Biden’s camp would prefer a rematch with Trump

WASHINGTON — To be clear, no one in President Joe Biden’s White House would ever support Donald Trump.

They consider it an existential threat to the nation.

But as they watched Trump open the race for the Republican presidential nomination with a victory in Iowa, they also saw something else: a path to a second term.

Biden’s best chance of winning reelection in the fall, in his view, is a rematch against Trump.

The former president is so toxic, so polarizing, that his presence in the November election, as Biden’s advisers see it, would be the most powerful incentive possible to attract voters. disgruntled democrats and the independents return to the president’s camp questioned by the polls.

And so some Democrats felt a little torn this week as the Republican race got underway.

None of them would cry if Trump were toppled by someone like former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who will have a chance to pull it off next week in New Hampshire.

Whatever Haley’s flaws — and Democrats see many of them — they don’t believe she poses the same danger to democracy as Trump.

But if he were to win the Republican nomination, he could be a greater danger for Biden.

The paradox is reminiscent of 2016, when many Democrats were unhappy when Trump won the Republican nomination, on the theory that the country would never elect a reality TV star who specialized in racist appeals and political insults.

Burned once, they’re not so sure this time, but Democrats are betting on the hope that the country won’t again elect a defeated president who inspired a violent mob to help him keep power and who has been accused of more crimes than Al Capone.

“I wasn’t one of those Democrats who thought Trump would be easier to defeat in 2016,” said Jennifer Palmieri, Hillary Clinton’s communications director in the election she lost to Trump.

“Some Democrats support Trump. I think it’s better for the country” if he “is defeated in the Republican Party and doesn’t continue to gain strength.”

If Trump loses, he added, he believes Biden could defeat Haley or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But it might not be that easy. Haley would be vulnerable to Democratic attacks for allowing Trump to become her ambassador to the United Nations, and also as a Republican presidential candidate who has largely refused to attack the former president and would not rule out voting for him if she wins the nomination .

However, he may not be so radioactive among undecided voters. And unlike Trump, who is 77, Haley, 51, would have an easier time taking on Biden, 81, generationally, who even most Democratic voters believe is too old for another term, polls show .

A CBS News poll released Sunday indicated that Haley was a stronger potential rival to Biden than Trump at this stage of the race.

Haley had an 8-point lead over the incumbent president in a hypothetical matchup, 53% to 45%, while DeSantis had a 3-point lead over Biden and Trump had a 2-point lead.

At least to the public, Democrats are sticking to the “we’ll beat anyone, everyone is tainted by Trump” line, and the Democratic National Committee has begun laying the groundwork by regularly attacking her and other Republican alternatives to Trump since the election. middle term.

“We will be prepared for Donald Trump or any MAGA extremist that comes out of this process,” Biden campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said Tuesday.

Privately, however, some Democrats agree that Haley would be harder to defeat, but express far less fear of her victory than Trump, who has talked about being a 24-hour dictator and using his office to exact retaliation. against his enemies.

Scenario

“Most Democrats I know are downright terrified by the prospect of another Trump presidency and that’s why you’ve seen President Biden and his team repeatedly emphasize how dangerous a second Trump term would be,” said Lis Smith, senior adviser senior. during the 2020 Democratic primary campaign.

“Haley may be better in the polls now, but her numbers would fall to earth as voters find out more about her positions and her broad support for the GOP’s most unpopular policies.”

Democrats have tried on other occasions to figure out which Republican candidates might be easiest to defeat in the fall, an exercise that pits pragmatism against principle.

In 2022, some Democrats promoted Trump’s far-right allies in GOP primaries on the assumption that they would be easier to defeat in the general election, even as they criticized those very candidates as dangerous to democracy.

Democrats will not repeat this type of intervention at the presidential level this year.

“If anyone is rooting for Trump, they are crazy,” said Faiz Shakir, a senior adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic socialist from Vermont who ran for president in 2016 and 2020.

“Be careful what you wish for. It certainly sparks enthusiasm among the electorate, making concerns about Biden’s turnout critical.”

Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist who has become one of Trump’s fiercest opponents in his party, said Democrats should under no illusions that they won’t face him again.

“Democratic strategists and journalists can play parlor games all they want about the Republican process, but the only significant question for Democrats is how to campaign against the dangerous candidate their opponents are preparing to nominate,” he said.

Unlike 2016, Democrats can hardly say they didn’t see Trump coming.

“Team Clinton missed the moment to realize that a left- or right-wing populist movement composed primarily of vague facts, grievances and white nationalism would simply not be fair at the ballot box,” said Donna Brazile, who ran the Democratic National Committee which year.

“But this is different,” he added.

culture war

The movement has become “a major culture war with only two sides:

You are either for or against Trump. “There is no middle ground.”

Biden acted as if he hoped to face Trump again and made clear that he was motivated by a singular desire to beat his 2020 opponent again.

He recently told reporters that he might not have run for a second term if Trump hadn’t tried to come back.

But Biden also attacked Haley, as he did last week during a speech in her home state of South Carolina, when he mocked her for initially refusing to say slavery was the cause of the Civil War when told was asked at one of his campaign rallies.

Mo Elleithee, a former Democratic strategist and now executive director of the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service, said it would be folly to try to predict which Republican would be best for Democrats.

“The polarization of our politics means we will be close no matter what,” he said.

“Stop trying to guess who you want to campaign against and start focusing on the person you’re campaigning for. The stakes will be high, no matter what.”

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