Biden’s tick to the center risks alienating key voting blocs

President Biden risks alienating two specific groups key to a 2024 victory — progressives and younger voters — with his embrace of a controversial Alaska oil drilling enterprise as well as shifts to the center on crime and immigration. 

Biden’s decision to go ahead with the Willow drilling project, like his support of a GOP bill nixing a Washington, D.C., crime measure and his efforts to control the border, could help him with moderate voters and independents while blunting the impact of Republican attacks. 

But the confluence of moves could cost the president with progressives and a newer generation of voters who round out his base, who are watching a pivot toward centrism with some dismay. 

“This is a really bad time for Biden to be perceived as soft on oil companies or on bankers who looted their own bank as it was in freefall,” said Adam Green, who co-founded the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

“It would be a political asset to go hard at the bankers, oil executives, pharma executives, and other odious actors in this moment,” Green said, referencing the Silicon Valley Bank collapse that has left the administration facing criticisms of offering it a “bailout.”

Activists say gambling with the youth vote is a risky electoral strategy given their role in being key to Democratic victories in recent midterm and presidential elections, especially in this past November’s House and Senate contests. 

“[It] really makes young people question if Biden is serious about fighting the climate crisis and standing up for our generation,” said Michele Weindling, electoral director for the climate-focused Sunrise Movement shortly after news of the Willow project’s advancement became public. She called the decision “incredibly disappointing.”

“In competitive elections, centrism won’t help,” she added.

Centrists, however, see things differently. They say an approach that focuses on making sweeping changes — which pleases progressives — is the one that’s risky at best. And centrists also don’t advise Biden to change strategies as he prepares for his reelection launch. 

“You gotta understand that he’s the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the most centrist candidate in the Democratic primary. He won easily,” said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy for the Democratic think tank Third Way. “This election is going to be won or lost among voters who described themselves as moderate.” 

Progressives, meanwhile, say Biden appears to be letting go of some of their top policy priorities ahead of 2024 on some of the most divisive issues in politics.

“Stomping all over DC autonomy. Instituting an asylum transportation ban. Approving a giant new oil drilling project,” Sawyer Hackett, a progressive strategist and former campaign adviser to Julián Castro, wrote on Twitter. “This is not a great way to sustain the goodwill Biden has built with progressives.”

Biden’s so far lone primary challenger, author and political progressive Marianne Williamson, is also hitting the president on a variety of issues amid her own single-digit primary poll status.

“Make noise about this. Make a lotta noise,” Williamson directed her 2.7 million Twitter followers about rallying against the Willow move. “As president I would immediately cancel the Willow project. We’re either going to save the planet, or we’re not.”

Polls also continue to pose another problem for Biden, whose candidacy is often plagued by worries about his age and complaints that his administration’s touting of accomplishments aren’t felt by many everyday Americans.

“For those of us who fear victories by extremist Republicans in 2024, it’s scary to see the recent Washington Post/ABC poll that showed only 7 percent of respondents said they’d feel ‘enthusiastic’ if Biden were reelected in 2024,” said one leading progressive activist, referencing a survey conducted last month assessing voters’ attitudes about the president.

But some Democrats say it is the intraparty tension — which means at times rejecting progressives’ biggest demands outright — that has helped Biden electorally and that the recent controversial policy decisions reflect his own long public record on issues.

“Resisting reflexive partisanship and focusing on solutions to big challenges is a core Biden trait,” said Adam Abrams, a former spokesperson for Obama and a partner at Seven Letter. “It also shows the challenge for Republicans as they continually attempt to create a caricature of the president that doesn’t match what voters see with their own eyes.”

Multiple Democratic strategists say even though it looks like Biden is doing more moderate things now, he’s not really swinging wildly in either direction. They note that those same centrist leanings were on display during the last Democratic primary when he was next to progressive candidates like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). 

One former aide to a moderate Senate Democrat argued that Biden’s decisions have overall been well-balanced, saying he’s given just enough to each side to gain credibility with independents, moderates and progressives alike. 

On labor, Big Pharma and education, he’s often delighted progressives and younger voters, the former aide said. And on immigration, crime and some corporate entities like oil, he’s assuaged moderates’ concerns about being too left-leaning.    

“If you’re a progressive or a moderate, you should be very happy with Joe Biden,” the former Senate aide said. “There’s no side of the Democratic Party that shouldn’t be happy with him.”