- Former President Barack Obama has visited the White House twice in the past year and warned President Joe Biden that he could lose reelection
- Time Magazine reported that Obama made the dire prediction to Biden at a meeting in December, at Biden’s behest
- Former President Donald Trump appears to be in a stronger position to win than in the two previous campaign cycles
Former President Barack Obama has now twice warned President Joe Biden that his reelection prospects are in trouble — as former President Donald Trump finds himself in a stronger position to win the White House than in the two previous cycles.
Time Magazine reported this on Thursday that Obama visited Biden in June and issued the warning — and did so again in December, when he saw no improvement in the Biden campaign’s operations.
He was invited to the White House at Biden’s invitation, after the two men had served together as president and vice president for eight years.
“He expressed concern that the reelection campaign was behind schedule in building out field operations and was hampered by Biden’s insistence on relying on an insular group of advisers clustered in the West Wing,” Time wrote, citing a Democratic insider.
While both White House and campaign officials are publicly optimistic, Time reported that behind closed doors they are fearful.
Former President Barack Obama has visited the White House twice in the past year, warning President Joe Biden in both cases that his reelection prospects are in trouble
Then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama (left) and his running mate, now President Joe Biden (right), campaigned in Ohio in 2008
Quentin Fulks, Biden’s top deputy campaign manager, said the Democrat winning would simply have to bring 2020 voters back into the ranks.
“Our greatest strength is that 80 million people sent him to the White House before,” Fulks told Time. “Our challenge is to win over people who have already voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”
But that could be difficult under the current circumstances.
Despite rosy economic data and the COVID-19 pandemic largely in the rearview mirror, voters DailyMail.com interviewed in the early primaries often felt the economy was better under Trump.
Many are willing to give him another chance, despite his 88 criminal charges, his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol and general threats to become a “dictator” on day number 1.
Members of Biden’s youth coalition have soured on the 81-year-old president — in part over his siding with Israel after the Oct. 7 terror attack by Hamas — because they believe Palestinian civilians living in Gaza should not pay the price.
At nearly every campaign stop the president has made in recent weeks, he has been hounded by pro-Palestinian protesters, including those who surrounded Biden’s Dallas hotel and banged cowbells in the early morning hours.
President Joe Biden waves to reporters as he leaves for Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday. He spent most of the week in Latino-heavy states — Nevada, Arizona and Texas — as he fought for reelection against former President Donald Trump
Gen Z voters “don’t understand why they should be forced to cast their vote for a candidate who has done so many things that go against their values,” Aidan Kohn-Murphy, who organized the 2020 #TikTokforBiden campaign, told me , to Time.
Trump has also worked hard to broaden his appeal to Latino and black voters — and polls show he has done so with some success.
Biden has recently stepped up his rhetoric to try to pull back some Latino support.
On Monday, he told Univision Radio with Raúl Molinar that Trump “despises” Latinos, pointing to the ex-president’s record on child separations, comments about migrants and a plan for a mass deportation if he regains the White House .
The president also traveled to the Latino-heavy swing states of Nevada and Arizona and held fundraisers in Texas, which tends to go heavily red.
He also made a trip to Michigan to shore up support among black and union voters, but was then criticized for going to a white local official’s home instead of a black church.
Michigan is also dangerous for Biden because of his position on the war in Gaza, as the state has a large population of Muslim and Arab voters.
“It comes down to voters of color, and those voters are angry,” a former Biden campaign and White House official told Time. “I think there’s a good chance he’ll lose.”
