News that President Joe Biden stored classified documents in his Delaware home could become his Achilles heel as he gears up for a difficult 2024 reelection run.
Biden’s fortunes rose in the 2022 midterm elections after Democrats outperformed expectations despite low approval ratings for the president and economic headwinds for his party. However, recent revelations that pages of classified documents were found at his private residence and a think tank linked to him could sink Biden’s shot at a second term.
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If the president does bow out, there is a slate of diverse Democratic hopefuls ready to take his place, with familiar names such as Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, as well as relative newcomers such as Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) and Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) who may be possible contenders for the job.
Harris, a sitting vice president, is the most logical choice, but she has been panned by her critics as disingenuous and failing to deliver on tasks assigned. The former California prosecutor broke the glass ceiling in 2020 to become the first female, first black, and first Asian American vice president, but she has failed to gain traction.
She has suffered stubbornly low approval ratings and has been the subject of damaging news stories, including a 2021 mass exodus of staff.
“Despite her obvious intelligence, Harris just isn’t very good, I’m sorry to say, either as a candidate or communicator,” Robert Singh, a politics professor at Birkbeck, University of London, said to Newsweek. “All politicians, like every other human, have their verbal gaffes and screw-ups, and Harris is no exception. There are multiple examples on the internet of her sometimes-tortured syntax being parodied. But that isn’t even her primary problem. Despite the glitches, it just seems like about every word out of her mouth is calculated and contrived, the product of excessive caution. I can’t question her sincerity, but she just doesn’t come off as particularly genuine or authentic in most of her public appearances. Pretty much everything has the smell of a carefully rehearsed performance — even the occasional outrage seems faux.”
Another possible contender in 2024 is Warren, a former law professor who has made fighting corruption a key tenant of her political career.
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Even though she has said she will run for reelection in 2024, strategists are not counting Warren out. She has scored points for going after Wall Street grifters and has shown she isn’t afraid of high-profile power players like Elon Musk.
In December, she wrote to Tesla Chairwoman Robyn Denholm, claiming Musk, the electric car company’s CEO, may have violated his legal duties to the firm after buying Twitter. She also cited a CNBC report that Musk had used Tesla employees to aid in his takeover of the social media platform, warning the reshuffling of employees may have violated state and federal labor laws.
Warren ran for president in 2020 but flamed out after a list of progressive policy proposals failed to attract a broad coalition in a Democratic Party that had focused much of its attention on defeating former President Donald Trump at all costs.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is also generating buzz among Democrats despite denials he is interested in a White House run. He told Politico in November he has no plans to run in 2024 for president, even if Biden takes himself out of contention.
“I’ve told everyone in the White House, from the chief of staff to the first lady,” California’s governor told the news outlet on election night.
Newsom said he has faith Biden will win in 2024, especially if there is a 2020 rematch.
“He not only beat Trump once, I think he can beat him again,” he said. “I hope he runs. I’ll enthusiastically support him.”
Another possible contender is Buttigieg, a 40-year-old who held his own in 2020, said Frank Bruni, a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University.
“He represents a stark generational change,” Bruni wrote in the New York Times. “And most of the Democratic insiders I spoke with predicted that he’d be a formidable candidate, based on his breakout success in 2020 — he essentially came in third, behind Biden and Sanders, in the Democratic primaries — and his experience as transportation secretary. A gay man with a husband and two children, he, like Harris, represents progress toward equality.”
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A January poll from Monmouth University found that 40% of New Jersey residents believe Murphy is also gearing up for a presidential run, using his office as a political launching pad. Garden State voters were divided on whether their governor was more concerned with his own political aspirations (45%) or if he was doing what was best for the state (44%).
Colorado’s Polis has also been floated as a possible 2024 presidential contender who can win in Southern states. Polis has rejected calls for mask mandates and has a libertarian streak, which makes him attractive to Democratic voters who support individual rights and freedoms as opposed to government mandates.
