Three months after announcing his White House bid, Joe Biden remains atop early polling. But Biden's rivals remain confident that his fumbles will eventually catch up to him, undermining his electability argument.
Former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden meets with supporters before speaking at the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding at the Surf Ballroom, Friday, Aug. 9, 2019, in Clear Lake, Iowa.
The back-to-back episodes magnified the promise and the peril of Biden’s candidacy. Three months after announcing his White House bid, he remains atop early polling for Democratic candidates, buoyed by a long history with voters and a belief among many of them that his decades of experience best position him to defeat Trump. Those attributes appear to have helped the former vice president withstand weeks of attacks on his lengthy record in politics.
Biden’s team has been heartened by the consistency of his early polling numbers, despite the push from fellow candidates to cast the 76-year-old as out of step with the Democratic Party on women’s health issues and race. Nearly every survey, both nationally and in the early primary states, shows him leading the crowded primary field, with Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris following behind but so far unable to find a way to surpass him.
What is clear is that some of Biden’s rivals see an imperative to begin taking him on aggressively. Sanders has walloped Biden repeatedly over health care, comparing the former vice president’s opposition to a “Medicare for All” system to Trump. Harris, as well as New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, has hammered Biden over comments he made about working with segregationists during his early years in the Senate.
″ done a better job since then trying to hug up to Obama as much as possible,” said Jim Hodges, the former Democratic governor of South Carolina, who is yet to endorse a candidate. “That’s his strength here.” The attacks from Harris and others have also prompted Biden advisers to encourage the former vice president to step up his campaign activities, including more question-and-answer sessions with voters and reporters, an approach that has been on display during his four-day Iowa swing. But that comes with risk for a freewheeling politician with a history of verbal fumbles.
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