Dem strategist who backed Biden in 2020 says he ‘deserves a primary challenger’ in 2024

Democratic strategist Michael Starr Hopkins is calling for President Biden to face a primary challenge ahead of the 2024 election. 

Hopkins began his column by using Biden’s words against him when the president said “I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else” on the campaign trail in 2020 and cited a recent poll showing over half of Democratic-leaning voters want to see another candidate at the top of the ticket, despite various accomplishments like the passing of COVID relief and the infrastructure bill.

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“Joe Biden was always meant to be a bridge, not a superhighway. And he hasn’t delivered on his promise to look out for the interests of Black Americans,” Hopkins wrote on Friday. 

Hopkins, who supported Biden’s candidacy in 2020 after previously serving on former Rep. John Delaney’s longshot presidential campaign, said Biden’s “allure” wasn’t to “re-shape the country and inspire a new generation of Democrats” but rather “move America back to a place” before President Trump took office. 

“Joe Biden has done just that. But Biden isn’t the fighter the Democrats need moving forward,” Hopkins declared.”

President Biden speaks after exiting a meeting with the Senate Democratic Caucus in Washington, on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. (Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The liberal strategist called Biden “a creature of Washington” and slammed him for being “too cozy with the man most responsible for blocking his agenda, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,” who Biden referred to as a “friend” and “a man of honor.”

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“As a Black man who supported Biden in 2020, this was a slap in the face and a punch in the gut,” Hopkins reacted. “It was tone-deaf, utterly ridiculous, and the moment I realized, like 51 percent of Democratic-leaning voters, that Joe Biden needs a primary challenger.”

Democratic strategist Michael Starr Hopkins
(FOX)

Hopkins clarified that he thought Biden was a “good man” whose “heart is in the right place,” but said he “acts less like the president and more like a senator.”

“Why should the American people fight for a second term for someone who seems so uninterested in fighting for them?” Hopkins asked. “With the demise of his signature spending bill, Build Back Better, and voting rights weaker than they were when he took office, how could President Biden not expect a primary challenge?”

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“His failure to adequately use his bully pulpit has been nothing short of political malpractice. His administration’s inability to message their successes and hold Republicans accountable has been nothing short of stupefying. But most importantly, Biden, like many Democrats from his era, has taken for granted African Americans and their support for the Democratic Party,” he continued. 

President Joe Biden attends a virtual COVID-19 summit during the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Hopkins went on to slam Biden for not being aggressive towards “obstructionist Democrats” Sens. Joe Manchin, W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, Ariz., saying Biden “could have publicly threatened to support a primary challenge” for not abolishing the filibuster. He also accused the president of neglecting Black voters, who “catapulted him into frontrunner status” when he was aided by Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn, S.C., to win the crucial South Carolina primary. 

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“President Biden has certainly accomplished a lot in his first year, but there’s no clear rationale for giving him a second term,” Hopkins wrote in the Daily Beast column. “If Democrats stand a chance in 2024, it will take an inspirational candidate who understands that whether you’re poor and Black or poor and white, you’re still poor in a country that lobbies for the rich and exploits the vulnerable.”