The idea is somewhere between conventional wisdom and an article of faith for Democrats: Joe Biden beat Donald Trump once, so he can do it again.
For Trump’s Republican primary challengers, most notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, that concept is a necessary predicate for convincing GOP voters to switch horses after nominating Trump twice.
But a new NBC News poll released Sunday showed Biden with a relatively narrow 49% to 45% lead over Trump — which falls within the survey’s margin of error and is far lower than the 10 percentage point edge Biden held in NBC’s last poll before the 2020 election. The new survey shows DeSantis, who is less known than Trump, tied with Biden at 47% each.
Despite an air of confidence from Biden and his team, some Democrats say they believe Trump has a very serious shot at winning back the Oval Office.
“If you think otherwise, you have literally had your head buried in the sand,” said former Rep. Tim Ryan, Democrat of Ohio, who fell short in his bid to woo Trump-friendly voters to his side in a 2022 Senate race against JD Vance. “You’re living in a world of delusion. And it’s dangerous.”
Mandela Barnes, who lost by 25,000 votes to Sen. Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, in 2022 and has since launched a super PAC, said he’d like to see Democrats in battleground states “go on the offensive” more and tout Biden’s accomplishments.
“The president has a done a lot to help working people, and the threat of a Donald Trump presidency is very real,” he said, adding, “It was Wisconsin that put Trump over the top in 2016. … We take the threat very seriously.”
Most of the Democrats who spoke to NBC News said they believe Trump is an easier draw for Biden than some of the other Republican challengers — if only because Trump is a known quantity.
