Trump’s Lead Just Got Scarier—but This Dem Still Sees a Path for Biden

With President Biden forcefully declaring that he isn’t leaving the presidential race, the latest polling looks frightening. The Cook Political Report just released new polling averages showing Donald Trump leading Biden nationally by three points. FiveThirtyEight’s averages also look grim. New swing state polls show Trump dominating. But Ron Klain, the former White House chief of staff to Biden, nonetheless maintains that Biden is still the Democrat with the best shot against Trump. We invited Klain on the show, and he fielded some hard questions while making an expansive case that Biden still has a path. Listen to this episode here, or read the transcript below.

Greg Sargent: In recent days, President Biden has made it absolutely clear: He’s not going anywhere. Though some prominent Democrats have hinted that he should seriously consider stepping aside as the Democratic nominee—including Nancy Pelosi, Senator Michael Bennett, and some others—he and his top advisors have essentially stamped out all this talk by adamantly declaring that he’s in this race to stay and that he can beat Donald Trump.

So what’s Biden’s path to victory at this point? Is there one? Today, we’re really happy to be discussing this with Ron Klain, who was Biden’s former chief of staff in the White House and has recently been defending Biden by arguing that only the President has beaten Trump in a national election. Great to have you on, Ron. 

Ron Klain: Greg, thanks for having me. Good to be back.

Greg Sargent: So in the current FiveThirtyEight polling averages, Trump leads Biden by 2.2 points nationally, 3.4 points in Pennsylvania, 1.6 points in Wisconsin, and 0.7 points in Michigan. To win, Biden has to take those three Rust Belt states plus Nebraska’s second district at a minimum. And in those averages, Biden trails by a lot more in Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia, up to five points in them. I just want to know, Ron, do you contest that general depiction of the current state of the race? Do you think those numbers are in the ballpark of where things actually stand right now, or not?

Ron Klain: I think they’re in the ballpark, Greg. I think actually the President’s doing a little better than that. I’ve seen other polls that have him leading in some of those battleground states or tied in some of those battleground states. It depends if you do the two-way or the three-way and what your likely voter screen looks like. But look, I’ve said all along, it’s a very close race. And I’m not saying Joe Biden has it in the bag, but I do believe firmly that he is the best Democratic candidate and is the person most likely to beat Trump, having beaten Trump previously. 

Greg Sargent: I want to read to you from a tweet by Kate Bettingfield, who was a top advisor to Biden before. Speaking about the Biden campaign, she said, “If they have data that supports the path to victory that they see, they should put it out there now and help people who badly want to beat Trump rally around it. People want to see the path.” 

I’ve got to say, Ron, it doesn’t seem like in recent days we’ve heard a concrete case from them. Do you disagree with that?

Ron Klain: I do disagree with that. Look, I think the data would be if we were ahead, and we aren’t. So I think the point is not that, like, we’re ahead and we’re cruising to victory. I think the point is that in a divided country, in a polarized country, if you ask me who’s most likely to win Pennsylvania, as a Democrat, I think it’s Joe Biden. And the fact that John Fetterman feels the same way, who just recently won a tough race in Pennsylvania, it helps reinforce my conclusion. 

And so I don’t think this is something about like, I’m going to show you a bunch of numbers and the numbers are going to tell you I’m right. It’s like, look, what wins in a state like Pennsylvania? It’s someone who is authentic, who has the—I’ll say the piece of data that is on the President’s side is, he cares about people like me, shares my values, all those things. He’s doing very well in those metrics. I think that really matters in the end. I think we live in an era of kind of identity politics, character politics, and people voting on attributes. I think his attributes in the end are the winning attributes as they were in 2020. 

Greg Sargent: I think though, Ron, what people want to hear is something a little more like this. We know we’re down. We know we’re struggling in particular with these voter groups. And here’s how we’re going to get them back. Can you give us something more like that?

Ron Klain: Well, I’d say, look, I think, I don’t think we’re really down that much. I think it’s, as I said, I think it’s a close race. I think it’s been a close race all along. I think it’s going to be a close race right until the end. I think that we need to win the voters who have doubts about both candidates. And what I’d say is, in that respect, Trump is more like the incumbent, where if you’re at this stage in the game, and you’re not a Trump voter, you have doubts about voting Biden, but I think if you’re not a Trump voter, you’re going to come home to Joe Biden because if you were going to be a Trump voter, you’re a Trump voter. So I think if you look at a state and says the state now is 47 Trump, 45 Biden, those people who are not under either candidate are coming back to Joe Biden. 

