A top Manhattan Democrat warned Wednesday that President Biden’s plummeting poll numbers in deep blue New York indicate that the Empire State will be “a battleground” in the 2024 election.
“We’re still acting like this is a one-party state, which for pretty much 20, 25 years it has been,” Democratic Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine told Politico.
“I truly believe we’re a battleground state now.”
A Siena College poll released in June – prior to Biden’s disastrous CNN debate against former President Donald Trump – found the 81-year-old president with only a single digit lead over Trump in New York.
Biden’s 8 point advantage (47% to 39%) is a far cry from his resounding 23 point margin of victory in New York four years ago.
Similarly, an Emerson College poll released in May found Trump, 78, only trailing Biden by 6 points in the Empire State and winning over independent voters by a 10 point margin, 43% to 33%.
Levine warned that Biden’s waning popularity in New York could be devastating for down-ballot Democratic House candidates in the state’s swing districts.
“The implications for control of Congress are real enough that I think this needs more national attention,” Levine said.
Former Nassau County Executive Laura Curran argued that New York Democratic candidates must distance themselves from Biden on the campaign trail.
“If I’m a Democrat in some of these suburban races, I’d run the hell away from Joe Biden,” she told the outlet.
“He’s only got anchors,” another high-level New York Democrat anonymously told Politico of the embattled president.
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) on Wednesday became the eighth House Democrat to call for Biden to end his re-election bid, arguing that the commander in chief “is no longer the best candidate to defeat Trump.”
The presumptive Republican nominee for president held a string of campaign events in the New York City area earlier this year, including a rally in South Bronx that drew between 8,000 and 10,000. The events came as he faced trial in Manhattan for falsifying business records and was found guilty on 34 felony counts involving “hush money” payments.
Trump also held a massive rally Wildwood, NJ, in May, which drew about 100,000 people, and aimed to show that the former president can be competitive in traditionally Democratic voting areas.
A Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won New York in the general election since 1984, when President Ronald Reagan beat former Vice President Walter Mondale by an 8-point margin.
New Jersey was last won by a Republican presidential candidate in 1988, when George H. W. Bush carried the Garden State.