David Axelrod has not been holding back on his concerns about Joe Biden’s poll numbers. Last month he pointed to some polling and argued that Biden might want to think about getting out of the race.

Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it's in HIS best interest or the country's?

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) November 5, 2023

Even more recently, Axelrod said Biden only had a 50-50 shot at winning, which is not the sort of thing Democrats want to hear about the guy who is their nominee.

Yesterday Axelrod was at it again. This time he was talking about a recent Wall Street Journal poll on his podcast “Hacks on Tap” which he co-hosts with Robert Gibbs and Mike Murphy.

“The Wall Street Journal was, you know, very, very dark from a Biden standpoint,” he said. He continued, “Job approval down, ratings generally down, most of the comparatives with Trump, not good. And the one that I think was most alarming from my standpoint was when they asked if Biden’s policies and Trump’s policies when they were president were helpful to people.

“Only 23 percent of voters say Biden’s policies have helped them personally while 53% said they have been hurt by the president’s agenda. By contrast about half of voters say Trump’s policies when he was president helped them personally, more than the 37% who said they were hurt. What I worry about you guys from a Biden standpoint is these are the kind of things you get where people are starting to rationalize their votes.”

Mike Murphy, one of Axelrod’s co-hosts, interjected, “Oh, look, they’re ready to fire Biden, you know that’s the problem. They just put out another photo op with the Bidenomics sign next to him.”

They then went on to talk about a couple of CNN polls, one in Georgia and one in Michigan. The Michigan poll had Trump leading by 10 points. Axelrod said he’d heard about private polling which made him think the situation wasn’t quite that dire. “But it’s bad,” he added.

Co-host Robert Gibbs pointed out that, whatever the actual numbers in Michigan, they were happening despite their being “literally zero Republican apparatus” in the state. “I think the Biden people really have to start playing campaign,” he added.

The hosts went on to talk about the possibility of a Trump trial leading to a criminal conviction. Gibbs was of the opinion that it would be a definite game changer in the race but Axelrod was less certain. “This guy has a way of slipping the noose, you know, so we’ll see,” he said.

Mike Murphy said he was concerned about the entire Democratic strategy, which is to paint Trump as an extremist and would-be dictator. Murphy said he would have the campaign make those comparisons but he wasn’t confident they would matter.

“If I were for Biden, I mean working for him, here’s what would have me awake all night,” Murphy said. He continued, “They already hate Trump and they still want to fire us. So we can go try to make them hate Trump even more but if the thorn in the paw of the big mean bear is us, if we can’t fix that or at least lower that pain level a lot…we can send Trump up to the stratosphere in negatives but it’s still about us in the end, we’re the incumbent seeking to get rehired.”

I think Murphy is on to something. The left’s hate for Trump is powerful but so far it doesn’t seem to be enough to overcome the weakness of Biden and general negativity about the economy. Doubling down on bashing Trump may not be enough this time because this isn’t an election it’s a reelection. Ultimately some significant part of the electorate is going to be voting on Biden’s past performance in office not Trump’s future performance.

You can listen to the entire podcast here.