Trump fusillade has Biden backers worried
Some want former VP to answer attacks more aggressively
Some of Joe Biden’s supporters are voicing growing concern that his campaign is not prepared to weather the dual political rip currents suddenly reshaping the 2020 race — an onslaught of attacks on his family from President Donald Trump and a tightened contest for the Democratic nomination.
Several allies, including top financial backers, are weighing whether to create a super PAC to independently defend Biden and go after the president, who has repeatedly accused the former vice president of corruption and whose campaign last week launched a $10 million ad blitz aimed largely at attacking Biden.
Other supporters caution that a more aggressive approach could cut against Biden’s above-the-fray appeal and warn him against losing sight of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., whose steady march in popularity has eroded Biden’s standing and given her narrow leads over him in several recent polls in earlyvoting states.
“I do think things have changed . ... You have to recalibrate based on the fact that Trump’s attacks on you are going to be at the center of these impeachment hearings,” said Larry Rasky, a longtime ally of Biden’s who had senior roles in his two previous presidential campaigns. Rasky said he worries Biden’s campaign has been naive about the amount of resources needed to counter Trump.
The new demand that Biden simultaneously run a general election matchup with Trump and a primary campaign against several formidable Democratic challengers risks straining a campaign that started later and has organized more slowly than some of his rivals’ efforts.
Biden’s campaign for now seems to have settled on an approach similar to the one Democrats used in the 2018 midterms, trying to ignore Trump as much as possible to focus instead on issues they believe are more resonant with voters.
Biden, who has insisted his election would return the country to normalcy, has over the past several days largely sought to avoid the political spasm in which he is now a central figure. His campaign has sent out daily statements on health care and other issues, as if leaning toward predictability in a highly unpredictable time. Attempting to keep the focus on Trump, he has only sporadically talked about the attacks on him and his son Hunter.
Already the Trump onslaught has had an impact on the Democratic side of the presidential race, overshadowing efforts by Biden and others to more pointedly put Warren on defense on a host of issues.
Yet the benefit to Biden, as some of his advisers see it, is the possibility that Democrats will view his response as statesmanlike and rally behind him amid attacks they see as unfair. So far they believe the approach is providing dividends.
“Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi are the three most important people in American politics right now,” said Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Polk County Democrats in Iowa, who is neutral in the race. “It propels him to the limelight in ways that other folks don’t get. It seems everybody else is playing catch-up; they are trying to get the limelight back.”
Trump has delved into accusations against Biden. Yet the episode has also raised the uncomfortable question for Biden about whether he should have allowed his son to make money from a Ukrainian company at the same time he was overseeing the Obama administration’s efforts to crack down on corruption there. Already, several of Biden’s presidential foes have obliquely engaged on that topic.
Ed Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor and a top Biden supporter, said he thought Biden has handled the issue “just perfectly” so far, but he quickly added that it’s hard to tell whether the accusations will have a lingering impact.
“I don’t think Democrats will think there’s any truth to the attack,” Rendell said. “But some might worry that if Biden gets elected, there will be all sorts of grand juries and Republicans will look into this stuff . ... Not that Democrats believe Joe would do anything corrupt, but just that it would be charge and countercharge.”
The episode has crystallized an existing sense of anxiety among some of Biden’s top donors and longtime supporters about his campaign. Some allies have been expressing concerns for weeks that Biden doesn’t seem to be the happy warrior he had been in previous campaigns. They have urged him and the campaign to adopt a more assertive and focused message, one that puts the middle class front and center.