I think it’s just him going out there, him campaigning vigorously as he has the past two weeks. Obviously, today he’s tied up with the NATO meetings, but he’ll be back on the road later this week. He was in Wisconsin last week. He’s headed to Michigan this week. I think as people see him, and I think they just are reminded about what they like about him, that he is from the working class, that he is from Scranton, Pennsylvania. The contrast we drew in the 2020 campaign also applies here, the difference between Mar-a-Lago values and Scranton values. I think he’s the superb banner-carrier for that. And I think that message will gradually win him the voters who are not really enthusiastic about either candidate. 

Greg Sargent: Okay. I want to try to bear down on what you’re saying there. Sounds to me like what you’re saying is that there are, you know, there’s a, there’s a slice of that, what they call “double haters.” I really don’t like that phrase, but whatever, we, we all know what it means. Double hater is a voter who doesn’t like either candidate. You’re saying that there’s maybe two to three percentage points of these voters who are out there. Maybe they’re moving toward Trump now because of the aftermath of the debate and doubts that that raised, but that those are the ones who are gettable again, right?

Ron Klain: I don’t think they’re moving towards Trump. I think they’re parked under undecided in most of these polls, maybe parked under Kennedy in some polls. But I think those voters are gettable by Biden. And I think just as those voters in the end broke for Biden in 2020 and broke late for Biden in 2020, I think they’ll break for Biden again in 2024. And I think that he has unique qualities that appeal to those voters, his background, his earnestness, his character, and his affiliation with working-class people. And the fact that he has good strong union support, strictly unions, where there have been a lot of Democratic defections like, you know, the construction unions, the trades, places like that, where people were like, Joe Biden’s one of us. I think that is a unique quality he has and a quality that will get him what he needs to get over the line in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan, Wisconsin. 

Greg Sargent: I think there’s no question that he’s temperamentally and his career and so forth and his alliances with labor—all that, 100 percent agree, that he’s really well suited to that type of voter, especially in those three states. I do want to know why you think that the undecideds will break to him though. That seems to presume that essentially he’s going to be able to really put behind him the doubts that have been raised about the debate performance. Is that an essential part of the equation? And why do the undecideds ultimately break for him?

Ron Klain: I think the undecideds break for him because I think that, again, think Trump performs a little bit like a super incumbent here, where if you’re one of these, let’s say white working class voters in Pennsylvania and you aren’t Trumpy yet, I don’t see how you’re getting Trumpy in the next four months. I just think that you’ve had four years of Trump in the White House, you’ve had six or eight years of him out there pounding around, and those people have decided that they just can’t abide Trump or maybe they’ve decided that they’re pro-choice, or whatever it is, that they’re just not going for that. And I think those people may just not be wild about the prices of things and inflation and things like that, and have doubts about Biden’s management of that. I think those are unfair, but I acknowledge they exist. 

And I think that those people will come home. I also do think the President has a little bit of economic tailwinds at his back here. I think the likelihood of a Fed rate cut in September or down the road here will abate some of the pricing problems. I think that the President is continuing to fight for working class people. I think this is going to be an who’s-on-your-side election. I think he’s better equipped to be identified by voters as the candidate on their side than Donald Trump is or than any other Democrat is. 

Greg Sargent: Okay, it seems to me, Ron, that the way to win is for Biden to unite the disparate groups that make up the, what you might call the anti-MAGA majority out there. And I think these voters that we’re just talking about here are an essential component of that, right? 

Ron Klain: Absolutely. And that’s what happened in 2022 as well. Remember in 2022, I had people calling me, yelling at me about the red wave and about why is Biden talking about democracy and kind of the of social and character issues and why isn’t he just doing more about the price of eggs, and we’re going to get wiped out in 2022. And it produced historic electoral results in 2022. First president since Roosevelt to hold every single Democratic senator up for reelection. 

Greg Sargent: No question about it. 

Ron Klain: Look, I think it’s the same basic dynamic. 

Greg Sargent: Okay. I want to concede a hundred percent that there’s, that it’s very possible that a lot of the same things are happening this time that happened in 2022. I do want to bring this up though, for this to happen, Biden has to be acceptable to all these different voters from the various Dem-based voter groups that Democrats are having trouble with now, to GOP leaning independents and Republican anti-Trump moderates who I think are sort of in that camp that you’re talking about. But look, the comparison to 2022, Nate Cohn points out that Biden’s approval is now around 10 points lower than it was just before the 2022 midterms. So the question, it seems to me, is whether Biden’s image is kind of irrevocably broken in some sense, that there’s not really a way to get him to acceptability with a broad enough coalition. How do you get back to that?

