Former President Barack Obama has now twice warned President Joe Biden that his reelection prospects are in trouble – as former President Donald Trump is in a stronger position to win the White House than he was in the two previous cycles that Obama paid Biden a visit in June and delivered the warning – and did so again in December when he didn’t see the Biden campaign operation improve.
He had been invited to the White House at Biden’s invitation, after the two men served together as president and vice president for eight years.
‘He expressed concern the re-election campaign was behind schedule in building out its field operations, and bottlenecked by Biden’s insistence on relying upon an insular group of advisers clustered in the West Wing,’ Time wrote, citing a Democratic insider.
While both White House and campaign officials act optimistic publicly, Time reported that behind closed doors they are scared.
Former President Barack Obama has twice visited the White House in the past year and in both cases warned President Joe Biden that his reelection prospects are in trouble.
Then Democratic nominee Barack Obama (left) and his running mate, now President Joe Biden (right), campaigning in Ohio in 2008
Quentin Fulks, Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager, said to win the Democrat simply needs to bring 2020 voters back into the fold.
‘Our biggest strength is that 80 million people sent him to the White House before,’ Fulks told Time. ‘Our challenge is winning people who have already cast a ballot for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris once.’
But that could be difficult under present circumstances. Despite rosy economic numbers and the COVID-19 pandemic essentially in the rearview mirror, voters DailyMail.com interviewed in early primary states often expressed a feeling that the economy was better under Trump.
Many are willing to give him another shot despite his 88 criminal indictments, role in the January 6 Capitol attack and general threats to be a ‘dictator’ on day No. 1.
Members of Biden’s youth coalition have soured on the 81-year-old president – in part because of his siding with Israel after the October 7 terror attack by Hamas – feeling that Palestinian civilians living in Gaza should not be paying the price.
At almost every campaign stop the president has made in recent weeks, he’s been hounded by pro-Palestinian demonstrators, including those who surrounded Biden’s hotel in Dallas and banged on cow bells in the early morning hours.
President Joe Biden waves to reporters as he leaves Friday for Wilmington, Delaware. He spent most of the week in Latino-heavy states – Nevada, Arizona and Texas – as he fights for reelection against former President Donald Trump
Gen Z voters ‘don’t understand why they should be compelled to cast their ballot for a candidate who has done so many things that are against their values,’ Aidan Kohn-Murphy, who organized the #TikTokforBiden campaign in 2020, told Time.
Trump has also worked hard to expand his appeal to Latino and black voters – and polling shows he’s done so with some success.
Biden has recently toughened up his rhetoric to try and pull back some Latino support.
On Monday he told Univision Radio with Raúl Molinar, pointing to the ex-president’s record of child separations, comments about migrants and a plan for a widescale deportation should he regain the White House.
The president also traveled to the Latino-heavy swing states of Nevada and Arizona and held fundraisers in Texas, which tends to lean heavily red.
He also made a trip to Michigan to shore up support among black voters and union voters, butfor going to a white local official’s home instead of a black church.
Michigan is also perilous for Biden due to his stance on the war in Gaza, as the state has a high population of Muslim and Arab voters. ‘It boils down to voters of color, and those voters are pissed,’ a former Biden campaign and White House official told Time. ‘I think it’s very likely he’ll lose.’.
