Biden campaign working to regain support of disillusioned Democratic voters

Next week, Michigan primary voters may send a warning signal to President Biden. From the economy to abortion rights to the war in Gaza, the issues animating Democratic voters continue to shift in the lead up to the 2024 election. White House Correspondent Laura Barrón-López reports.
Amna Nawaz:
Next week, Michigan primary voters may send a warning signal to President Joe Biden.
From the economy, to abortion rights, to the war in Gaza, the issues animating Democratic voters continue to shift in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, joins me now for the latest.
So, Laura, it’s fair to say President Biden has an enthusiasm gap among some in his base. Who are the voters that he’s having the most trouble with right now?
Laura Barron-Lopez:
He’s having a lot of trouble with young voters and voters of color, Amna.
And I spoke to Nancy Zdunkewicz, who is a Democratic pollster with Z to A Research, and she recently conducted focus groups with Latino voters, Black voters and moderate Republicans.
And especially among Latino voters, she said that there was a Hispanic woman in that group who questioned the president’s message on the economy specifically, that they weren’t happy when they heard the president compare U.S. inflation rates to other countries’ inflation rates, trying to present what they thought was too rosy of a picture in terms of U.S. economy.
And, ultimately, Nancy Zdunkewicz said that what Democrats have is a messenger problem.
Nancy Zdunkewicz, Z to A Research: This might be a sort of reverse coattails kind of election, where we see that statewide Democrats and congressional Democrats are carrying the president across the line.
I can’t tell you a single state right now where I have surveyed where a statewide Democrat was not more popular and exceeding the vote share of the president.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
Zdunkewicz warned that this is a real problem for Democrats, and it’s not something that they can wish away.
Amna Nawaz:
So the economy remains a challenging issue.
But where is the president seeing any traction? What issues and with what voters?
Laura Barron-Lopez:
As I mentioned, Amna, Nancy Zdunkewicz spoke to moderate Republicans as well.
And so, in that focus group, they found that, when they presented the contrast between President Biden and former President Donald Trump, that a lot of those moderate Republicans started to move more towards President Biden, specifically on issues like democracy, January 6, and on abortion, that abortion, she said, is the second most important issue that they’re hearing from a lot of voters across the board, not just moderate Republicans.
The two fixes that Democrats could have for that, she said, is that President Biden needs to be very clear about his platform for a second term and also get more surrogates out there that could boost his message.
Amna Nawaz:
Let me ask you about this effort we’re seeing under way in Michigan specifically ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary.
There’s a movement there to encourage people to vote uncommitted. What do we need to understand about that?
Laura Barron-Lopez:
That uncommitted movement is being led by Democratic activists and Democratic local electeds in the state of Michigan.
And it’s really a last-minute movement, Amna, born out of frustration with the president’s response to Gaza. I spoke with Layla Elabed, who is the sister of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat in Michigan, the only Palestinian member of Congress.
And Layla is the campaign manager for this Listen to Michigan movement. She said, Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan feel extremely let down by the president because of his response to the Israel-Gaza war and that the uncommitted movement is all about sending a message to President Biden.
Layla Elabed, Campaign Manager, Listen to Michigan: We are solely focused on the primary in order to send that message to Joe Biden that, if he doesn’t listen to his poor constituency, the 80 percent of Democrats that support a permanent cease-fire, that he’s going to be in trouble come November.
I don’t want to be in another position where I am trying to choose between the lesser of two evils.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
Layla Elabed said that she thinks that, right now, President Biden is taking Muslim and Arab voters, who were key in his win in 2020, for granted.
And that same frustration about the president’s response to Israel-Gaza, Amna, is something that is a big problem for him also with young voters.
Amna Nawaz:
So, when it comes to those young voters, other key members of that coalition that got him to the White House, how is President Biden addressing some of that dissatisfaction?
Laura Barron-Lopez:
Right now, President Biden’s campaign’s theory of the case is that the more that they contrast him against former President Donald Trump on policy across the board, that they think that voters will start to come home, that that will keep — all those elements of his coalition will ultimately vote for him, that some of them just aren’t paying attention yet.
One key example of that was just this week, Amna, when the president announced that he would forgive $1.2 billion in student loan debt for more than 150,000 borrowers.
And when he was announcing that, he said that he had to go this route, which was a more piecemeal route that he wanted, than he wanted to initially, because of the fact that when he was trying to forgive student loan debt for tens of millions of borrowers, that Republicans ended up fighting that and that the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, blocked it.
And so he’s really trying to strike that contrast on student loan debt, on abortion, on a variety of other issues with Republicans writ large.
Amna Nawaz:
Laura Barron-Lopez with the latest on President Biden’s reelection campaign.
Laura, thank you.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
Thank you.