David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, has warned that Joe Biden has not done enough to relieve voters’ concern about his age since last month’s disastrous debate.
Axelrod spoke to the Guardian in Milwaukee as US representative Adam Schiff became the highest-profile Democrat to call for the president to drop his re-election bid.
“I’ve felt for a long time, and I’ve said for a long time, it’s not in any way a commentary on his record, which I think will be honoured more by history than it is by voters right now,” Axelrod said.
“But it’s a very hard case to make that anyone should be elected president in the United States at the age of 82, not for political reasons but for actuarial reasons. This is the hardest job on the planet. It takes a lot out of you. It’s a legitimate concern that people have and that concern has been intensified by what happened at the debate. I don’t think anything that’s happened has relieved that concern.”
Biden has embarked on a blitz of speeches, rallies and TV interviews – along with a rare press conference – since his hapless debate performance in Atlanta. But nearly two in three Democrats say he should step aside and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released on Wednesday.
Yet the party is pushing ahead with plans to hold a virtual vote to formally make Biden its nominee in the first week of August before its convention opens in person two weeks later.
Axelrod, chief strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns, was speaking after an event organised by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and the Cook Political Report on the sidelines of the Republican national convention.
One of the panelists at the event, the Republican pollster and strategist Tony Fabrizio, told the audience that Democrats had formed a “perfect circular firing squad”, giving his party the “run of the field”.
Asked whether he thought Biden could survive as the nominee, Axelrod said: “That’s entirely in his hands and that’s been the case. This whole race has been in his hands, his decision to run and now his decision to stay.
“There’s a lot to think about because I know he’s laid out the stakes in this election. The question he has to answer is, what are the odds of his winning? Would the odds be better with another candidate? I’m sure there’s a lot of discussion about that.”
Axelrod denied that Saturday’s attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania had blunted the moment of Democrats pushing for a change at the top of the ticket.
“I know that’s been a conventional thought, but I’m not sure,” he said. “Honestly there is a dynamic that’s described this race, fair or unfair, from the beginning – and the Trump campaign has been very effective at promoting – which is the world’s out of control, Biden is not a man, he’s weak, Trump is strong, vote for Trump. That’s their whole campaign.
“The events of the last few weeks have hardened that and underscored that contrast to the disadvantage of the president. The only thing that may dampen the discussion is the president’s own refusal to consider it, but I don’t think anyone’s concerns have been diminished by anything that’s happened.”
