Obama stirring rebellion against Biden? Ex-Prez's senior adviser says Joe should drop out of election race

David Axelrod, former US President Barack Obama's senior adviser on Sunday, suggested that the current President Joe Biden should drop out of the 2024 presidential race.

His statement comes in the wake of polls that show the incumbent president falling, trailing his rival Donald Trump.

Axelrod suggests Biden should retire

A New York Times and Siena College poll published on Sunday showed that Biden is trailing behind Trump in the upcoming elections. Following the poll, Axelrod took to social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and said: "It's very late to change horses; a lot will happen in the next year that no one can predict & Biden's team says his resolve to run is firm."

"Yes, there also is risk associated with changing course now, as there is little time left for a primary campaign--and campaigns are how we test candidates. (Re @RonDeSantis) But there is a lot of leadership talent in the Democratic Party, poised to emerge," he added in another post.

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Axelrod further said that Biden is "justly proud of his accomplishments".

Calling Trump "a dangerous, unhinged demagogue" he said that the ex-president's "brazen disdain for the rules, norms, laws and institutions or democracy should be disqualifying" adding that "the stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore."

Leaving the decision to Biden, he said if the 80-year-old continues to run, he will be the Democrat party's nominee, but that he "needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it's in HIS best interest or the country's?"

Poll predict Biden's loss

The poll by the New York Times and Siena College poll showed that Biden is trailing behind Trump in five of six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania by a margin of 3 to 10 per cent points.

In Wisconsin, he was leading by 2 percentage points.

It also found that 71 per cent of registered voters believe that Joe Biden is "just too old to be an effective president". In contrast, only 39 per cent said this about Trump, who is only three years younger than Biden.

Also read | US presidential race: Donald Trump holds lead over Joe Biden in key states, new poll reveals

A further 62 per cent said they think Biden doesn't have the "mental sharpness to be an effective president". 52 per cent think Trump fulfils this criterion, i.e., only 48 per cent said Trump isn't mentally fit to be the US President.

Obama's former senior adviser remarked that Biden's age was his "biggest liability" and something that cannot be changed.

"Among all the unpredictables there is one thing that is sure: the age arrow only points in one direction," he said.

(With inputs from agencies)