A longtime adviser to former President Bill Clinton has spelled out what he believes could cost President Joe Biden victory in the 2024 election.
Mark Penn suggested in an essay for The New York Times — titled “Biden Is Doing It All Wrong” — that the president should stop pandering to his “political base on the left” and “chart a different course” if he wants to beat presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in November.
“By pitching too much to the base, he is leaving behind the centrist swing voters who shift between parties from election to election and, I believe, will be the key factor deciding the 2024 race,” Penn wrote of Biden.
“If Mr. Biden wants to serve another four years, he has to stop being dragged to the left and chart a different course closer to the center that appeals to those voters who favor bipartisan compromises to our core issues, fiscal discipline and a strong America,” he argued.
Biden is currently polling slightly behind Trump.
The president is “not reaching out to moderate voters with policy ideas or a strong campaign message,” and although “the 2024 election is a rematch” between Biden and his quadruply indicted predecessor, Biden’s victory in battleground states is anything but guaranteed, Penn said.
Biden could “still move more to the center, hoover up swing voters who desperately want to reject Mr. Trump, strengthen his image as a leader by destroying Hamas, and rally the base at the end,” he continued. “But that means first pushing back against the base rather than pandering to it, and remembering that when it comes to the math of elections, swing is king.”
