Democratic strategist David Axelrod, in a post following President Biden’s Thursday night press conference, said it was “highly unlikely” that Biden would win this fall’s presidential election.
Axelrod said Biden’s team “has not been very forthright with the president” after Biden told reporters at a news conference that there is no poll or person that is saying he can’t win the November election.
“If what he said at the end of the press conference is true, it seems the Biden campaign hasn’t been very honest with him about what the data shows. The age issue is a big, and potentially insurmountable, concern that makes his chances of winning very low.” Axelrod wrote to X. Thursday.
Axelrod and other former aides to President Barack Obama have been highly critical of Biden since his debate performance in late June, with the Obama strategist repeatedly suggesting he believes Democrats have a better chance of beating Trump if Biden does not come out on top.
Axelrod’s latest comments came just after Biden finished a news conference following the NATO summit in Washington, where at one point the president was asked whether he would pull out if he saw data showing Vice President Kamala Harris was performing better than him in elections.
A poll conducted this week by Bendixen & Amandi, a leading Democratic pollster, showed Harris leading Trump by one percentage point (42 percent to 41 percent), with Biden trailing by one point.
“Unless they come back and say you have no chance of winning,” he said. “Nobody’s saying that, the polls aren’t saying that.”
Biden’s team argued to Democratic senators on Thursday that his path to reelection runs through Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and that he can beat Trump in those states while holding on to most of the other states he won in 2020.
But Biden is lagging behind Trump in three states, and other polls have shown him falling behind Trump in battleground states since the debate.
Biden spent much of the press conference defending his chances of remaining the party’s nominee, remaining adamant that he was the best person to take on Trump.
“I believe I’m the best person to govern,” Biden said, “and the best person to win. But there are other people who can beat Trump. But it’s all starting from scratch. And, you know, we’re talking about the money we’ve raised. We’re not bad.”
More than a dozen Democrats have publicly urged Biden to back down, but Biden on Thursday dismissed their concerns, saying it was “not unusual” for lawmakers to worry about a top nominee.
