When Barack Obama sat down with Joe Biden this summer and conveyed his concerns about the strength of Donald Trump going into 2024, the warning was not the first to come from within the president's own party.
Nor would it be the last.
The message from one of the Democratic Party’s top voices came with a promise to do everything he can to help Biden stay in the White House. Obama’s concerns may carry more weight as a former president and trusted Biden confidant, but his fears about the formidability of another face-off with Trump reflect a growing sentiment among Democrats.
“Donald Trump can win, number one. … Number two, I think that the third parties can take away enough votes to make Donald Trump win. Number three, we cannot underestimate the dissatisfied mood of the public and his ability to mobilize voters,” said Celinda Lake, a 2020 Biden pollster. “I think there’s going to be a very close race. He seems impervious no matter how many indictments. You can run for president from jail.”
Democrats both inside and on the outskirts of the Biden world increasingly believe Trump will be the 2024 GOP nominee. Not only have Democrats taken note of a more organized Trump team, but a number of factors point to the growing reality that it would likely be a challenging, tight rematch for Biden.
Trump’s “support is still very much organic, so I’m very clear-eyed about it,” said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) in an interview. “I hear some Republicans who are not on the Trump train say that it’s a ticket to defeat — that it’s not a threat. The threat is that he could come back. We have to take it seriously.”
Despite the mounting legal troubles facing the former president, Democrats have noticed that Trump’s campaign, led by longtime GOP operatives Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, is more organized and disciplined than ever. Among the examples Democratic operatives and strategists point to are Trump’s visit to union-friendly East Palestine earlier this year, his attempts to reel in an endorsement from United Auto Workers and efforts to support early voting that Republicans — including Trump — once decried.
“My impression is that they are far more disciplined as a staff around him, making decisions, getting out content, moving quickly,” while also being “nimble” and purposeful in decision-making, said Faiz Shakir, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign manager.
But Shakir has doubts about whether a stronger team matters with Trump, who delights his firm base of supporters with his tendency to go off script and focus more on his personal grievances than policy issues. Shakir also said Democrats would normally be nervous about Trump’s fundraising numbers but argued it’s a wash since a large chunk of the money is going to legal bills, a figure only expected to grow with his latest indictment.
Ammar Moussa, national press secretary and rapid response director at the DNC, said Trump’s team can’t “erase the stain of the MAGA extremism” Trump has pushed on a number of fronts, including his record on the economy and his moves to pave the way for Republicans to strip away access to abortion.
“We’ll beat Donald Trump regardless of the team he has around him,” he said.
It’s also too early to know whether Trump’s various legal proceedings — as the cases move to trial — will affect his standing in the Republican Party, said Democratic strategist Mike Trujillo, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign.
“Living under all these indictments is going to be an interesting, uncharted, walking on fresh snow that no one’s ever walked on before. There’s no playbook here. You can’t go to some episode that happened in ‘96 of Dole or 2012 with Romney or any of the other folks. That Rubik’s Cube, that episode of ‘I Love Lucy’ doesn’t exist,” Trujillo said.
Democrats are thinking less about Trump’s campaign apparatus, said Lake, the Biden pollster, and more about Trump the candidate and the factors that continue to make him a formidable opponent: His ability to mobilize voters, his domination of the news cycle and his stronghold on his base and the Republican Party. While Trump continues to hold a hefty lead in the GOP field, a New York Times/Siena College Poll this week — taken before the latest indictment — had Biden and Trump tied at 43 percent each in a hypothetical 2024 rematch.
“You can often say, ‘Oh a team prepared their candidate well for the debates.’ [Trump] doesn’t prep. He’s going to go out there, and he’s going to win the debate just because he’s going to go out there and absolutely overshadow them by force of nature,” said former Clinton adviser Philippe Reines. “Trump is dominating now just by dint of who Donald Trump is to the Republican Party. Not because of any strategy and tactics that his organization is employing.”
While the DNC and Biden campaign continue to contrast the president with the field of GOP candidates, there’s also a growing feeling that 2024 will likely see the ugly rematch many in the party fear the most, mainly because it opens the possibility of another Trump presidency. The Biden campaign has for the most part sat back, hoarding cash and building its team while Republicans battle it out, but general election planning inside the campaign and among outside spending groups is already underway.
“Looking back at 2020, we do have a playbook that works against the guy. But you can’t rest on your laurels about it,” said Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge 21st Century, a top Dem super PAC. “For us, it is: We know how to beat this guy. Let’s beat him again. Let’s take him extremely seriously. Do not underestimate him for a second.”
Until Republicans indicate otherwise, Trujillo said, Democrats should assume the GOP nominee will be Trump and focus on what can help secure a Biden win: Increasing voter turnout and meeting Democratic voters where they are, key efforts at a time when voters’ moods are sour and there’s a risk that lower turnout among some key blocs could threaten Biden’s path to reelection.
“All Trump does is touch hot stoves all the time,” Trujillo said. “For Democrats, we can’t touch that hot stove with him.”
Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.
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