[ad_1]
Follow us for live updates Trump and Haley after Super Tuesday.
Andrea Russell is a fixture on Earp Street, a sleepy row of South Philadelphia row houses, where she has lived for 45 years. In the afternoon, neighbors come and go in her living room as her 16-year-old cat, George, sits on top of the TV, which is usually tuned to cable news.
Russell, a 77-year-old former attorney general, believes President Biden is a good fit. “He’ll come down from Earp Street,” she says. “I could imagine going up to him and saying, ‘Hello, Joe.’ I see him here.” She empathizes with him and admires his integrity and accomplishments. she said. She also loves his eyes.
Her friend Kathy Staller, 77, said she was just as enthusiastic about voting for Biden as she was for Barack Obama in 2008. “I’m so excited,” she said. “I hope more people feel the same way I do.”
Mr. Russell and Mr. Staller are ardent and unconditional supporters of Mr. Biden, and they believe that Mr. Biden is not just the party’s only option against Donald J. Trump, but in fact the great Mr. Biden. He is part of a small but committed group of Democratic voters who believe that , a transformative president who clearly deserves another four years in office.
They occupy a lonely position in American politics.
Mr. Biden, 81, has never generated the same excitement as Mr. Obama and is not a movement candidate, in contrast to his likely 2024 rival, Mr. Trump, 77. He is better at building one-on-one connections on the campaign trail than at energizing crowds with his eloquence.
But his poll numbers have been particularly rough lately. A New York Times/Siena College poll released this weekend found that just 43% of Americans said they would vote for Trump if the election were held today, compared to 48% for Trump.
45% of Democratic primary voters surveyed said they don’t think Biden should be the party’s nominee, while only 23% of primary voters said they don’t think Biden should be the Democratic nominee. He answered that he was passionate about this. This is in contrast to nearly half of Republican primary voters who said they were enthusiastic about Trump’s candidacy.
The Biden campaign dismissed the latest numbers over the weekend, pointing to Democrats’ strong performance in recent special elections and highlighting Republican divisions and funding issues.
There are some voters who admire Mr. Biden. They waved away concerns about his age and defied suggestions that anyone else could encounter that moment.
In interviews with nearly two dozen Democrats, many of them older and most of them women, they sounded by turns perplexed, perplexed and defensive.
“I’m sad that Joe doesn’t know how much I love him, but I love him,” said Constance Wynn, 73, of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Because, hey, the guy has work to do. ”
A president who can “bounce back a little”
Biden’s most passionate fans say he deserves more recognition for his substantive performance in his first term. Passing the infrastructure bill. Pay off some of your student loan debt. Protect the environment with drastic climate measures. Put a cap on the cost of insulin and other drugs. Support unions and abortion rights. Send the first black woman to the Supreme Court. He uses his extensive foreign policy experience to help Ukraine overcome international crises.
They praise his personal qualities, describing his dedication to his family, regular attendance at church, and down-to-earth, working-class atmosphere. They say they feel as if they know him and that the people who have a floating vote in their lives may also empathize with him.
And sometimes they worry about him.
Susan D. Wagner, founder of Markers for Democracy, which promotes postcard-writing efforts to encourage people to vote, sent a letter of appreciation to Biden for his work and said, We have started a project to show Mr. Biden the following. He receives support in difficult moments.
“He seemed to be healing the lump and seemed to have some energy back,” said Wagner, 66, who lives in Manhattan and is heavily involved in grassroots activism. “I wrote that in this day and age, sometimes someone needs a smile. And I added a little smile to it.”
“He came out of retirement to save the country.”
The president has gained support among some young Democrats, both on social media and among local political insiders.
Dakota Galvan, 28, works in human resources for a construction company by day, but she also chairs the Davidson Democratic Party, a Nashville-based county party organization.
He loves Mr. Biden. “And I feel like I’m the only one,” he said, arguing that the news media has overwhelmingly focused on Biden’s enthusiastic support. “Is there anyone interested in my existence?”
Galvan, like many of Biden’s fans, acknowledges that the president is not a candidate that will generate much enthusiasm. But they insist that’s a good thing. They say Biden’s strength lies not in his energy but in his management skills and modest ability to get things done.
“He came out of retirement to save our country, to save our democracy, to fight for the soul of our people. He didn’t need to run for president,” Galvan said. “He made it his mission to take our country back from Donald Trump.”
But when Galvan praises the president in a committee meeting, his fellow Democrats laugh. At home, his partner gently suggested that he keep a life-size cutout of Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
It’s a move familiar to fans of the TV show “Parks and Recreation,” where the main character, Leslie Knope, played by Amy Poehler, is obsessed with Biden, much to the embarrassment of her colleagues and loved ones. (When he asked her about her ideal man, Ms. Knope said, “He has the brains of George Clooney and the body of Joe Biden.”)
Julie Pratt, 34, works for a lobbying firm in Philadelphia and serves on the city’s 2nd Ward committee. She described herself as Biden’s progressive “ambassador” and said her friends, who supported Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 primaries, called the president insufficiently progressive and uninspiring. , said his enthusiasm for Biden continues to grow, even though he sees him as too old. .
“I don’t see it as a choice between two bad candidates,” he said, referring to a rematch between Biden and Trump. “I couldn’t be more honored to vote for him.”
Two years ago, Pratt started writing a list of Biden’s accomplishments in a notes app on her phone. “He has done so much,” she said. “It drives me crazy that people don’t see that.”
“Everyone I talk to loves Joe Biden.”
Not surprisingly, some of Mr. Biden’s biggest supporters are politicians in Philadelphia. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Jill Biden is a sports fan from Philadelphia. The president has frequently visited the city since his inauguration.
Jim Donnelly, the mayor of the conservative 58th Ward in the northeastern part of the city, said he has at least seven Biden signs on his lawn. He got into a fight with his neighbor, who destroyed and stole things.
Other than cops, firefighters and his barber, “everyone I talk to loves Joe Biden,” he said. Among his reasons for supporting Biden, he cited the president’s well-known generosity in training conductors, his foreign policy experience and track record of job creation.
Some of Mr. Biden’s biggest supporters have loudly refuted his detractors. After Biden’s speech at a South Carolina church in January was interrupted by protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, one woman shouted: they don’t realize that. you are a good person ”
That person was Tomi Green, 74, of Charleston. She first met Biden at a town hall meeting around 2018, and she has since become friends with Jill Biden, she said.
“He’s the right person to get us where we need to be,” Green said. “He’s very caring and smart. He engages with people.”
Of his detractors, she said, “I wish they could see and feel what I feel.”
Russell, a Biden supporter who lives on Earp Street in Philadelphia, said the only thing he would change about Biden is his gray hair on the back of his neck, which sometimes sticks out from the collar of his suit.
“It drives me crazy,” she said. “Just trim!”
audio producer Adrian Hirst.
[ad_2]
Source link
