Washington, Nov 7 (IANS): Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal fears that the 2024 election is in “great trouble” for President Joe Biden with new polls showing him trailing in multiple battleground states.
Jayapal's remarks came after a New York Times and Siena College poll showed Biden trailing former President Donald Trump in five out of six battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
"You said the polls really don’t reflect where people are, I agree with you. But I will tell you -- this is the first time... that I have felt like the 2024 election is in great trouble for the president and for our Democratic control, which is essential to moving forward,” Jayapal told MSNBC host Jen Psaki.
Jayapal, a Democrat who represents Washington’s 7th congressional district in the House, said maintaining Democratic control is important amid the Israel-Hamas war, which has killed more than 10,000 people in Gaza.
“Because these young people -- Muslim Americans, Arab Americans, but also young people -- see this conflict as a moral conflict and a moral crisis,” Jayapal told the former White House Press Secretary.
“And they they are not going to be brought back to the table easily with, you know, if we do not address this,” she added.
Support for Biden in the upcoming election has plummeted among Arab Americans voters,dropping from 59 per cent to 17 per cent -- a 42 per cent decrease from 2020, according to a last month study by the Arab American Institute.
According to the polls, the major reasons for voters to be abandoning Biden in battleground states are concerns about his age and mental acuity, and dissatisfaction with the state of the economy. David Axelrod, who played a pivotal role in former President Barack Obama’s victorious presidential campaigns and had called Biden “perhaps the strongest candidate” against Trump in 2019, said that the president should reconsider running for re-election.
However, Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Muñoz brushed off concerns over the recent polls.
“We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll,” Munoz said in a statement.