President Biden may get an unexpected quarter break next week – the Republican Party.
The Republican National Convention begins Monday in Milwaukee, reaching its conclusion on Thursday, when former President Trump is expected to formally accept the party’s presidential nomination.
There will be plenty of attacks on Biden and his record, of course.
But the media’s focus on the convention will at least dilute the concentration on whether Biden will survive as the Democratic Party’s nominee.
The spotlight will be on Trump, his yet-to-be-nominated running mate and what he wants to do.
Democrats agree with that, at least under the current circumstances.
“I think whenever Republicans talk about what they’re going to do, I think that’s a really good thing for us,” said Democratic strategist Tad Devine, who has worked on presidential campaigns since the 1980s. “The more daylight their issues, the better it will be for Democrats.”
Questions about whether Biden could be pushed out by his party have dominated political media since the president’s disastrous performance in his debate against Trump in Atlanta on June 27.
Biden and his allies reacted – belatedly, perhaps – this week.
On Monday, an open letter from Biden to Democrats in Congress was released, as well as a live phone interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and a virtual call with members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Biden’s position appeared to stabilize further on Tuesday at a House Democratic conference meeting, where dissent over his position failed to gain critical mass.
Still, Biden was clearly hurt by his own debate performance. Several – though not all – polls showed that Trump’s lead increased in the aftermath.
Several Democratic senators expressed concern about Biden’s prospects. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (DN.J.) on Tuesday became the seventh Democratic House member to call on him to step aside as a candidate.
Notably, Biden has vehemently argued that the party’s public angst over its future only weakens its chances of defeating Trump in November.
His letter to his party colleagues in Congress concluded with the message that “any weakening of resolve or lack of clarity about the task ahead only helps Trump and harms us. It’s time for us to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump.”
A four-day Republican convention around Trump, covered in media coverage, could help Biden highlight this contrast.
It’s not that Democrats expect the Republican National Convention to in any way solve Biden’s problems. But they think it could be useful in advancing the news agenda and providing some level of scrutiny to Trump’s plans.
The president “has to solve his problems and the party has to solve its challenges. They have to support him very strongly or there will be problems in the elections,” Devine said.
But he and other Democrats also insist that the Republican Party has its vulnerabilities on a range of issues, including reproductive rights, taxation, health care — and the commitment to democracy itself.
Democrats have faced a political tailwind on abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Wade in June 2022.
The Republican Party sought to create some wiggle room on that issue Monday when the party’s newly released platform notably failed to call for a national abortion ban — the first time in 40 years that such a promise was omitted.
But Democrats believe they can also reap dividends by counterattacking Republicans on other issues and branding the Republican Party as the party of the rich.
They also say the deeply controversial Trump’s presence at center stage could help them, reminding voters of everything from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot to the former president’s conviction in May on 34 criminal counts of falsification of business records.
Republicans vigorously dispute all of this.
They point to polls that suggest widespread voter disapproval of Biden’s performance, as well as his age. They say voters are clamoring for a course correction.
Following the release of the party’s platform on Monday, the Trump campaign issued a statement with comments from the former president’s top advisers, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.
“As Joe Biden and the Democrats argue over who will be at the top of their list and have implemented policies that have raised prices for ordinary families, opened the floodgates to migrant crime through open borders, shackled American energy with Washington-imposed bureaucracy bureaucrats and spreading chaos around the world through weak foreign policy, President Trump will make America great again through these America First principles,” the duo said.
Among Republicans more broadly, there is delight — and perhaps an element of pleasant surprise — at the way Trump has remained comparatively silent as Democratic infighting over Biden has played out.
Trump has occasionally attacked Biden and Vice President Harris. But the former president has generally been careful not to do anything to divert the focus from Biden’s crisis.
“He pretty much resigned and let the Democrats defeat their own candidate,” said Republican strategist Brad Blakeman. “And the Democrats have done a great job of that.”
Blakeman argued that the Republican Party did not need to further emphasize the issues of Biden’s age and acuity at the convention.
Instead, he said, persuadable members of the electorate have formed their opinions on this issue, leaving the field open for Trump and Republicans to make a more positive case for a second term.
“The American people know what they heard and what they saw in the debate,” Blakeman argued. “Joe Biden may have a truce, but the convention needs to be about what [Republicans] will do for Americans.”
The Memo is a column reported by Niall Stanage.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
