Growing unease Biden’s rise tests Trump plan of casting foes as socialists

Associated Press

WASHINGTOn

President Donald Trump may want to cast his potential Democratic rivals as a band of angry socialists, but Joe Biden is not cooperating with Trump’s re-election strategy, and that’s giving the president growing unease.

As the Democratic field expands to more than 20 contenders, Trump and his campaign team have been trying to lump them all together as left-wing radicals. Campaign officials believe it’s the best way for Trump to overcome his challenges with moderate voters, particularly in the upper Midwestern states critical to his re-election.

But Biden’s working-class appeal and more pragmatic policy approach are putting the GOP framing of the 2020 race to the test. As he campaigned in Iowa this week, Biden showcased his union support and steered clear of the liberal policy debates firing up the Democratic base.

From the White House, Trump watched – and tweeted – with some concern, according to two people familiar with the president’s thinking, as Biden earned the endorsement of a prominent International Association of Fire Fighters and secured a spot at the top of Democratic polls.

The firefighters’ backing, in particular, appeared to irk the president, who relishes the support of first responders. It was the sort of endorsement that threatened to provide Biden with credibility with the centrist voters Trump must hold onto, said the two people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to reveal the president’s thinking on the matter.

Trump blasted out more than 50 tweets and retweets about Biden before 7 a.m. Wednesday – a frenetic pace, even for the prolific social media user.

Biden had said earlier Wednesday of Trump: “I’ve had his attention for a while.”

Biden’s swift rise tests the Trump campaign’s theory that no candidate can win the Democratic nomination without first embracing a slew of progressive policies that would appeal to the party’s base in the primaries but put Trump in a stronger position once he has a general-election opponent he can pillory as outside the American mainstream.

While Biden has begun laying out positions that tack with the direction of his party on health care, education and taxes, for example, he has taken care to avoid embracing the more drastic proposals including “Medicare for All” and the Green New Deal.

Republicans, for their part, are hard at work trying to erode that image.

“Joe Biden is no moderate, just ask him,” tweeted Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.