters of color as persuasion targets
One of the most self-defeating impulses in progressive politics is to treat voters of color as monoliths. The source of this temptation is obvious: around the turn of the century, many political observers came to believe in the idea that “demographics are destiny.” The thought here was that non-white Americans, who were steadily growing in number, were reliable Democratic voters and would eventually bring about a permanent Democratic majority. Obama’s two wins and Hillary Clinton’s narrow loss in 2016 seemed to solidify this theory for many on the left: over 90 percent of black voters backed Obama and Clinton while roughly two-thirds of Hispanic and Asian voters did so as well.
But, in contemporary American politics, few trends that seem enduring often stay that way for long. When Trump ran for re-election, he confounded political experts by actually gaining ground with both black and Hispanic voters. Two years later, both groups as well as Asian voters swung rightward. Some projections show Democrats’ advantage with working-class voters of color on track to decline again this year. Biden’s approval rating with racial minorities has consistently lagged his 2020 performance. For example, a January USA Today/Suffolk University poll found that just 63 percent of black voters approved of Biden’s job performance, and about one in five is considering voting third party this year. It also showed Trump leading Biden among Hispanic voters by five points—a group Biden won by 25 points last time.
Some of this erosion may be due to the fact that pluralities of non-white voters identify as ideologically moderate. It could also be that issues that historically tied some of them to the Democrats (such as support for immigration among Hispanics) have become less potent, opening them to the idea of voting Republican. Regardless, Biden cannot take any of these voters for granted, and his campaign seems to understand as much, as they recently released a new round of ads focused on black and Hispanic voters. In the months ahead, the campaign must continue to treat non-white Americans as persuasion targets who need to be communicated with rather than a reliably safe bloc.
Find opportunities to demonstrate independence
An underrated moment in the 2020 campaign occurred in August, when protests over the police shooting of a black man in Kenosha, WI, turned violent. Some on the left were reluctant to condemn the rioting and looting, and prominent media outlets with substantial liberal readership even platformed voices defending this behavior. Biden, however, did not equivocate: he forcefully condemned the violence, saying, “I want to be very clear about all of this…It’s lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted.”
Biden’s approach deprived Trump of a potential wedge issue, and it also showed independents and Republicans who had soured on Trump that Biden could stand up to extreme elements on his own side. He may need to take a similar step this year. According to a Morning Consult poll, the share of Americans who believe that the Democratic Party is “too liberal” rose from 40 percent to 47 percent between 2020 and 2023. By contrast, the share who think Republicans are “too conservative” remained unchanged at 38 percent.
One way to show his independence is to continue to put distance between the Democratic Party and some of the most radical voices on the left over the war between Israel and Hamas. For instance, Biden could make public statements calling out protesters who block traffic or disrupt events in sacred spaces. He could also come out more vocally in favor of beefing up border security, as public approval of his handling of immigration recently hit an all-time low and polls show this is a top issue for voters.
We have evidence that bucking the left flank of their party won’t necessarily hurt Democratic candidates. Senator Fetterman expressed support for Democrats negotiating with Republicans to secure the southern border, and he has unequivocally supported Israel throughout its conflict with Hamas, going so far as to say he does not share typical “progressive” beliefs on that issue. Far from hurting him with his base, a recent Quinnipiac poll found that a whopping 80 percent of Pennsylvania Democrats approved of his job performance against just 10 percent who disapproved. Pennsylvania is in many ways a microcosm of America, meaning Biden may find it prudent to follow Fetterman’s template.
To be very clear: this election is likely to be close no matter what. In 2020, Biden defeated Trump by just 44,000 votes across three states, and that was in the face of a once-in-a-century pandemic, high disapproval of Trump’s handling of it, Trump’s broader unpopularity, and Biden’s ability to run as an outsider without a record to defend. This time around, the only thing Biden can bank on is Trump still being incredibly unpopular. Still, he has time to turn his fortunes around and prevent another Trump presidency. It remains to be seen which path he takes to do that.
A version of this piece first appeared in Persuasion.