David Axelrod calls Biden's polling resilience 'the strangest thing I've ever seen in politics'

Everyone's waiting for former Vice President Joe Biden to fall, but it just hasn't happened.

Former Obama adviser David Axelrod, who has been critical of Biden's Democratic presidential campaign from time to time, acknowledged he's just not convinced the former vice president will tumble as anticipated.

"So many scenarios here are dependent on this idea that Biden is going to collapse," he told Politico. "But he continues to have pretty strong appeal to African Americans and to working-class whites."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Axelrod mentioned Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D), and billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as candidates who could theoretically take some of the middle ground in the Democratic Party away from Biden, but he ultimately dismissed all three as serious contenders.

"So the Biden thing is the strangest thing I've ever seen in politics because the guy is up there in the air and everybody is just assuming he's going to come down," he said. "There is kind of a Mr. Magoo kind of quality to the whole thing but he's still driving, you know? He's still moving forward." Read more at Politico.