March 26, 2024 02:45 PM UTC

Republicans Quail As Post-SOTU Joe Biden Throws Blows

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Washington Post’s Toluse Olorunnipa reports today on the sustained new vigor seen from President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign in the weeks since Biden’s fiery and on-point State of the Union address upended the manufactured presumptions about Biden’s fitness for office. After giving the speech of his life, Biden on tour is making the case that the President Americans saw in the SOTU and overwhelmingly liked is the same guy Republicans have been trashing for the past three years:

Before the State of the Union, a growing number of Democrats were voicing anxiety over Biden’s age (he is 81 and Trump is 77), the ubiquitous protests over his Gaza policy and polls that showed him trailing Trump in key states. Now, he is using a stepped-up campaign schedule to build a substantial fundraising advantage as Trump struggles with his personal and political finances.

Aides have also amped up their rhetoric, while adding an edge to it — referring to Trump as “Broke Don” or “Low-energy Don.” Beyond the finances, they are increasingly ridiculing Trump in more direct and personal ways, taking aim at his slower campaign pace and verbal flubs…

Biden plans to cap his busy March on Thursday with what campaign aides describe as the biggest money draw of the cycle to date. At New York’s Radio City Music Hall, Biden will be joined by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, with thousands of supporters paying varying sums to attend.

After three years of taking it on the proverbial chin despite a booming economy and competent management of crises foreign and domestic, what we’re seeing now is the Biden campaign’s natural strengths consolidating while Donald Trump continues to be beset by legal woes and an increasingly apparent ceiling of support. It’s coming as national polls which had Trump holding a small lead for months drawing even, and Democrats breathing a sigh of relief that Biden is retaking control of the narrative since the State of the Union address. Politico:

“The State of the Union rarely provides much of a bounce,” said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to then-President Barack Obama. “What was absolutely essential was that Biden show enough spark to quell the panic among his supporters, and he certainly did that.”

Axelrod has been among the most vocal in his concerns about Biden’s electoral prospects, even calling on the president to consider dropping out of the race after a series of polls emerged showing him trailing Donald Trump in critical battleground states. But he said he believed Biden had begun making a “good contrast with Trump.”

Republicans, on the other hand, seem to have no idea what to do with the newly envigorated Biden campaign–even the ones who should know better:

David Alexrod’s criticisms of Biden had become vexatious enough to invite criticism of their own, so Democrats should be relieved to see Alexrod switching to a more helpful script. As for GOP pollster Frank Luntz? Biden is showing the strength that Luntz should want to see as an alleged “Never Trumper,” but Luntz still can’t bring himself to admit that Biden is doing something right when by every available metric he is. That in our view says more about Frank Luntz, who seems much better at finding problems than solutions, than it does about Biden’s new groove.

What Biden needed to do most is what he’s doing now: taking Trump head-on, and giving anxious voters who nonetheless do not want to vote for Trump confidence to come home.