📅 Programming note: I am doing a Substack Live conversation today at 3 pm eastern time with Democratic pollster Margie Omero. It’s the latest episode of my “Out of the Wilderness” series where I talk to smart Democrats about what went wrong in 2024 and what the party needs to do to find its way back to political relevance. Hope you can join us for this FREE conversation!
Former President Joe Biden sat for an interview Wednesday with BBC Radio in which he seemed entirely oblivious to the role he — and his decision to run for a 2nd term — played in the party’s loss to Donald Trump in 2024.
Start here: Biden said that the reason “it was hard to say, now I’m going to stop” was because his administration had been “so successful.”
While it’s far too early to judge Biden’s presidency in historical terms, the reality of the 2024 race is that voters did not see him as a successful president. At all.
The last Gallup poll taken before his disastrous debate performance on June 27 — from June 3-23 — showed him at 38% job approval. The highest his approval rating rose in the early months of 2024 was 40%.
A majority of voters had been telling voters for MONTHS that they thought Biden was too old to run for a second term. That included large numbers of Democrats.
Biden is, of course, entitled to his own opinion about his presidency. But he is not entitled to his own facts. And the facts of 2024 were that he was a deeply unpopular president who majorities of the country did not want to run again.
Later in the BBC interview Biden was asked whether the final outcome in the election might have been different if he had ended his candidacy earlier.
“I don’t think it would’ve mattered,” he said.
Uh….
Look, it’s impossible to prove a hypothetical. Biden didn’t get out earlier. Kamala Harris lost. We know this.
But, I think it is very debatable whether Biden getting out earlier wouldn’t have mattered.
Consider what Biden staying in the race as long as he did meant:
Tens of millions of Americans watched the June 27 debate and the Democratic panic that followed as the party tried to push Biden out. That happened right as the party would normally be building buzz for its convention and trying to define Trump. None of that happened until — at the earliest — September.
Biden was unpopular. I know I made this point already but consider this: Democrats had a guy who less than 4 in 10 Americans approved of as their standard-bearer until the end of July! Every time swing voters thought of Democrats in that time, they thought of Biden! Not good!
There was no primary. Biden simply handed the Democratic presidential nomination to Harris. She received a total of ZERO votes from Democrats in a primary setting. She faced NO opposition for the nomination. Had Biden dropped out a year earlier, in July 2023, there would have been a robust primary campaign. Harris might have won anyway — I think she probably would have — but she would have earned the nomination in the eyes of voters rather than having it handed to her by a guy that the country didn’t approve of anyway.
Biden is trying to re-emerge a bit of late — he will be on “The View” Thursday — as he seeks to polish his legacy. I get it. But his comments to the BBC suggest to me Biden really, really doesn’t get it. And that’s bad news for Democrats as they try to understand what actually happened last year and how to rebuild ahead of 2028.
This is a FREE post. But all of this only works if you are willing to invest in independent journalism. Which is why I hope today is the day you become a paid subscriber to this newsletter. It’s $6 a month or $60 for the year.
