How Democrats face a conundrum when it comes to Biden

President Biden is riding high in a number of ways as he closes the door on 2022.

He’s coming off a strong midterm election that saw his party gain a Senate seat and two governorships. Democrats lost the House majority but did much better than expected, ensuring the GOP’s majority in the next Congress will be slim.

The successes have strengthened Biden’s standing ahead of a widely expected 2024 reelection bid.

Talk of challenges to Biden has quieted, and the two Democratic leaders of Congress — outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) — are enthusiastically calling this week for the 80-year-old to seek a second term.

In another piece of good news for Biden, his old rival former President Trump is stumbling through controversy after controversy at the outset of his own run for the White House.

Trump’s troubles have exposed the deep divides within the GOP over its future, raising serious questions about the Republican Party’s ability to win a national election.

Yet for all the good news for Biden, many Democrats don’t want to see him run for a second term.

A CNN poll this week showed that 59 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents want a new candidate to be their nominee in 2024.

It’s a confusing picture for the White House and Democrats more generally.

“President Biden’s standing with Democrats is a riddle wrapped in an enigma,” said Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist. “He is very popular with Democrats and is well positioned to win the party’s nomination in 2024, but most of the party faithful don’t want him to run again.”

The CNN poll does not look like an anomaly.

A week earlier, a CNBC poll found that 57 percent of Democrats said Biden shouldn’t launch another presidential bid. The same poll showed that 70 percent of all respondents shared that sentiment — including 66 percent of independents. 

None of this necessarily makes Biden a weak candidate in 2024, but it also doesn’t suggest he’s a particularly strong candidate.

It does underline the sense that Biden won in 2020 by getting Democrats out to vote against Trump, and not because the party faithful was particularly inspired by their own candidate.

“That’s the conundrum we face,” said one Democratic Party strategist. “Because if not Biden, then who? And what if there’s an enthusiasm gap with the President?”

Biden’s age is seen as a big reason for the polls showing many Democrats don’t want him to run for a second term.

Biden turned 80 last month and would be 86 at the end of a second term.

“Voters can both like and respect him and still wish there was a younger version of him available,” a second Democratic strategist said. 

Beyond the midterm wins, Biden has pulled together a string of legislative victories this year, including the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, which boosted domestic production of semiconductors, along with a smaller gun control measure that expanded background checks. 

Some of those bills did not go as far as liberals had hoped, though they were real achievements in a Congress where Democrats held a slim majority in the House and had the Senate majority only because of Vice President Harris’s tiebreaking vote.

Biden took a victory lap this week after a consumer price index report showed inflation easing for the fifth straight month — economic news he hopes will carry him forward.

“In a world where inflation is rising in double digits in many major economies around the world, inflation is coming down in America,” Biden said at the White House on Tuesday. 

That same day, the president also signed same-sex marriage legislation into law at a White House ceremony before a crowd of thousands of supporters.

Biden’s first term has had its up and downs, and the doubts surrounding Biden were widespread among Democratic officials over the summer. But a number of strategists said they think the political class is feeling better about the president.

“I don’t get that sense so much anymore,” Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko said of the doubts about Biden. “Anyone who doesn’t think there’s been a shift over the last 30 days hasn’t been paying attention to his latest electoral and legislative victories.”

Democratic strategist Zac Petkanas, who worked as director of rapid response for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, poured cold water on the idea of a serious primary challenger to Biden — something that felt more real before the midterms.

“There is no doubt he would win hands down if there was a competitive Democratic primary,” he said.

Still, Democrats privately admit that Biden’s age will continue to be an issue for prospective voters as they look ahead to the upcoming election.

“He’s old. There’s no denying it,” the first strategist said. “That may be a huge factor in two years. Honestly, it’s too soon to say.”

Publicly, other Democrats say they don’t think Biden’s age will be that much of an issue.

“It’s not a new piece of information that the president is of advanced age,” said Democratic strategist Joel Payne. “The fact that there has been so much political discourse and discussion around this probably serves as a benefit because all of the public discussion neutralizes the harm since it’s not a new data point.”