The paucity of Democratic establishment figures mobilizing for Joe Biden underlines widespread party doubts that the former vice president will survive the primary.
Biden has endorsements from five senators, eight House members, two governors, and other major party figures. That’s more prominent establishment support than any of his competitors in the Democratic field, but underwhelming for a fixture of the party establishment going on half a century.
Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972, and some presidential historians and Democratic insiders believe a figure with his deep relationships in the party over decades in Congress, and then eight years as President Barack Obama’s No. 2 overseeing White House negotiations with Capitol Hill, might have secured more institutional backing out of the gate.
“Biden has come out with a lot of high-profile party endorsements, but his lead doesn’t look like the leads that most nominees have had in the past,” said Hans Noel, a political scientist at Georgetown University who has studied the impact of endorsements on presidential primaries and co-authored the book, The Party Decides. “It’s not enough to have the most endorsements. You need the lion’s share. Biden doesn’t have that yet.”
The center of gravity in the Democratic Party has shifted Left since Obama departed office two years ago. Some of Biden’s biggest competitors are offering ambitious plans to socialize medicine, subsidize higher education, and levy punitive taxes on the wealthy. Biden, an old-school labor Democrat, is plenty liberal; he helped shepherd Obamacare into law. But he tends to oppose populist proposals that smack of overt socialism.
In the FiveThirtyEight endorsement tracker, Biden was scored the leader in backing from heavyweight establishment Democrats and influential activists. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey ranked a distant second, with Sen. Kamala Harris of California close behind him in third. Yet Biden lacks endorsements from major Obama administration figures.
Nor does the former vice president have an endorsement from Obama himself, though Biden claims he asked Obama not to offer his blessing. That lack of support could be a product of uncertainty about his prospects, as some Democrats ponder whether the 76-year-old, veteran politician from Delaware is formidable enough to hold off contenders who are either significantly younger or hold greater appeal to the New Left.
“When it comes to snagging endorsements from senators, the fact that he only has five so far is more than a little odd,” a Democratic insider added, requesting anonymity in order to speak candidly. “I think it’s because they are very skeptical that he is the right person for this moment in history.”
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Winning the endorsement chase, referred to often as the “invisible primary,” does not always equal winning the nomination. Indeed, in a political era dominated by anti-establishment populism, endorsements might matter less than in previous campaigns.
But history suggests that endorsements from the party elite tend to reveal not only their confidence in a candidate’s ability to go the distance, but his or her ability to compete for the nomination down the stretch, if not capture it outright. In 12 of 16 campaigns going back to 1972, the leader in endorsements prior to the Iowa caucuses either won the nomination or finished the runner up, according to an examination of Democratic and Republican primaries.
Nevertheless, Walter Mondale, another former vice president who sought the White House four years after he departed the West Wing, did not receive his first endorsement from a member of Congress until roughly one month after he announced for president. It was not until mid May of 1983, about three months after he launched his campaign, that Mondale, a former Minnesota senator, welcomed his 20th endorsement from a prominent member of the Democratic establishment.
A Biden adviser from a battleground state told the Washington Examiner that a trove of big endorsements is coming.
This source said the Biden campaign’s strategy is to unveil endorsements on a rolling schedule, for maximum political benefit. For instance, Biden made his first swing through South Carolina, a key early primary battleground, this past weekend, at the conclusion of which his campaign announced 23 new grassroots endorsements in the state.
When determining the impact of endorsements, quality matters.
For instance, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., might not sway many votes for Biden through his endorsement, delivered last month on Day One of the campaign. But Casey knows his state, and his assistance turning out the vote in critical micro-battlegrounds of Pennsylvania could be invaluable to Biden in the primary.
“I’ll be on the ground a lot,” Casey said. He added: “Politics is a lot different today, where I’m arguing now against the impact of my own endorsement. Voters when they’re making a voting decision usually rest their decision on a series of factors. Endorsements are probably pretty far down the list.”
The Biden campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
