{"id":33968,"date":"2024-10-27T07:16:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-27T12:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=33968"},"modified":"2024-10-31T21:07:04","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T02:07:04","slug":"harris-stiff-arms-biden-in-final-stretch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=33968","title":{"rendered":"Harris stiff-arms Biden in final stretch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">President Biden&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/10\/13\/kamala-harris-biden-campaign-tension\"><u>wants to campaign<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;for&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/politics-policy\/kamala-harris-us-election-2024\"><u>Vice President Harris<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;in the last days before the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Harris&#8217; campaign keeps responding: We&#8217;ll get back to you, three people familiar with the dynamic told Axios.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Why it matters:&nbsp;<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/10\/26\/harris-biden-grudge-revenge-election\"><u>Harris&#8217; team<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;believes Biden is a political liability<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/10\/16\/harris-strategy-trump-threat\"><u>a crucial time<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;in the campaign \u2014 but is reluctant to directly say they don&#8217;t want him to campaign for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">It&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/10\/13\/kamala-harris-biden-campaign-tension\"><u>the latest example<\/u><\/a>\u00a0of Democrats, and even some of Biden&#8217;s staff, tiptoeing around the 81-year-old president&#8217;s ego and feelings.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">One person familiar with the situation compared it to a slow-moving break-up: Harris&#8217; team and allies respect Biden&#8217;s service, but are wary of further tying Harris to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/329384\/presidential-approval-ratings-joe-biden.aspx\"><u>unpopular<\/u><\/a>\u00a0president on the campaign trail.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Biden&#8217;s approval rating is 39%, according to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/projects.fivethirtyeight.com\/biden-approval-rating\/\"><u>FiveThirtyEight<\/u><\/a>&#8216;s average.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;He&#8217;s a reminder of the last four years, not the new way forward,&#8221; said another person familiar with the situation, in a nod to Harris&#8217;\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kamalaharris.com\/a-new-way-forward\/\"><u>campaign slogan<\/u><\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Driving the news:&nbsp;<\/strong>Biden&#8217;s team has held days open for campaigning, only for Harris&#8217; team to let those days pass, two people familiar with the matter told Axios. (A White House official disputed this.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">There are currently\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2024-election\/kamala-harris-no-current-plans-campaign-biden-election-day-rcna176254\"><u>no scheduled events<\/u><\/a>\u00a0for Harris and Biden to campaign together before Election Day, a week from Tuesday.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Zoom in:&nbsp;<\/strong>Many on Biden&#8217;s team \u2014 including some still on the campaign that Harris inherited from the president \u2014 believe Biden could help Harris in the final days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">They also believe Harris&#8217; team is underestimating Biden&#8217;s appeal among white, working-class communities in the Rust Belt \u2014 including in the critical state of Pennsylvania, where Biden has spent extensive time during his life and career.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">In 2020, Biden outperformed Hillary Clinton&#8217;s 2016 numbers with some of those voters \u2014 helping him to defeat Donald Trump.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Biden&#8217;s team&nbsp;<\/strong>\u2014 responding to the president&#8217;s wishes \u2014 recently has become more assertive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Biden&#8217;s announcement this past week that he would campaign solo in Pittsburgh this weekend caught many on Harris&#8217; team off-guard, two people familiar with the matter told Axios.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>The Harris campaign&#8217;s&nbsp;<\/strong>&#8220;Day Ahead&#8221; email for Saturday detailed its planned events with surrogates including actress Kerry Washington, Saginaw (Mich.) Mayor Brenda Moore, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Biden&#8217;s stops in Pittsburgh weren&#8217;t mentioned.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Earlier this month, Biden made an unannounced first appearance in the White House briefing room to take questions from reporters \u2014 accidentally stepping on media coverage of a Harris event in Michigan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>As the June debate&nbsp;<\/strong>against Trump<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>that led to his withdrawal from the presidential race showed, Biden at 81 is now an<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>uneven communicator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Some Harris aides were frustrated this week when Biden told supporters in New Hampshire that &#8220;we gotta lock [Trump] up.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Biden quickly clarified he meant lock up Trump &#8220;politically.&#8221; But Trump and other Republicans jumped on the president&#8217;s remark to claim Biden&#8217;s administration had prosecuted Trump unfairly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>What&#8217;s next:&nbsp;<\/strong>Biden&#8217;s team has been in talks about him making campaign stops for Democratic Senate candidates in Maryland and Delaware, the president&#8217;s home state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">That could scratch his itch to get on the campaign trail \u2014 and satisfy the Harris team&#8217;s goal of having Biden keep a relatively low profile.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The White House views Biden&#8217;s trips as\u00a0in addition to\u00a0any campaigning he does for the Harris-Walz ticket, rather than\u00a0instead of\u00a0it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>What they&#8217;re saying:&nbsp;<\/strong>The Harris campaign and the vice president&#8217;s office did not comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A White House official said the Harris campaign arranged Biden&#8217;s Pittsburgh trip and wasn&#8217;t caught off guard by it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;There is always speculation in political circles, but this is not accurate,&#8221; White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;We are in close touch with the campaign to determine when, where and how the president can be helpful.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/10\/27\/harris-biden-distance-campaign\">axios<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Biden&nbsp;wants to campaign&nbsp;for&nbsp;Vice President Harris&nbsp;in the last days before the election. Why it matters:&nbsp;Harris&#8217; team&nbsp;believes Biden is a political liability&nbsp;at&nbsp;a crucial time&nbsp;in the campaign \u2014 but is reluctant to directly say they don&#8217;t want him to campaign for her. Driving the news:&nbsp;Biden&#8217;s team has held days open for campaigning, only for Harris&#8217; team to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1169,1637,1918,2302,4454],"class_list":["post-33968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-biden","tag-campaign","tag-debate","tag-harris","tag-pressure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33971,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33968\/revisions\/33971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}