Biden’s Most Potent Message Isn’t Reaching The Voters He’s Aiming For

President on issues like trade, corporate consolidation and labor rights. But steering the ship of state is a slow process, and he’s received little credit for his transformative efforts amidst the war in Gaza and income-sapping inflation.

A recent poll from The New York Times/Siena College captures Biden’s struggle: 55% majority of registered voters believe the American economic and political system needs “major changes,” compared to just 2% who see no need for change and 27% who want “minor changes.” A remaining 14% want the system “to be torn down entirely.”

Key elements of Biden’s coalition were more likely to want major change: Voters aged 18-29 want major change at a 62% rate, Black and Latino voters want it at a 61% rate. Older and white voters were less likely to see a need for major change.

When asked if Biden would deliver change, voters are skeptical: 32% of registered voters say nothing would change, and 39% say he would only deliver minor changes. Those percentages are higher among younger voters: 37% of voters aged 18-29 say nothing would change under Biden, and 48% say he would deliver only minor change.

On the other hand, voters are confident Trump would change things: 45% of voters say Trump would make major changes, 25% say he would tear down the system entirely, and just 4% say Trump wouldn’t change our nation’s economic and political systems at all.

The poll is not completely cut-and-dry: 51% of voters would prefer “a candidate who promises to bring Washington back to normal,” compared to 40% who would like “a candidate who promises to fundamentally change America.”

Biden’s allies seem happy with the binary choice they are presenting to voters: Trump will end American democracy, and Biden will keep it going. At the same time, they hope other Democratic messages, especially those showing Biden’s willingness to stand up to large and powerful interests like the pharmaceutical industry and grocery companies, can appeal to the establishment-skeptical parts of Biden’s 2020 coalition.

“The country shares Biden’s views on this, and they view it as relevant to their lives,” said a senior Biden adviser, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about strategy. “One of these candidates wants American democracy to be healthy, and another one of these people is pumping toxins into it.”

But for some Democrats, Biden seems to be repeating mistakes the party made while pitching its large-scale democracy reform bill, where they failed to emphasize the anti-corruption elements of the bill, which have bipartisan support from the public — limiting the power of lobbyists, restricting the role of money in the campaign and ending gerrymandering — and instead turned it into a partisan battle over voting rights.

One Democratic strategist, who requested anonymity to criticize his party’s leader, noted that many younger voters have come to believe members of Congress regularly use insider knowledge to make a fortune on the stock market. As a senator, Biden refused to own stocks — and was subsequently one of the poorest members of the Senate — for this exact reason.

“The fact that the White House does not talk about this makes me want to pull all my hair out,” the strategist said.

Indeed, on paper, Biden supports a whole suite of proposals to reform democracy, from expanding voting rights to nonpartisan redistricting to requiring more donor disclosure for nonprofit groups spending extensively on politics.

“These are grievances the public has been bringing to us for years,” said Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), retiring from Congress this year after leading the House’s efforts on the democracy reform bill. “I think his campaign and every campaign that cares about lifting up pro-democracy efforts should be pointing to specific remedies.”

Asked directly if Biden needed to talk as much about reforming democracy as he does about defending it, Sarbanes was blunt: “Yes. Everybody benefits if we talk about the solutions, not just the threats.”