Former President Joe Biden may want to be back in the political arena to try and help the Democratic Party emerge from the wilderness.
However, it does not appear that many Democrats are overly receptive to the offer from the 82-year-old former president, whom many blame for last November’s stinging election setbacks, when the party lost control of the White House and Senate and fell short in winning back the House majority from the GOP.
“As far as Biden’s position within the current state of the Democratic Party, I think his time is over. I think his time has passed. The train has sort of moved on,” a Democrat strategist who asked for anonymity to speak more freely told Fox News.
Biden met last month with Ken Martin, the newly elected chair of the Democratic National Committee, to offer his help, a source with knowledge confirmed to Fox News last week. Word of the meeting and Biden’s offer to help fundraise or campaign for the party was first reported by NBC News.
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Then-President Joe Biden speaks from the Oval Office of the White House as he gives his farewell address on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP)
The offer of assistance by the former president comes as recent polling indicates the Democratic Party brand is in desperate need of repair.
The party’s favorable rating sank to all-time lows in separate national polls conducted this month by CNN and NBC News. Those numbers followed a record low for Democrats in a Quinnipiac University survey in the field in February.
Additionally, the latest Fox News National poll, which was released last week, indicated Congressional Democrats’ approval rating at 30%, near an all-time low.
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While some Democrats praise Biden for his past accomplishments, including during his single term in the White House, many say it is time to move on as the party aims to rebound.
“President Biden did a lot of remarkably great things for this country,” longtime Democratic consultant John MacNeil told Fox News. “I’m sure there is still some love left for him.”
Then-President Joe Biden speaks at the State Department during the closing days of his presidency on Jan. 13, 2025. (AP)
However, MacNeil, who was part of the leadership of Unite the Country, a pro-Biden super PAC that helped boost the then-former vice president to victory in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, pointed to the 2024 election and noted that Biden “is unfortunately and unfairly the guy who’s going to get pegged for the loses.”
Joe Caiazzo, a veteran Democratic strategist who served on the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns of Sen. Bernie Sanders, told Fox News that “there is an appetite for a message anchored in economic populism wrapped in a desire for broad system change. Following November’s results, it is more than fair to say that folks are looking towards the future.”
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Others, who asked to remain anonymous, were more blunt.
A longtime Democratic Party bundler and fundraiser argued that “Biden was never a very good fundraiser. Never. He always had difficulty raising money and really didn’t like doing it.”
There is still plenty of anger directed at Biden, who dropped his 2024 re-election bid last July, a couple of weeks after a disastrous debate performance against then-former President Donald Trump reignited serious questions and deep concerns over Biden’s physical and mental stamina to handle another four years in the White House.
Biden was succeeded at the top of the Democrats’ 2024 ticket by then-Vice President Kamala Harris, with less than four months until Election Day.
A national Democrat strategist who was close to the 2024 Biden campaign told Fox News that “it defies belief that the man who cost the Democratic Party the White House, the Senate and the House, believes that he is going to be the Democratic Party savior, but this is also the same person who tried to convince America that he wasn’t too old to continue as President of the United States.”
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before departing on Marine One en route to New Jersey on Friday, Mar. 21, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
One person who appears enthusiastic about the potential prospect of Biden re-entering the political arena is Trump, who has repeatedly blasted the former president in speeches, interviews and on social media in the two months since returning to power.
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“I hope so,” Trump told reporters on Friday when asked about the possibility of a more visible political role for his predecessor.