Support could lure Biden from sidelines
A Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll showing nearly half of likely New Hampshire Democrats want Joe Biden to throw his hat in the ring could nudge the vice president off the sidelines and into the race, according to political observers.
But pundits believe he will have a hard time wooing voters away from surging Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“I think that if the vice president announced that he was running for president tomorrow, that he would soon find himself at least comfortably in second place in polls in New Hampshire,” said Kevin Franck, former communications director for the Massachusetts Democratic Party.
“But I’m not so sure that the people who are rallying to support Bernie Sanders would be easy to peel off,” Franck said. “I think he is a very different kind of candidate than Secretary Clinton or Vice President Biden and I can’t imagine that voters who are voicing their support for Bernie Sanders would be quick to leave his side in order to get behind somebody else that is more of an establishment candidate.”
The poll found that Sanders leads Clinton, 44 percent to her 37 percent, among likely Democratic primary voters — and it also shows some appetite among New Hampshire Democrats for Biden to jump into the field.
Forty-six percent of likely primary voters say Biden should launch a White House campaign, while 42 percent say he should stay out. Biden’s favorability numbers have also jumped by 14 points since March.
“I think that he decided a long time ago that he wanted to run for president this year. The complicating factor is that his son Beau died ... and this isn’t just about a political calculation,” Biden supporter and former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Richard Harpootlian said.
“This is about an emotional decision he has to make about whether he wants to go through this process at this very difficult time in his life and whether he wants to put his family through it,” Harpootlian said.
Harpootlian was quick to point out that, “If the decision was being made purely on the politics of it, I don’t think there’s any question that he’d be in the race.”
Franck said Biden’s “bluecollar world view” might be enough to shake up the race and if he moved into first, he’d pick up the support of voters looking to back a winner.
“Joe Biden would bring something new to the race and he would offer something exciting to Democrats who aren’t already excited by the field of Democrats,” Franck said. “There may be a chunk of supporters who like the appeal of supporting the front-runner and likely nominee, and those people might very well consider Biden if he enters the race and suddenly rockets ahead in the polls.”