Biden and Harris campaign battleground director Dan Kanninen said Wednesday that President Biden being on the presidential ticket wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the 2024 election.
“I think that if he was the top of the ticket, versus Kamala Harris, who did an excellent job performing over 107 days, I don’t see how that changes the outcome,” Kanninen told NewsNation’s Blake Burman on “The Hill.”
During a recent USA Today interview, the outlet asked the president about his chances of securing the White House again in the last election, to which Biden responded that he was capable of doing so. Biden added that his view came from polling he had seen, but the president did not provide any details about the data’s origin.
Last July marked the end of Biden’s reelection campaign following a rough debate performance against Trump that raised questions about his age and ability to recapture the White House among fellow Democrats. But Kanninen cast further doubt on this view.
“He wasn’t toxic to the American people,” Kanninen said of President-elect Trump. “He had the highest approval ratings in this campaign, higher than he had when he was President, when he ran the first time.”
“And that was not the proposition we thought would be entering in the campaign,” he added.
CNN’s Harry Enten said President Biden’s recent comments about possibly securing a victory in the last election against Trump if he had not left the 2024 race are “flat-out bonkers” in a video posted to the social platform X on Wednesday.
“Joe Biden in his exit interview with USA Today claims that he could have beaten Donald Trump had he stayed in the race,” Enten said in the video. “So, this begs the question, could Biden have won the 2024 election had he [stayed] in the race?”
“Truthfully, I categorize his statement as flat-out bonkers,” he added.
Enten cited Biden’s polling struggles and Trump running ahead in battleground states as well as Biden’s low approval rating to back up his reasoning.
The Hill has reached out to the White House, Harris’s office and the Trump transition team for comment.
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