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Progressive Left, Looking to 2024, Vowing to Challenge Biden for Nomination

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Progressives increasingly believe that there will be a far-left challenger to primary President Joe Biden in 2024 if he, in fact, decides to run for reelection, Politico reported on Saturday.

The challenge isn’t likely to come from among the more well-known contenders who ran for the party’s nomination in 2020, but probably from a lesser-known name who could nonetheless pose a serious risk to Biden’s re-nomination, Politico added.

“Will there be a progressive challenger? Yes,” Jeff Weaver, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ former presidential campaign manager, told Politico.

The issue stems from disenfranchisement with Biden on the far-left:

When Joe Biden first came into office, progressives said he could be the next FDR.

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Now, as Biden’s relationship with the left has come under strain, liberals are talking about treating him like former President Jimmy Carter instead — and mapping out a Democratic primary challenge in 2024.

Weaver told the outlet that while he isn’t advocating for anyone to primary Biden, someone on the far left is very likely to do so anyway. The outlet also noted that primary chatter increased considerably over the past few weeks as moderate West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin announced he could not support the president’s “Build Back Better” legislation because he believes it will worsen already record-high inflation.

“He’s deeply unpopular. He’s old as shit. He’s largely been ineffective, unless we’re counting judges or whatever the hell inside-baseball scorecard we’re using. And I think he’ll probably get demolished in the midterms,” Corbin Trent, co-founder of the progressive No Excuses PAC and former communications director for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), told Politico.

“People will smell opportunity, and D.C. is filled with people who want to be president,” he added.

But, as Politico reported, “no one now in office — and none of the top-tier presidential contenders from 2020 — is viewed as a serious prospect to take on Biden. Nor is there any expectation that Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren, both of whom have enjoyed a significant amount of influence in the Biden administration, would primary Biden. Few seriously think Ocasio-Cortez would risk her political capital in a long-shot challenge to the president, either.”

A challenge is more likely to come from someone “such as former Sanders campaign co-chair Nina Turner, 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson or millionaire and $18-an-hour minimum wage advocate Joe Sanberg,” the outlet continued.

“Yes, but someone like Nina Turner or Marianne Williamson. Doubt anyone currently elected,” a prominent progressive told Politico when asked if someone from the left would run against Biden.

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The outlet added:

The fact that any primary challenge at all is now openly being discussed demonstrates how disappointed some progressives are about Biden’s presidency. It’s also a reflection of Biden’s weakness in the polls and his advanced age — the same factors that are driving more traditional and moderate Democrats to talk privately about scenarios if Biden doesn’t run for reelection as promised.

“I don’t think the country nor certainly not progressives in the party, who all tend to be younger, are going to sit on the sidelines,” Mark Longabaugh, a left-wing ad creator who consulted for Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Weaver claimed that a leftist challenge to Biden would not be a “repudiation” but rather indicative of the Democratic Party’s continued leftward shift.

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“Progressives are ultimately ascendant. And if nothing else, a progressive running who gets a lot of support will demonstrate that the ideas that the progressive movement embraces are, in fact, popular,” Weaver told Politico.

If a far-left candidate steps up to challenge Biden, Trent predicted that “it’ll be a bigger primary than people anticipate — I think it’ll be like a Jimmy Carter primary.”

In 1980, famously liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) challenged incumbent President Carter for the party’s nomination, winning a dozen states. He lost to Carter, though, who went on to lose to Ronald Reagan.

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