Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, senior Democrats refuse to back Joe Biden for second term

The move by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others come amid concerns about the President’s performance and ability.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Picture: AFP

Far-left US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other senior Democrats have refused to back Joe Biden’s bid to run for a second term as concerns about the President’s performance and ability spill out into the open months out from critical midterm Congressional elections.

The President’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre slapped down questions about whether the 79-year-old President might be having second thoughts about his stated intention to run for a second term in 2024 in the face of growing criticism.

“To be clear, as the President has said repeatedly, he plans to run in 2024,” she tweeted on Monday (Tuesday AEST).

Ms Ocasio-Cortez, one of the leaders of the far-left ‘squad’ group of Democrats in the Congress, with a large political following on social media, repeatedly refused to explicitly support Mr Biden, who would be 82 at the start of his second term, under questioning on Sunday.

“We will cross that bridge when we get to it. But I think, if the President has a vision, then that‘s something certainly we’re all willing to entertain and examine when the time comes,” she said, speaking on CNN.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Picture: AFP

The pushback came days after top Democrat strategist and former senior Adviser to president Barack Obama, David Axelrod, said the President was not getting credit for his achievements, including building an international alliance against Russia and passing “historic legislation”, because he “looked his age” and had lost “agility”.

“The presidency is a monstrously taxing job and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue,” he told The New York Times, which said dozens of senior Democrats had confided their doubts off the record to the newspaper.

The President’s approval rating has steadily declined since he moved into the White House in January 2021, from above 53 per cent according to Nat Silver’s average of major US polls, to below 40 per cent, as the widespread perception the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a disaster, unfulfilled promises to banish Covid-19, and most recently, soaring inflation and energy prices, took their toll.

Even before the President’s inexorable slide in the polls, Democrats were facing an uphill battle to defend their razer thin margins in Congress in November’s midterm elections, where the party not in control of the White House typically does well.

“The answer is yes, my plan is to run for re-election. That’s my expectation,” Mr Biden said in March, the last time he explicitly said he would run again in 2024.

Support for Mr Biden among Hispanic voters, traditionally strong supporters of Democrat candidates, dropped to 26 per cent, halve the level of last year, according to a respected Quinnipiac University poll conducted last month.

US President Joe Biden’s approval ratings have been declining. Picture: AFP

Mr Biden is either as or more unpopular than former President Donald Trump – who had been widely regarded as the most unpopular president since the Second World War – at the same stage in their presidencies.

Concerns about Mr Biden’s fitness for a second term have emerged as the Congressional January 6 Committee launches a series of public hearings into Donald Trump’s role in the 2021 Capitol Hill riots of the same date, which could dent the former president’s own, still vaguely stated, plans to run again.

Sceptics of Mr Biden point to Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, California governor Gavin Newsom, and even former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, 74, for instance, as potential replacements for then one spot on the Democrat 2024 electoral ticket.

Barack Obama was not seriously challenged by any Democrat for his party’s nomination in the lead up to the 2012 election, which he won easily.

Former Democrat president Jimmy Carter was challenged unsuccessfully for the Democrat nomination for president in 1980 by former and late senator Ted Kennedy, and later lost the election to Ronald Reagan, who became the older US president until Mr Biden’s victory in 2020.

Were Mr Biden to step down, Vice President Kamala Harris, 57, would succeed him, becoming the first female and person of colour to be US president.