Biden reelection campaign falling flat with key blue state leaders

President Joe Biden appears to be struggling to unify the Democratic Party as he tries to garner support from key Democratic state and city leaders.

After initially joining the Biden reelection campaign’s 2024 advisory board in March, per the Washington Post, New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams no longer appeared on the list of the president’s National Advisory Board, released last Wednesday.

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Adams’s pushback against Biden comes after public outcry regarding the president’s handling of the migrant crisis across the southern border as Title 42 ended, ridiculing the administration for turning its back on New York City.

“The city is being destroyed by the migrant crisis,” Adams said during a panel discussion hosted by the African American Mayors Association.

Adams noted they are facing financial problems in adapting to the influx of immigrants, asking Biden to provide additional fiscal relief while the city is preparing to spend billions of dollars in services.

“As the mayor has previously stated, he stands ready to help the president with reelection however he can,” Fabien Levy, an Adams spokesman, said in a statement to Politico.

The issue of border security has been exasperated by the expiration of Title 42, with Biden’s own party members attacking his plans. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) has voiced that border cities are ill-prepared to deal with the surge of immigrants, sending four letters earlier this month to the Biden administration to say Arizona is “simply unequipped to handle the surge of migrants.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a member of the progressive “Squad,” has dodged questions regarding a definitive endorsement of Biden, saying, “In any candidacy, we need to see what the plan is for our future,” in an interview during CNN’s State of the Union.

“I would enthusiastically support him if he were the Democratic nominee,” she added.

In an early April interview with the Lever, journalist David Sirota asked Ocasio-Cortez whether Biden should face a primary a couple of weeks before Biden announced his reelection bid.

“I do believe that what some of the latest developments coming from the Biden administration are highly concerning, increasingly concerning,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And this is also not just from an ideological perspective, not just from a substance perspective, which is the most important, but also from a political perspective. I think it is extremely risky and very perilous.”

Ocasio-Cortez highlighted some of the Biden administration’s shortcomings, citing that Biden authorized more fossil fuel permits in his first 25 months of presidency versus Donald Trump’s first half. Ocasio-Cortez also stated that the Biden administration is failing on immigration.

Several members who were initially on Biden’s national advisory board were not found on the list released May 10, according to Politico.

Several Democratic leaders have declined to endorse Biden as the party nominee so far, including Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who dodged comments last year, according to reports from NBC News.

Adding to the list of East Coast lawmakers is former New Jersey Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, who endorsed Biden strongly in 2020 but has yet to show his support this election cycle.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), another Squad member, has withheld from endorsing Biden and refused to answer whether she would support the president’s reelection campaign last year.

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“He’s the president,” Bush said in an interview with KSDK News. “He has the right to run for a second term, absolutely. But I don’t want to … I’d rather you not ask that question.”

Biden’s support nationwide has been divided since his campaign announcement last month, with polls consistently showing only around half of Democrats think Biden should run for reelection in 2024, but a large majority of Democratic lawmakers and voters say they would still support him if he becomes the Democratic nominee.