Democrats in ‘Full-Blown Freakout’ Over Biden Reelection Bid Per Politico Report

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

A new report from Politico about Democrats’ confidence in President Joe Biden’s reelection chances employs a metric ton of hyperbolic language to paint a very bleak picture.

In the story published Tuesday, Democrats are described as being in “freakout” mode five months before Election Day, experiencing “a pervasive sense of fear,” where “anxiety has morphed into palpable trepidation”:

“You don’t want to be that guy who is on the record saying we’re doomed, or the campaign’s bad or Biden’s making mistakes. Nobody wants to be that guy,” said a Democratic operative in close touch with the White House and granted anonymity to speak freely.

But Biden’s stubbornly poor polling and the stakes of the election “are creating the freakout,” he said.

“This isn’t, ‘Oh my God, Mitt Romney might become president.’ It’s ‘Oh my God, the democracy might end.'”

The negative feelings only increased after the news that former President Donald Trump outraised Biden during the month of April by $25 million. This had one advisor to Democratic donors keeping an actual list of all the reasons why Biden could lose in November:

One adviser to major Democratic Party donors provided a running list that has been shared with funders of nearly two dozen reasons why Biden could lose, ranging from immigration and high inflation to the president’s age, the unpopularity of Vice President Kamala Harris and the presence of third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“Donors ask me on an hourly basis about what I think,” the adviser said, calling it “so much easier to show them, so while they read it, I can pour a drink.”

The adviser added, “The list of why we ‘could’ win is so small I don’t even need to keep the list on my phone.”

Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for Biden’s campaign, still remained optimistic about Biden’s chances, telling Politico that “Trump’s photo-ops and PR stunts may get under the skin of some very serious D.C. people as compelling campaigning, but they will do nothing to win over the voters that will decide this election.” He cited the hot-button issue of abortion rights as well as the campaign’s ground game.

But as the report said in the beginning, “the gap between what Democrats will say on TV or in print, and what they’ll text their friends, has only grown as worries have surged about Biden’s prospects.”

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