It’s Joe Biden….STOP crying…..

“There is no council of elders and I’m not sure if there was that an incumbent president, no matter who it was, would listen to them,” said David Plouffe, the architect of President Barack Obama’s campaigns and one of the strategists who helped him pick Mr. Biden as his vice-presidential running mate in 2008. “He thinks, ‘Hey, I won and I beat the guy who’s going to run against me and I can do it again.’”

Members of Mr. Biden’s team insist they feel little sense of concern. The president’s closest aides push back in exasperation against those questioning his decision to run again and dismiss polls as meaningless this far before the vote. They argue that doubters constantly underestimate Mr. Biden and that Democrats have won or outperformed expectations in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and even a special House election this year.

“Actual voter behavior tells us a lot more than any poll does and it tells a very clear story: Joe Biden and Democrats continue to outperform while Donald Trump and the party he leads are weak, cash-strapped, and deeply divided,” Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign’s communications director, said on Saturday. “Our campaign is ignoring the noise and running a strong campaign to win — just like we did in 2020.”

Outside the White House, though, many Democrats wish that the no-panic White House would exhibit some urgency. Mr. Biden’s weakness in polls, especially those showing him trailing in all of the half-dozen swing states necessary to assemble an Electoral College majority, have generated widespread anxiety within the party. Some privately say that Georgia and Arizona may be out of reach, requiring Mr. Biden to sweep Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania….

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All the talk, though, is just that. Mr. Biden is helped by the fact that no one from the next generation of Democrats waiting in the wings, like Vice President Kamala Harris or Governors Gavin Newsom of California or Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, has a proven national following or track record of success in primaries.

“You could name five or six alternatives to Biden but they haven’t been through the system,” said Ms. Kamarck, one of the country’s leading experts on the nomination process who has just published the fourth edition of her quadrennial guide, “Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know about How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates.”…

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The president’s advisers express confidence that when the moment of decision arrives, most voters will again prefer Mr. Biden, whatever his faults, to Mr. Trump, a twice-impeached defeated former president who faces 91 felony counts, has been found liable in civil trials for sweeping business fraud and sexual assault and talks of being a “dictator” for a day.

“Where most Democrats are,” said Mr. Plouffe, “is, ‘OK, this is going to be really hard, a high degree of difficulty, but ultimately there’s probably enough of the country who doesn’t want to sign up for a second Trump term that we can make this work.’”…

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image…Supporters greeted President Biden as his motorcade left the airport in Brownsville, Texas, earlier this week. They chanted, “Four more years!”Credit…Meridith Kohut for The New York Times