Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign could be “blown up” by suspicions over Joe’s and his son Hunter’s dealings with Ukraine, according to one of his top allies.
“This whole thing could go two ways for him,” said Ed Rendell, 75, a former Pennsylvania governor. “If Trump’s ads are significantly good, even if they’re all lies. It could hurt Joe. Voters get tired. Joe’s popular point was that he could get back to normalcy, and that gets blown up if voters think he’ll be bogged down with Republican investigations when he’s in office.”
Rendell, who was recently used by Biden, 76, to call Elizabeth Warren “a hypocrite”, gave a remarkably downbeat assessment of the former vice president’s chances, suggesting he could lose the first two Democratic contests and that he is under threat from left-wing voters coalescing around the Massachusetts senator.
“Things aren’t looking bad per se, it’s not like he’s collapsed. But I think it’s a symptom of his campaign that more and more progressives are saying more and more they don’t want [Vermont Sen. Bernie] Sanders and progressive voters will end up picking one candidate to rally behind.”
He said, “The way the primaries are set up, you got a caucus state [Iowa] which Warren will do well in. You got New Hampshire, which is her neighboring state, and you’ve been on New Hampshire television for a decade. Those two primaries are not good with Joe. He has enough money to at least go through Super Tuesday, which has big states with a significant African American population. I think he has the resources unless there’s a backlash against Trump’s charge.”
The only Democrat or Republican in modern times to lose both Iowa and New Hampshire and go on to secure his party’s nomination was Bill Clinton in 1992, a year when Iowa was conceded to “favorite son” Sen. Tom Harkin.
Before the Ukraine whistleblower revelations, which have spurred an impeachment inquiry against Trump in the House, Biden was already facing an increasingly serious challenge from Warren. Several national and early primary state polls show her ahead or tied with Biden. And that points to a scenario Bidenworld feared most: a long, drawn-out race.
Now, the Ukraine revelations mean that Biden, who has has long been sensitive about scrutiny of his family, will be forced to address his son Hunter’s lucrative business dealings in China and Ukraine, as well as his long history of drug use.
Biden skeptics contend much of the 36-year Delaware senator’s strong polling has been based largely on name recognition and perceived electability, as well as fondness for his old boss President Barack Obama. Biden’s high post-office approval has allowed him to focus on fundraising with wealthy donors, while rival Warren has been building a grassroots campaign built around overturning politics-as-usual.
While Democrats insist that there was nothing apparently illegal about Hunter Biden’s work serving on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma, Warren’s message of battling corruption may gain new resonance as primary voters grow weary of nominating another candidate mired in scandal.
So far, Warren has largely avoided directly criticizing Biden, aside from a brief exchange with the press in April, when she accused him of being “on the side of the credit card companies.” But her words recalled attacks Biden has faced for over a decade. In 2008, during his second White House run and as Obama’s vice presidential candidate, Biden was forced to address his “Senator from MBNA” moniker, a reference to the Delaware bank where Hunter held a job.
Biden has consistently argued that only he can remove Trump from office, suggesting his rivals are too far to the left. “Given half a chance, I think I could beat this guy like a drum,” he said of Trump to a group of wealthy supporters in California earlier this month.
Yet a number of Democratic staffers and consultants who have followed Biden’s political career since his first White House run in the 1988 campaign say securing the nomination, particularly as Warren consolidates the left wing of the Democratic Party, could be more difficult than defeating Trump in the general election.
“I don’t think Joe Biden was ever the odds-on favorite to win the nomination,” said Democratic strategist Steve Murphy, who once worked for a Biden Senate campaign and later Dick Gephardt’s presidential bid. “He started off pretty wide support, but it’s not very deep. If he drops 10 points, he’s back in the middle of the field. I think a lot of people have reminded him of what is really needed to run a presidential race.”
