EDGARTOWN, Mass.—One of Vice President Joe Biden’s top challenges, amid increasing signs that he may announce a presidential campaign, is determining whether he could corner a Democratic constituency that would sustain his candidacy and make him a formidable threat to Hillary Clinton.
With Mrs. Clinton slipping in polls, Mr. Biden could introduce another challenge to her campaign by drawing away key voters: working-class Americans and independents. Both groups have moved away from the party in recent elections, and Mr. Biden fares better with them than Mrs. Clinton, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll taken this summer.
“He has a reach that other Democrats don’t have at this stage,” said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who worked on the survey.
Mr. Biden is expected to decide in coming weeks whether to make his third bid for the White House, a campaign that would be far behind Mrs. Clinton’s in terms of fundraising, staff and organizing in early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire.
The vice president and his closest advisers have been reaching out to Democratic donors and party leaders in key states. Beyond assessing their ability to build a campaign infrastructure, they are sounding out potential campaign messages that would present Mr. Biden as a candidate who understands the struggles of everyday Americans because they have been the same as his own struggles.
A Quinnipiac poll released Thursday found that Biden would best Republican Donald Trump in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. “Americans are looking for a president who tells it like it is, and one who has a history of backing up those words with action,” saidJoshua Alcorn, a senior adviser to a draft Biden organization.
“Joe would find that he would have pockets of support that would be enthusiastic,” saidKurt Meyer, who chairs the Democratic Party in three counties in northern Iowa. “But the organization and the fuel—largely money—has kind of already migrated elsewhere. I just think it would be very, very tough.”
David Axelrod, a former top political adviser to President Barack Obama, said Mr. Biden, who has been an “extraordinary partner” to the president, faces “a very big hill to climb. But I get why he is still looking hard at it, and I suspect, at this point, he may play it out for as long as he feels he can to see if the tectonic plates shift.”
What a Biden constituency would be if he runs is the key question, said Michael McKeon,a Chicago-based polling expert and president of McKeon & Associates. “He’s an old party guy. He’s a back slapper,” he said. “It’s a different game” now where social media and alternative forms of communication dominate. “You have to be able to communicate on all kinds of different levels.”
Many blue-collar voters are also Catholic, another constituency with whom Mr. Biden does well. Mr. Biden, who is Catholic, has held meetings with Catholic leaders at the vice-presidential residence in recent weeks in preparation for Pope Francis’ visit to the White House next month.
Mr. Biden’s background as the son of a furnace cleaner and used-car salesman has been an asset with working-class Americans and independents across states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Among independents, 34% have a positive view of Mr. Biden, according to the June Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, while 27% have a negative view of him. Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, is viewed positively by 34% of independents, but 40% have a negative view of her, according to the poll.
Fewer blue-collar workers also have a negative view of Mr. Biden than they do of Mrs. Clinton, the poll showed. And Mr. Biden does better than Mrs. Clinton among union households.
“He reaches in and does well with independents and he does well with blue-collar people. Essentially that’s a group that’s moved away from the Democratic Party,” Mr. Hart said of Mr. Biden. “That’s where Hillary is weakest.”
“It doesn’t mean that politically he should not get in or should get in the race. It does mean he would have an advantage that President Obama didn’t have in 2012,” he said.
Then-candidate Barack Obama didn’t have a natural constituency among working class and blue-collar workers, and Mrs. Clinton beat him for those voters in the 2008 primary. Mr. Obama ultimately won by pulling together a Democratic coalition that including young voters and large numbers of African-Americans and Latinos.
Mrs. Clinton far outpaces Mr. Biden among Latino voters. While 49% of Latinos have a positive view of Mr. Biden and 15% hold a negative view, 81% have a positive view of Mrs. Clinton while just 3% of Latinos have a negative view of her, according to the Journal/NBC poll.
Mr. Biden struggled to gain traction in past presidential campaigns and was often overshadowed by his public gaffes. At least some Democrats hope what’s long been viewed as a propensity for misstatements could be an asset in a race where Mr. Trump, has tapped into voter frustration with robotic candidates.
“In this quite bizarre political climate, there is something really appealing about a throwback pol like Biden,” said Steve Schale, a longtime Democratic strategist in Florida who would back Mr. Biden should he run.
Jim McQueeny, a former Democratic strategist from New Jersey, said Mr. Biden could win the support of blue-collar workers, such as steelworkers, mechanics and factory workers, by capitalizing on “the feeling that he understands their issues” more than Mrs. Clinton does.
“It’s mostly white, it’s mostly male but it can be very powerful,” Mr. McQueeny said. “Hillary has a challenge with these people,” he added.
http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/02/campaign-2016-modest-interest-high-stakes/
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