‘Where Does That Leave Him?’ CNN Political Director Sounds the Alarm On What Happens If Biden Stays In The Race

CNN Political Director David Chalian sounded the alarm on Monday over what it would mean for the Democratic Party and President Joe Biden should the latter choose to continue his presidential campaign.

Chalian joined CNN News Central and was asked to explain the current “shape and the contour” of the 2024 presidential election.

“So this was one of the things that grew out of the Stephanopoulos interview on Friday, which is that Joe Biden just was not conceding an inch to the reality of the state of his campaign as it exists now,” Chalian began, adding:

So if you look at our poll of polls, this is an average of national polls, pre and post-debate. Pre-debate, Donald Trump had a two-point edge in a poll. The polls an average of national polls 49% to 47%. That’s a pretty close race. You see post-debate Donald Trump has stayed the same. He didn’t grow his support with the debate, but Joe Biden took on some water. He is down to 44%. And that’s a five-point lead in the poll of polls for Donald Trump. So to say that the debate had no impact, I don’t think is reflected by the totality of the polls. Also, if you look at the electoral map, guys and the road to 270, it’s only going to get more complicated.

Look here, this is our latest assessment of the races. The yellow are the true battlegrounds here. Some leaning red states that are clearly heavily contested states as well, like Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Michigan. But we are now talking about the light blue states, perhaps Minnesota, Virginia, New Mexico that are leaning Democratic. Now, they may be coming online as more competitive in this moment. We need to see how true that is. If that happens, that means more resources that Biden has to spend in a greater number of states than he’s currently spending. If the map expands against him, that’s not a position of strength heading into this fall campaign.

Anchor Boris Sanchez then asked, “As we’ve seen, the Electoral College adds a dynamic to those polls that isn’t fully representative in those numbers. I am curious, though, where do independents land?”

“So I am fascinated by this because obviously independents are still big, big factors in the outcome of presidential elections. You remember in 2016, Trump bested Clinton with independents by a bit. He won that election. Four years ago, Biden won independents by 13 percentage points against Donald Trump,” Chalian replied, adding:

Look at the independent tracker of CNN polling alone over the last year. So back a year ago last August, we actually had Biden in the blue line there on the left of the screen, up against Trump by like nine points or so among independents. Okay. And then you saw as we continued to poll this race, you saw in November that crossed, Trump has led with independents and never gave up the lead. And if you look at the April line versus the now line, this is Pre-debate versus post-debate. Both of them ticked down a little bit in their support with independents. But Donald Trump’s lead has maintained he’s now got a ten percentage point lead in our polling among independents in this race.

That’s a huge warning sign to any campaign, which is why Joe Biden is finding himself in the position he’s in right now, which is that he may be successful at pushing back on this effort to get him to leave the race. The question becomes, so where does that leave him and the Democratic Party? All the data suggest at the moment , he’s in a weakened position in this race, maintaining a top of the ticket. Then he was clearly a year ago, but even you could argue more recently.

Watch the clip above via CNN.