Biden Electability: Democrat Concerns May Surface in New Hampshire

A Democratic president whose approval rating is below 40 percent is running for reelection. Inflation and foreign-policy crises have many voters soured on his leadership. The president’s iron grip on party insiders and his ability to cow the media convince him that he can ignore primary opponents and leave his name off the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary ballot. His followers there are scrambling to have voters write in his name to avoid the awkward optics of a poor showing against an obscure member of Congress from Minnesota.

You might recognize that these facts apply to Joe Biden, and they do. But they also perfectly describe the situation in which President Lyndon Baines Johnson found himself in early 1968.

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John Fund

John Fund is National Review’s national-affairs reporter.

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A Democratic president whose approval rating is below 40 percent is running for reelection. Inflation and foreign-policy crises have many voters soured on his leadership. The president’s iron grip on party insiders and his ability to cow the media convince him that he can ignore primary opponents and leave his name off the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary ballot. His followers there are scrambling to have voters write in his name to avoid the awkward optics of a poor showing against an obscure member of Congress from Minnesota.

You might recognize that these facts apply to Joe Biden, and they do. But they also perfectly describe the situation in which President Lyndon Baines Johnson found himself in early 1968.