Ron Klain: Greg, I think that he has to continue to do what he’s doing and do more of it. I think people need to hear his vision for a second term. They need to see that he’s still fighting for them. I think he needs to kind of move forward on some key issues like bringing down costs and continuing to fight kind of the—as he mentioned in the debate—the question of the lingering impacts of the pandemic and corporate greed, continuing to fight those issues and continuing to have a strong progressive economic message, which I think is one thing that unites a lot of those groups you’ve been talking about. Maybe not so much the Trump-disaffected Lincoln Project type people, but for a lot of the other voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan, that economic populism that was successful in the 2020 campaign, I think needs to be brought back with more vigor. 

I’ve been talking about that all year long. And look, I think that he is uniquely positioned to do that. And when I hear people talk about him getting out, I mean, the only precedent for that is 1968. And I’ll remind people how 1968 ended. It did not end with the Democrats’ substitute candidate holding on to the White House. It ended with Richard Nixon being our president. So I don’t see why 1968 is anyone’s role model for how the presidential campaign should go. 

Greg Sargent: I do want to concede again here that I think there’s not enough talk about the downside risks of an alternate path. There’s no question that that is just not talked about enough, and those risks are very considerable. I want to bear down on what you just said about progressive economics. You know, one of the great things that you did when you were in the White House was you brought the left into the tent. throughout the Build Back Better negotiations and so forth. You were really kind of a liaison to the squad, the AOCs, the progressives, and they were brought to the table in a major way. So I think what I hear you saying is that you want to hear more from Biden on progressive economics, that that’s an essential thing to get back to acceptability with this big coalition. Is that right?

Ron Klain: No, what I’m saying, Greg, is I think it will help him win the election. I don’t think, I think he’s acceptable to that coalition as it is. I saw Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez on TV the other day saying positive things about the President’s candidacy. That was encouraging. But I do think that he can excite or motivate more of these voters with this economic message of, you know, taking on corporate greed, taking on some of the, you know, some of the economic challenges people face in their everyday lives. 

Talking more about childcare. He got to that a little bit in debate and then Trump kind of pulled the conversation to migration again, but bringing down the cost of childcare for people. He has a plan to do that. I think he’s got a solid agenda for a second term. I think as the race continues to develop, and the choice between Project 2025 on the one hand and Joe Biden’s agenda for 2025 on the other hand, it’s sharper. I think the issue of taxes is a good area of contrast. Continue to press these messages, I think are very strong for the Democrats up and down the ticket. And I think Joe Biden is the best standard bearer for that message. 

Greg Sargent: I want to ask you about what you said earlier about this anti-MAGA coalition, the one that kind of manifested itself in 2022. It seems like a key component of making that happen is—and this is said all the time—that voters have to focus on Trump, right? That they have to understand that they’re really choosing between Biden and Trump, and remember who Trump is and what he did to the country. But it seems like the Biden campaign hasn’t been able to make the race about Trump, though I will concede that bad media coverage, I think, is part of the reason for that. So is there some basic change of strategy that’s called for here in order to make the race about Trump? There’s got to be—I mean, doesn’t it have to be better than it is now?

Ron Klain: Well, I think you have to stick with it. And I think that, I don’t think Trump helped himself during the debate in this regard. I think he reinforced people’s concerns about himself in the debate. And I think that what people saw—I’m not denying we had a bad night. I’m not saying we had a good night. We had a bad night, no question about it. But I think, I don’t think Trump had a good night either and reinforced why people have doubts about him or reinforced why people were concerned about him. And I think continuing to emphasize this, I saw the President put out a video today about Project 2025, which is the encapsulation of MAGA-ism in the extreme. And I think that’s a good contrast for us. And I think continuing to pound that is important. I do think—I don’t know if it’s a change in strategy, Greg, I just think that campaigns are, take time and you continue to ride them out. You know, I’ve worked in campaigns where we were ahead at this stage. I’ve worked in campaigns where we were behind at this stage. And I can tell you that not all the ones that are ahead at this stage go on to win. 

Greg Sargent: Including Donald Trump’s. I mean, I should, let me revise that. I should say in 2016, he was way down.

