Fear among Biden's top advisors: some believe the president has no "serious" strategy to beat Trump

With the first presidential debate days away and the general election just months away, some advisors close to President Joe Biden's campaign are fearful that the Democratic front-runner and his closest team members do not have a "serious" strategy in place to defeat Donald Trump in November.

Some of these senior advisers have said there is a simmering concern in the Biden campaign about whether or not the president and his team are finally getting the message. As of today, the most recent nationwide polls report that Trump is the favorite to win in November

"It is unclear to many of us watching from the outside whether the president and his core team realize how dire the situation is right now, and whether they even have a plan to fix it. That is scary," a Democratic strategist in touch with the campaign told Axios.

In statements to the media outlet, several other Democratic strategists expressed concern about the Biden campaign's central strategy, which is based on pontificating about democracy and the supposed danger Trump poses to U.S. institutions. These advisors believe that, contrary to what Biden's closest advisors believe, voters will go to the polls thinking mostly about their pocketbooks and inflation, placing their trust in the candidate who gives them the most security on the economic front.

That could be Trump, according to several national polls that rank the Republican front-runner over Biden on issues that matter most to voters, such as immigration and the economy.

Also, according to Axios, other advisers close to Biden argue that they are afraid to raise these concerns during strategic meetings because there is a real risk that they will be alienated.

"Even for those close to the center, there is a hesitance to raise skepticism or doubt about the current path, for fear of being viewed as disloyal," one person in Biden's orbit who spoke on condition of anonymity told Axios. "The need for a change of course is not being discussed."

The Economist recently published that, according to its statistical model, Trump had as much as a 66% chance of winning the November election over Biden's 34%. This same statistical model predicted in 2020 that the democrat had an 83% chance of defeating Trump.

Some presidential forecasts, such as The Hill's, which is based on a summary of all national polls, put Trump ahead of Biden with a 59% chance of winning the presidency.

However, since the difference is not wide enough, the election will be defined by swing states - Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona - where Trump and Biden are closely matched.

Because of this, some of Biden's top advisors do not agree with the view that the democrat's strategy will cause him to lose the election, Axios reported.

Some place their absolute confidence in one man: Mike Donilon, one of the most experienced and sagacious democrats in the country who has worked with Biden since 1981 and is his top political adviser.

In response to the concerns of Biden's advisers, other strategists said, "These people have clearly not heard from Mike or anyone on the team about the president's detailed case for re-election."

Donilon's view, picked up by Evan Osnos in a report for The New Yorker magazine earlier this year, states that the events of January 6 will affect the 2024 election in the same way that 9/11 affected the 2004 election.

In particular, Donilon believes that for the November elections, "The focus will be overwhelming about democracy. I think the biggest images in people's minds are going to be of January 6th."

If Donilon is correct, Biden will likely be able to win against Trump, considering that polls show the Democratic president ahead of the Republican front-runner on the issue of "protecting democracy."