Several top Democrats have issued stark warnings to President Joe Biden’s camp, urging them to spend more time going directly after former President Donald Trump and less time – if any – pointing to the president’s policy record.
The reason is simple: Talking about Biden’s policy achievements is not resonating with voters.
“He wants the credit, but it’s not working,” one top Democrat, who recently shared these concerns with the campaign, said of Biden. “He needs to stop.”
Speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations with the campaign, four sources close to the White House said they’ve urged the Biden camp to go on offense on the economy, using the time on the debate stage to challenge Trump’s cozy relationship with corporate America and the inflationary nature of his proposed policies. Biden and Trump square off in the first presidential debate at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday live on CNN.
The behind-the-scenes warnings echo concerns raised by Biden’s longtime aide, Ron Klain, Biden’s first chief of staff who is also prepping the president for Thursday’s debate in lasagna-fueled sessions at Camp David. Earlier this year, Klain reportedly remarked to a private crowd that Biden was spending too much time praising bridges that were being built instead of connecting with voters. The White House at the time denied that Klain’s views were a departure from their strategy.
“Klain gets it,” one of the sources said of the former chief of staff, who is taking vacation from his job as Airbnb’s chief legal officer to return to a role as debate coach.
That’s a departure for Biden, a lifelong politician who has grown accustomed to seeking credit when he feels credit is due, especially as the list of accomplishments has grown longer. His frustration when he feels that credit is withheld can be apparent.
During a May interview in Racine, Wisconsin – where Biden had just announced a multi-billion-dollar investment at a site where a similar pledge under Trump had not materialized – Biden visibly bristled when asked why voters still preferred his predecessor’s economic policies, and whether he could turn that sentiment around.
“We’ve already turned it around … the polling data has been wrong all along,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett, challenging the suggestion that economic output had been lower than expected and pointing to job creation as proof the US has “the best economy in the world.”
This election, the sources who spoke to CNN argued, is different than any other reelection race Biden has run. While the US economy has defied predictions of a recession, instead producing blockbuster job growth and output, that strength has driven up prices for consumers and businesses. To stanch that, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates, making borrowing to buy a car or house much more expensive, too.
As a result, the economy has become both the biggest priority for voters and their biggest frustration with the incumbent president. An ABC News/Ipsos poll in May found more than 80% of respondents said the economy and inflation were important in determining their vote - and on both issues, Trump notched a 14-point lead over Biden.
In a CNN poll out in late April, Biden’s approval ratings for the economy (34%) and inflation (29%) remained starkly negative, as voters said economic concerns were more important to them when choosing a candidate than they were in each of the past two presidential contests.
In early June, the Biden reelection campaign rolled out a new ad in battleground states in both English and Spanish, highlighting Biden’s working-class roots and his familiarity with the working-class struggle. And in recent months, he has backed away from boasting about “Bidenomics” and begun to embrace messaging that there is more work to do, acknowledging that his policies haven’t fully solved the economic woes of the post-pandemic era.
And on Tuesday, Biden’s reelection campaign seized on the final countdown to Thursday night’s highly anticipated CNN presidential debate by arguing that a second Trump presidency would do nothing to help the middle class.
“Donald Trump loves to attack Joe Biden because he’s focused on revenge and he has no plan to help the middle class,” the narrator says in a newly released ad that is part of what the Biden campaign says is a $50 million paid media campaign targeting battleground voters in June.
The ad goes on to say that Biden worked to cap the cost of insulin, lower health care costs and “made big corporations pay their fair share” – a list that the Biden White House and campaign has frequently touted in recent months as having helped lower- and middle-class Americans.
Biden, too, has targeted shrinkflation - the moniker for paying the same price for a good that’s gotten smaller - joking to an audience of hospitality leaders in February that the size of Snickers had gone down 10%, but the price is still the same.
But his natural proclivity has been to try to convince people they should feel better about the economy, by using the data that supports that view.
“Imagine spending 50 years of your life in politics, and now becoming the guy. You want people to know you’re doing a really good job,” one major donor told CNN. “I think Biden can’t help but talk about what a good job he’s done.”
CNN’s MJ Lee contributed to this report.