The Democrats’ strategy was to communicate to close Biden’s policy and political deficit in 2024. It has failed miserably. Rather than closing the deficit, the Democrats’ failure to communicate threatens to widen it.
Biden enters 2024 trailing Trump in the polls: According to Real Clear Politics’ Jan. 1 national average, Biden trails Trump by 2.3 percentage points.Race5-way at 5 percentage pointsRaceand 3.7 percentage points in head-to-head battles with the top.battlefieldstate.
These deficits are attributable to Biden’s policies during his (then) three years in office. Biden’s overall job performance is poor, butApproval(On Jan. 24, just 40.4%) outperform him on the most pressing issues.problemThe economy, foreign policy, immigration, inflation, crime, the Hamas-Israel war.
With less than a year until the election, there was little Biden could do on the policy front with a divided Congress blocking legislation, but communications offered an opportunity and an asset.
Biden’s lead was by no means insurmountable. Democrats had a significant fundraising advantage. Biden had a strong opponent who was seen as divisive and “Favorable” narrowly beat Biden. The incumbency advantage allowed Biden to craft the news at will, and there was a compliant establishment media eager to support Biden’s successes and willing to cover his failures.
The Democrats’ strategy was as simple as it was necessary for them: put Trump on a higher negative profile than Biden. Paint Trump as an illegal (he has been charged with four felonies) and see him as divisive. They did just as Biden did on January 5th.paintTrump is “prepared to sacrifice our democracy”
But the Democratic Party’s communications counterattack failed.
Biden’sTrade Union StatusThe speech and subsequent fanning out of the administration’s surrogates didn’t work. So did the Biden campaign’s massive spending. The felony convictions that the Democrats had long waited for (and orchestrated) didn’t give them any further traction.
Backed down, with their quiver nearing empty and time running short, the Biden campaign rolled the dice on the debate, accepting a common platform with every factor in their favor (CNN, a friendly moderator, no audience, cut microphones, just 90 minutes).
The dice came up with “Snake Eye.”
As we all know, the June 27 debate was awful for Biden — he looked awful, sounded awful and staggered through a nearly eternal hour and a half — but what this disaster overlooks is the widespread destruction of the Democratic communications counterattack.
$50 million in advertising buy I was running June The campaign called Trump a “convicted felon” and targeted voters in battleground states and minority groups, but the idea among voters going into July was not that Trump was unfit to be president, but that Biden was unfit.
This message about Biden’s unfitness was repeated by members of his own party and the mainstream media. Democrat after Democrat came forward to denounce Biden.to withdrawAs a candidate, the existing major media outlets did the same.
The contrast could not have been starker: Trump was running for president and Biden was seeking to retain the nomination. This contrast, the exact opposite of what the Biden campaign had intended, dominated the news for more than two weeks, until Trump narrowly escaped assassination on the evening of July 13.
Then the contrast got even worse for Biden. Images of Trump, covered in blood and with his fists raised, made him look not just healthy but ready for battle. The man the Democrats wanted to portray in the American public’s mind as a convicted felon was now the victim of horrific violence, the violence of the Democratic Party’s confrontational stance.rhetoricIt was used generously.
Trump’s shooting also dealt a blow to Democratic elites’ efforts to oust Biden now and to the anti-Trump messaging that Democrats will be sending in the coming months.
Efforts by Democratic elites to remove Biden from the running depended on constant attention to his weaknesses. The assassination attempt on Trump has diminished that focus.
The attacks on Trump have been a hot topic on airwaves since they occurred, but Trump’s choose The Democratic campaign to oust Biden came to prominence with the nomination of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate, then the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and finally Trump’s acceptance speech. Now, at last, Democratic elites can redouble their efforts to oust Biden.
Democratic elites needed media attention for Biden, but instead, media attention went to Trump.
Finally, the assassination attempt severely hampers Democrats’ intentions to smear Trump in the coming months. Having exhausted all options to prop up Biden, their only hope is to smear Trump. But any attempt to do so now would look like inciting the kind of violence that has just taken place against Trump. At best, they wouldmessageIt will make you look hypocritical, and at worst, guilty.
Perhaps any strategy that relied on Biden and Harris’s communication skills was doomed to fail — they are arguably the worst communications duo in modern presidential history — and their pursuit of an explicitly negative messaging strategy that became increasingly hyperbolic was an inherent flaw (one that would have been roundly criticized by Republicans).
But what matters most to Democrats is that it’s not working.Favorability ratingThe previous survey showed a 0.6 percentage point advantage, but by July 18 that had grown to 4.3 percentage points.
By contrast, Trump is outcompeting Biden and even himself in the communications department. He still has the ability to draw and excite crowds, of course. But he has been restrained while Democrats have publicly contested the nomination and in the aftermath of his shooting.
Biden was losing ground while Trump was gaining momentum, and the gap between the two became clearer. Trump was getting hit by bullets, and Biden was getting hit by bullets.COVIDBy overrating Biden and underrating Trump, the Democrats’ communications counterattack collapsed.
Don’t get me wrong.do not haveIt’s not that we lose because we can’t communicateteethThe party’s failure to close the gap as planned, despite having a sizeable lead, could make the race even more intractable over the next three and a half months.
J.T. Young served as a professional staff member in the House and Senate from 1987-2000, worked for the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004-2023.
