
CV NEWS FEED // Just days before the New Hampshire primary, multiple members of President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign expressed concerns about the increasingly likely general election rematch with former President Donald Trump.
ABC hostess Martha Raddatz on Sunday confronted high-ranking Biden campaign official Quentin Fulks regarding a recent poll showing the incumbent president struggling with black voters.
“I think what a lot of people are expressing is urgency,” Fulks said. “They sense a sense of urgency because of the threat that Republicans posed to, you know, America right now.”
“[A]nd that’s precisely why the president and the vice president are running for reelection to make sure that that doesn’t happen,” he added. Fulks serves as the principal deputy campaign manager for the Biden 2024 campaign.
Fulks claimed that “no administration has done as much for the African American community as President Biden and Vice President Harris.”
The Biden campaign “doesn’t take” black voters “for granted,” Fulks said further in the interview. “[W]e recognize that we need to earn their support in this campaign and communicate with them all the way.”
>> HISTORICALLY UNPOPULAR BIDEN TRAILS IN POLLS, APPROVAL AT 33% <<
In last month’s GenForward poll of black voters, 17% of respondents indicated that they intend to vote for Trump over Biden. That proportion is more than double the 8% of the black vote that then-incumbent President Trump won in 2020.
Indeed, if the poll’s results hold in November, Trump would be the first Republican presidential nominee to win 17% of the black vote since Gerald Ford in 1976.
The same GenForward poll found that only 63% of black voters said they will vote for Biden. (Biden got 91% of the black vote in 2020.) The remaining 20% specified that they intended to vote for “someone else.”
The expanded 2024 field includes several high-profile independent candidates, such as attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and socialist philosopher Cornel West. Both Kennedy and West have been polling well above the historic average for third-party candidates.
Raddatz also pressed Fulks with an ABC poll from earlier this month, demonstrating that 69% of respondents believed Biden did not possess the requisite “mental sharpness” to be president. Meanwhile, only 28% said he did – a proportion that has fallen by a dramatic margin of 23% in less than four years.
While Biden was running against Trump for the first time in May 2020, an ABC poll showed that a slight majority of respondents believed that he was “mental[ly] sharp” enough to become president.
“Age equals wisdom equals results and experience,” Fulks said, dismissing the new poll. “President Biden because of his age has come to the table and brought people together from both sides of the aisle to deliver results for the American people.”
Fulks is not the only member of Biden’s re-election team to acknowledge that securing a second term for the 81-year-old incumbent will not be an easy task.
Biden campaign co-chair and Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer predicted that the November election will be close in her home state.
“I think everyone should always focus on Michigan,” she stated during a Sunday CBS appearance. “It’s always going to be close in this state.”
Hostess Margaret Brennan then asked Whitmer if she believes Michigan is “still up for play,” to which the governor replied, “absolutely.”
A December CNN poll of registered voters found that Trump had a double-digit lead over Biden in the state (50% to 40%).
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-MI, “expressed concerns that Biden’s bad poll numbers could hurt her race and other down-ballot contests, according to people who have spoken with her.”
Slotkin, a Biden and Whitmer ally, is the Democratic frontrunner in the open 2024 U.S. Senate race in Michigan. The election will take place at the same time as the presidential race.
Biden carried Michigan in 2020 by a narrow margin – under three points. In 2016, Trump won the state in a major upset, coming out 11,000 votes – or 0.23% – ahead of Hillary Clinton.
The last time Michigan had voted for a Republican presidential candidate was in 1988. Until Trump’s victory, the state was considered part of the Democrats’ “blue wall.” That wall also included other reliably blue states that have since become swing states, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Later in her interview with Whitmer, Brennan cited a poll showing the current economy poses a major disadvantage for Biden in his nearly-inevitable rematch with Trump.
“I know you said you don’t totally trust polls, but by a 49-to-21 margin, voters believe former President Trump will be better for their finances than President Biden,” Brennan told Whitmer. “There’s a big deficit here on the economy. And [the economy] shows up as the number one issue for voters.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race Sunday afternoon bolstered Trump’s status as the odds-on favorite to win the Republican nomination.
“Following our second-place finish in Iowa we’ve prayed and deliberated on the way forward,” DeSantis said in a video statement posted to X (formerly Twitter):
I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don’t have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, today I am suspending my campaign. It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance.
DeSantis went on to immediately endorse the former president against his sole remaining major rival, former Ambassador Nikki Haley.
“[Trump] has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents,” DeSantis said. “The days of putting Americans last, of kowtowing to large corporations, of caving to woke ideology are over.”
Prominent social conservatives lauded DeSantis’ speech and called for unity to defeat the unpopular Biden, as well as Haley, who is widely considered to be a social “moderate.”
“Governor DeSantis just joined Team Trump!” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL, wrote on X. “Let’s end this and focus on the Democrats and the dumpster fire they’ve created in our great nation.”
Tuberville endorsed Trump days after the former president declared his reelection bid in November 2022. DeSantis did not announce his bid for another six months.
The pro-life senator is well-known for his months-long protest of the Biden Department of Defense’s pro-abortion policy.
House Freedom Caucus chair Bob Good, R-VA, offered his “complete and total” endorsement of Trump shortly following DeSantis’ withdrawal.
“President Trump was the greatest President of my lifetime, and we need him to reinstate the policies that were working so well for America,” stated Good, who was one of a half dozen members of Congress to support DeSantis’ bid.
Widely considered to be among the most conservative members of Congress, Good has a perfect 100% Liberty Score from Conservative Review.
He first came to Congress after unexpectedly defeating former Rep. Denver Riggleman, then R-VA, for the seat’s 2020 nomination. Observers attributed the pro-family Good’s upset of Riggleman to the latter officiating at a same-sex “wedding.”
“I call on all Republicans, independents, and Democrats who love America and are concerned about her current direction, to join me in supporting Donald J. Trump!” Good wrote this week.
The Daily Wire further reported:
Polling experts noted that the race permanently shifted in early 2023 when the former president was indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as a large number of Republicans rallied around the former president, giving him a significant lead over DeSantis.
