Democratic strategist David Axelrod wrote on social media after President Biden’s Thursday night press conference that his odds of winning the presidential race this fall are “very very slim.”
Axelrod said Biden’s team “has not been very candid” with the president after Biden at the presser said no poll or person is telling him he cannot win in November.
“If what he said at the end of his presser is true, it sounds like Biden’s team has not been very candid with him about what the data is showing: the age issue is a huge and potentially insurmountable concern and his odds of victory are very, very slim,” Axelrod wrote on the social platform X.
Axelrod and other ex-aides to former President Obama have been very critical of Biden since his debate performance at the end of June. The Obama strategist has repeatedly signaled he believes Democrats would have a better chance of defeating Trump without Biden at the top of the ticket.
The latest comments from Axelrod came moments after Biden concluded a press conference following the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. At one point, the president was pressed on whether he would drop out if he saw data that Vice President Harris would do better in the election than him.
A poll from Bendixen & Amandi Inc., a top Democratic pollster, this week showed Harris beat Trump by 1 point, 42 percent to 41 percent, while Biden fell 1 point behind him.
“Not unless they came back and said there’s no way you can win,” he said. “Me — no one’s saying it, no poll says that.”
Biden’s team argued to Democratic senators Thursday that his path to winning 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 has been trailing Trump in those three states, and other polls have shown Biden falling behind Trump in battlegrounds since the debate.
Biden spent much of the press conference defending his viability to remain the party’s nominee and remained adamant he was the best man to go against Trump.
“I believe I’m the best qualified to govern,” Biden said “And I think I’m the best qualified to win. But there are other people who could beat Trump, too. But it’s all start from scratch. And you know, we talk about money raised. We’re not doing bad.”
More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers have publicly urged him to withdraw, though Biden dismissed their concerns Thursday, saying it was “not unusual” for lawmakers to worry about the top of the ticket.