There is a substantial portion of Democratic voters, particularly those who are young and progressive, who do not enthusiastically support President Joe Biden's 2024 re-election campaign and prefer other options to be the Democratic Party's nominee.
A major last-ditch effort to remove and replace Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee has now been launched by a progressive group that is closely aligned with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the Washington Examiner reported.
That group opposing Biden as the nominee is the No Excuses PAC, which is led by Trent Corbin, who previously served as communications director for Ocasio-Cortez, who herself has only offered a tepid endorsement of the incumbent president's bid for a second term.
The No Excuses PAC, first launched in 2021 to encourage more Democrats to adopt progressive policy positions, has now shifted its messaging to focus on urging President Biden to step aside and allow other Democratic candidates an opportunity to seek the party's nomination.
The PAC's website now reads in bold letters, "Thank you, Joe. Now it's time to go," and makes the case for why somebody other than him should lead Democrats into the 2024 election, most likely against former President Donald Trump.
"President Biden, you’ve accomplished more in three years than most two-term presidents. But battleground state voters say they’ll vote for Trump if you’re the Democratic nominee. It might not make sense. But it doesn’t have to," the PAC said in a new 30-second ad. "The reality is that if you attempt to cling to power, your legacy will be Donald Trump’s final destruction of our democracy. If you step aside, however, you’ll be remembered as one of the greatest presidents in history. Thank you, Joe … But now it’s time to go."
The No Excuses website asked viewers of the ad to contribute as little as $3 -- and provided a convenient link to the Democrat-aligned Act Blue fundraising site to do so -- so that the group could move beyond just social media and "put this ad on TV and radio in Washington, D.C. to grab media attention and start a serious conversation among Democratic leaders in 2024."
The PAC concluded, "President Biden has accomplished incredible things in his presidency. And that will be his legacy -- if he steps aside. Otherwise, he will go down in history as the president whose selfishness allowed Trump to complete the destruction of American democracy. That’s why it’s time to say, 'Thanks Joe, but now it’s time to go.'"
The progressive No Excuses PAC is certainly not alone among Democrats in having serious doubts about President Biden's re-election campaign, as Yahoo News reported in November that a majority of Democrats, 54%, wanted to see "another candidate" step up to challenge the incumbent president for the party's nomination -- a number that included 64% of Democrats age 18-44, a key constituency for the party.
More recently, USA Today reported this week that crucial segments of the Democratic "coalition" of voting blocs that helped elect Biden in 2020 were now crumbling and eroded in comparison to the last election cycle.
Specifically, polling showed that Biden's support among black voters fell from 87% to 63%, he was trailing former President Trump among Hispanic voters by a margin of 39-34% after previously winning that bloc 65-32%, and that Trump was actually leading Biden 37-33% among voters under 35, who typically vote for Democrats by wide margins.
The polling also found that Vice President Kamala Harris was no help to Biden as her approval and favorability numbers were even worse than his, that around 20% of minority and young voters would consider voting for a third-party candidate, and that the addition of third-party candidates into the race generally drew more support away from Biden than from Trump.
As for Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, The Hill reported in September that the New York congresswoman was "walking a fine line" after finally endorsing President Biden's re-election effort in July -- much to the critical consternation of her fellow progressives -- but also in appearing to withhold any sort of support as a surrogate for the president on the campaign trail.
It was surmised that Ocasio-Cortez could help stop a progressive insurgency against Biden as the nominee if she spoke more forcefully in support of his candidacy but also that, simply by remaining quiet on the sidelines in 2024, could help foster that same uprising against the incumbent president who is viewed dimly by his party's far-left flank, of which she is an influential leader.
