Now that Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden is officially in the 2020 race, he is the target of liberal rivals who seek to expose his faults while also drawing attention to their own policy priorities.
In a CNN interview Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., took some stabs at Biden’s support for trade agreements and the Iraq War.
“I think when people take a look at my record versus Vice President Biden’s record – I helped lead the fight against NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement], he voted for NAFTA,” Sanders said. “I helped lead the fight against PNTR [permanent normal trade relations] with China, he voted for it. I strongly opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he supported it. I voted against the War in Iraq, he voted for it.”
At a campaign stop in Iowa on Tuesday, Biden told reporters he does not think that his vote for NAFTA was a mistake.
[Related: Iowa: Biden gives his aging supporters a message of hope — without too much change]
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who has pledged not to court large donors for campaign contributions, slammed Biden’s acceptance of high-dollar fundraisers as he entered the race.
In a fundraising email sent to supporters last week that referred to Biden’s $6.3 million fundraising haul in the first 24 hours of his campaign, Warren asked, “How did Joe Biden raise so much money in one day? Well, it helps that he hosted a swanky private fundraiser for wealthy donors at the home of the guy who runs Comcast’s lobbying shop.”
Warren has pledged not to court large donors for campaign contributions.
“They have to do something, the other candidates, to set themselves apart,” independent pollster John Zogby told the Washington Examiner. Zogby conducted a poll of International Association of Firefighters members that led to the union endorsing Biden. “Biden has a significant lead, and they also have to knock him down a few pegs, and do it as soon as possible. With 20, 21 candidates, it’s hard to distinguish yourself in the field, and Biden’s announcement did suck up a lot of oxygen.”
The beef between Warren and Biden dates as far back as a fight over a 2005 bill that made it harder for consumers to file for bankruptcy. Biden championed the bill while Warren, not yet a senator, lobbied against it.
[Also read: Obama saw the 2016 loss of Hillary Clinton as a ‘personal insult’]
“Joe Biden was on the side of credit card companies,” Warren told reporters last week.
Sanders also responded to a Biden’s campaign speech Wednesday that downplayed China’s economic threat, saying in a tweet later that evening, “It’s wrong to pretend that China isn’t one of our major economic competitors.”
Since the China trade deal I voted against, America has lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs.
It’s wrong to pretend that China isn’t one of our major economic competitors.
When we are in the White House we will win that competition by fixing our trade policies.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 2, 2019
Other candidates have not been attacking Biden as explicitly, though Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke used the threat of Biden’s candidacy to push for donations from supporters last week.
“One of the rules in this kind of game is that when people don’t know who you are, it’s probably not best to be going after a front-runner. You’ve got to establish the fact that you’re in the game, that you’re serious, that you’re getting some people to like you, and then you can start going on the attack,” Zogby said. “Otherwise, it’s either sour grapes or desperation.”
[Related: Biden promises Sanders’ free stuff — without the taxes]
Biden has faced criticism from other progressive factions of the Democratic Party. Waleed Shahid, spokesman of progressive PAC Justice Democrats, said in an MSNBC interview last week, “Joe Biden has chosen the wrong side of history on where the Democratic Party is going.”
Justice Democrats supported freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s insurgent primary candidacy against incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in 2018.
Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright told the Washington Examiner the attacks show “a lot of candidates are banking on this idea that our party is moving farther Left.”
“[Biden] needs to be able to take a bruisin’ and keep on cruisin’,” Seawright said. “His ability to grow and evolve on issues will ultimately decide whether he passes or fails the test of the Democratic Party primary.”