Ron Klain: Yes. Talk about debates. I worked on Secretary Clinton’s debate team. We walked out of the last debate at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. I turned to a colleague and said, “This election’s over. We’ve won.” We were six or seven points ahead going into that debate. She beat him in that debate. I knew we would be 10 points ahead the next day. I was like, That’s it. There’s no way he can come back. And obviously he did. And you know, and—

Greg Sargent: Access Hollywood tape, too.

Ron Klain: So look, think elections are about fundamentals. And I think the fundamentals here are on the President’s side. And I agree with Larry Sabato on that. I think that we need to continue to unite the Democratic Party and drive together towards victory here.

Greg Sargent: I think there’s no question that a lot of the press coverage is poll heavy and it does not take into account the fundamentals to the degree that it should. In fact, the FiveThirtyEight forecasts have it at around 51-49 Trump, which is a tie. And they forecast very narrow wins for Biden in some of those states. And so I agree that the fundamentals should be more part of the conversation.

But a lot of people are looking at Thursday’s press conference as the next gauge of Biden’s ability to make this race. If he doesn’t perform well, or worse, if there’s another pretty serious screw up, do you expect that the calls for him to step aside will kind of come back or escalate, and won’t those calls have something to them at that point? 

Ron Klain: Well, look, I’ve watched the President all week at NATO. He’s done very well. And the reports from behind the closed doors are that he’s doing very well in the NATO meetings. I thought his speech yesterday about the purpose of NATO and the vision of NATO was very strong. And I think he’ll have a good day at the press conference. And I think that this isn’t about any one event. The performative aspects of politics has never really been Joe Biden’s strong suit. His strong suit is who he is, what he stands for, what he fights for. And that continues to be true.

And I think the press overindexes on these performative things. But I think that we’ll a good press conference this week, good campaign events. I like seeing him out there in the country more. I like seeing him out there with voters more. And I think we’ll continue to claw back here.

Greg Sargent: I do want to ask you though, I agree that the press over obsesses about performative stuff and that this stuff really isn’t as important to voters as we all say it is. On the other hand, this isn’t just about the performative elements of the presidency or being a candidate, right? I mean, the polls seem to show very serious doubts about the President’s ability to carry through a second term. I mean, those doubts have to be dealt with, don’t they? They have to be addressed. 

Ron Klain: I think they have to be addressed, but I think that the proof that the President’s up to the job is the fact that he’s doing the job, continues to do the job. I think he continues to have success in the job that will resonate with voters. And in the end, it is a choice between Biden and Trump. And I think that Biden’s fitness for the job is much stronger than Trump’s fitness for the job. So I think that that’s the choice. And I think Biden will win on that choice. 

Greg Sargent: Last question. You’ve been around Kamala Harris a lot during your White House work. What’s your reading on her? Tell us about her a little bit. Do you think she’s got what it takes to beat Trump if it comes to that? Purely theoretically. 

Ron Klain: Well, what I’ll say is I think she’s a great vice president. I think if a meteor came down and hit Joe Biden in the Rose Garden and squished him and he couldn’t, and he was wiped out, I think she would be, I think she would do a great job as President. I she’d be a great leader for the Democratic party. But I think, with no disrespect to the Vice President and all her skills and talents, President Biden is the person who’s beaten Trump. He’s a proven candidate. I think he’s the one who should run in 2024. I think he will beat Trump again. And that’s no disrespect to her. I think she is a great candidate, great future in our party and plays a great role in helping him win. It’s a ticket. It’s a Biden Harris ticket. I think she brings her skills and assets to helping the President govern and helping the President campaign and win. She’s been great out on the campaign trail this year. I’m just her biggest fan in the world. 

But I do think that this isn’t like a soccer game where you just keep substituting players in and out, you know, each half. Like, we have a nominee who went through a democratic process to become the nominee. He prevailed in the primaries. Even New Hampshire, which is the killer of incumbent presidents, and you know, it’s killed incumbent presidents before, he wasn’t even on the ballot in New Hampshire and with write-ins, he won four to one in New Hampshire. So I think like every piece of evidence is the Democratic rank-and-file voters are behind him. The low-dollar donations to the campaign have surged since the debate. I think you see the support for him out on the road. And I think he is our nominee. He should be our nominee. Vice President Harris should be our vice president. And if something happened to President, God forbid, she could step in, she could do a great job as President, she’s fully qualified, she’s an amazing person, she’s an amazing political figure. But I think right now the job is to get the job done with the current ticket we have. 

Greg Sargent: Well, Ron, in you, the President really does have a very aggressive and convincing advocate. Thanks so much, Ron, for coming on with us today. 

Ron Klain: Thanks for having me, Greg. I appreciate the opportunity.