Let's not forget that in 2020, Joe Biden ran for president by presenting himself as a moderate who could work across the aisle to get the business of the American people done. It was all nonsense, for sure, but there were plenty of anti-Trump Republicans who wanted to believe it and used Biden's faux-centrism as an excuse to vote for him.
Then again, when you're running in a primary against the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, it's not all that hard to appear like the reasonable alternative. And arguably, the idea that Biden had a broader appeal that would make it easier for him to beat Trump than any of his primary opponents helped him win the Democratic nomination.
Since assuming office, Biden has shown zero interest in pretending to want to work with Republicans, upholding centrist ideals, or being the so-called adult in the room. Instead, he sought to position himself as a champion of the radical left. In doing so, he effectively alienated swing voters who took a chance on him in 2020.
According to Democratic strategist and pollster Mark Penn, this is why Joe Biden is in serious trouble today.
"President Biden appears behind in all the swing states and his campaign appears all-too-focused on firming up his political base on the left with his new shift on Israel, a $7 trillion budget, massive tax increases, and failing to connect on the basic issues of inflation, immigration and energy," he writes in the New York Times. "By pitching too much to the base, he is leaving behind the centrist swing voters who shift between parties from election to election and, I believe, will be the key factor deciding the 2024 race."
I’ve spent decades looking at the behavior of swing voters and how candidates appeal to them, including for Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996. If Mr. Biden wants to serve another four years, he has to stop being dragged to the left and chart a different course closer to the center that appeals to those voters who favor bipartisan compromises to our core issues, fiscal discipline and a strong America.
Penn essentially argues that the base will get out and vote in the fall because that's what it does, and Biden has wasted time not trying to be more appealing to the middle.
"The reality is that swing voters in battleground states who are upset about immigration, inflation, and what they see as extreme climate policies and weakness in foreign affairs are likely to put Mr. Trump back in office if they are not blunted," he writes.
Unfortunately, Mr. Biden is not reaching out to moderate voters with policy ideas or a strong campaign message. He is not showing clear evidence of bringing in large numbers of swing voters in the battleground states at this point. Those swing voters look for fiscal restraint without tax increases, climate policies that still give people a choice of cars and fuels and immigration policies that are compassionate to those who are here but close the borders.
Biden's biggest opportunity to reset his campaign was his State of the Union address, which Penn saw as a failure. "Instead of pivoting to the center when talking to 32 million people tuned in to his State of the Union address, Mr. Biden doubled down on his base strategy with hits like class warfare attacks on the rich and big corporations, big tax increases, student loan giveaways and further expansions of social programs despite a deficit of more than $1.1 trillion. The results quickly dissipated."
Related: Some Great News For Trump — Sort Of
Had Joe Biden been the president he claimed he would be on the campaign trail — the reasonable Democrat, the adult in the room, the elder statesman — he'd likely be in much better shape today. Instead, he sought to be a leftist divider.
