Hard-left Democrats plot to unseat ‘failing’ Joe Biden

Joe Biden is vulnerable to a primary challenge amid party unrest over his age, polling and failure to push through his agenda.

US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden. The President could face a challenge from the left of his party. Picture: AFP

Joe Biden faces the prospect of a primary challenge from the left wing of the Democratic Party amid unrest over his age, poll ratings and failure to push through his legislative agenda.

The US President enters 2022 in a vulnerable position, with polling indicating the Republicans are well-placed to seize control of the House of Representatives in ­November’s mid-term elections.

Mr Biden was dealt a serious blow last month when Joe Manchin, a Democrat senator from the conservative state of West Virginia, all but doomed the flagship Build Back Better plan, the linchpin of his domestic agenda.

Adding to the uncertainty surrounding the White House is Mr Biden’s age: he will be 82 shortly after the 2024 presidential election.

Corbin Trent, co-founder of the progressive No Excuses political action committee – and former communications director for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a leading light on the American left – told Politico: “He’s deeply unpopular.

“He’s old as shit. He’s largely been ineffective.

“ And I think he’ll probably get demolished in the mid-terms.

“DC is filled with people who want to be president.”

It is considered unlikely that any prominent progressive politician would take the risk of challenging Mr Biden. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, for example, have wielded significant influence in his administration.

Instead, a challenge could come from lesser-known candidates with little to lose.

They could include the former Sanders campaign co-chairman Nina Turner, 54, or 69-year-old Marianne Williamson, a 2020 presidential hopeful who later ­endorsed Sanders. Joe Sanberg, 42, an entrepreneur in favour of raising the minimum wage to $US18 ($24.76) an hour, was another touted as a possible challenger by Politico, though a spokesman denied he would consider running.

Nina Turner.

Marianne Williamson. Picture: AFP

Any contest would have echoes of 1980 when another struggling Democrat president, Jimmy Carter, had to see off a primary challenge from Ted Kennedy. Mr Carter ­entered the presidential election later that year in a weakened state and lost to Ronald Reagan.

Jeff Weaver, Senator Sanders’ former presidential campaign manager, predicted that a progressive would emerge to take on Mr Biden.

However, he said this would not be a “repudiation” of the President but proof of the party’s shift to the left.

“Progressives are ultimately ascendant,” Mr Weaver said. “And if nothing else, a progressive running who gets a lot of support will demonstrate that the ideas that the progressive movement embraces are, in fact, popular.”

Millionaire entrepreneur Joe Sanberg has been touted as a potential challenger.

Mr Biden was not the progressive choice for president but has largely been praised by the left while in office. He recently supported making an exception to the Senate filibuster rules in order to pass voting rights legislation, a key issue for that wing of the party.

Should Mr Biden decide not to run for re-election, it is considered likely that a strong list of progressive candidates would emerge, possibly including Ms Ocasio-­Cortez, who would be 35 and therefore just old enough to qualify.

Politico reported that progressives will not stand aside if Mr Biden declines to run and throws his support behind Kamala Harris, his Vice-President. Ms Harris has endured her own struggles with low poll ratings.

One in three back violence against government

Meanwhile, more than one in three Americans believe violence against the government can at times be ­justified, a New Year’s Day poll suggests.

The figure is higher among ­Republicans, at 40 per cent, and independent voters, on 41 per cent, but only 23 per cent of Democrats feel that way, the Washington Post-University of Maryland survey shows.

The percentage of US adults who say violence is justified in some circumstances has been rising steadily: in 2015, a poll found that 23 per cent of respondents were in favour while in 2010 the figure was just 16 per cent.

A majority, 62 per cent, still ­believe that violence against the government can never be justified, but that number has dropped since the 1990s, when it was as high as 90 per cent.

It is almost a year since Donald Trump supporters, fired up by his false claims of election fraud, attacked the US Capitol building in an attempt to stop the process formalising Mr Biden’s victory.

The Times