President Joe Biden has, according to a new report, spent the last four years laying the legal groundwork to fight Donald Trump in court should the 2024 election results come down to the wire. Given the state of Joe Biden’s shrinking voting coalition, this may end up being a case of worrying about water damage while the house is still on fire.
One of the more recent examples of Biden’s base problems came from a New York Times/Siena poll that showed just brutal numbers for the president.
“The poll offers an array of warning signs for the president about weaknesses within the Democratic coalition, including among women, Black and Latino voters,” the Times’ write-up noted.
READ MORE: The Latest New York Times/Siena Poll Is Devastating for Joe Biden
So I find it more than a little odd that, with Biden’s numbers among core demographics dwindling, his team’s answer is to prepare for court battles rather than convincing those voters to come back. Enter noted political journalism outlet Rolling Stone, with a piece detailing both Biden’s efforts as well as expanding on the panic about that dastardly, election-stealing Trump.
Long before Trump began leading in battleground-state polling — and years before he was a declared 2024 candidate — the ex-president and many of his influential allies were already busy plotting ways to tilt the election in his favor. These yearslong efforts, conducted both secretly and out in the open, have already yielded tangible results for Trump and the conservative election denier movement. These wide-ranging operations have alarmed the Democratic Party elite, who aren’t just worried about Biden’s sagging poll numbers. Numerous Democratic lawmakers, operatives, Biden campaign advisers, and administration officials tell Rolling Stone that if the president does ultimately beat Trump this November, the election will be exceedingly close.
Over the past year, Team Biden has been conducting war games, crafting complex legal strategies, and devoting extensive resources to prepare for, as one former senior Biden administration official puts it, “all-hell-breaks-loose” scenarios. The preparations include planning for a contingency in which Biden’s margin of victory is so razor-thin that Trump and the GOP launch a tidal wave of legal challenges and political maneuvers to rerun his 2020 election strategy: declare victory anyways, and try to will it into existence.
“President Biden has been worried, for a while now, that Donald Trump is going to try to steal the election, if it’s very close on Election Day,” says a source familiar with Biden’s thinking. “If that ends up being the case, we are… also expecting the Republican Party to go into overdrive to help him steal it. We are continuing to build out the infrastructure to ensure that doesn’t happen — again — if President Biden wins and Trump and MAGA Republicans try to confuse [everyone] and sow chaos.”
I am not sure I’d look at all the data available to me and think “You know what we need? A legal strategy.” Especially given that, so far, every legal effort against Trump this election cycle has only made him stronger. Frank Luntz even noted that recently on CNN.
“If the New York Attorney General starts to take his homes away, starts to seize his assets, it’s all going to be on camera, pundits are going to sit there and scream about this, and you’re going to create the greatest victimhood of 2024,” Luntz told the CNN panel. “He’s going to go up in the polls just like he went up every single time they indicted him.”
If you’re preparing to fight Trump in court after the 2024 election, you will continue to make Trump a stronger force on the national stage. You will keep ensuring a huge chunk of Americans think the entire legal system has been weaponized against him. Creating that perpetual victimhood will only make sure he never leaves the political sphere until he eventually passes away.
Alas, would be scientifically irresponsible of me to discount the possibility that Trump could will himself to become immortal just to spite the Democrats.
Biden has a ton of problems just getting his own voters to the polls. My gut tells me 2024 will be a lower turnout election than we’ve seen in a while, if the polling about how middle-of-the-road voters feel about “2020, Part II” holds up. But Biden’s base is in tatters. Hispanic voters are largely shifting away. Black voters feel significantly less compelled to vote. Women aren’t as motivated against Trump as they were.
The Democrats have to be aware of this, but if their solution is lawfare, then there’s no point in believing they’re taking this cycle seriously.
